Sold Analysis

Setting is hugely important in Sold, mostly because of what the setting represents to Lakshmi and what each change in setting brings to the story. When we trace what happens to Lakshmi, we realize...

Not only does McCormick write a story about a girl who has been trafficked into prostitution, she writes the story in first person. And she makes it believable (at least to us as outsiders). How is...

Young Adult LiteratureHow could a novel about human trafficking on the other side of the world possibly be classified as young adult literature? It's actually easy to see how this happens. For one,...

In an interview about Sold, McCormick said that one of the biggest challenges to writing was not to let the sorrow overwhelm her. And while McCormick manages to balance to some degree Lakshmi's des...

McCormick throws traditional literary techniques out the window in Sold. Instead of blocks of text, she tells Lakshmi's story in a series of vignettes. The chapters use non-traditional paragraphing...

The title Sold—at first glance—references the sale of Lakshmi. The poor girl changes hands time and again, commanding a higher price from each subsequent buyer until she lands at Happiness Hou...

The ending to Sold is unsatisfying… And that's the point. In case you need a quick brush-up on how things wrap up, here you go:I see my American. There are other men with him, Indian men, and the...

Let's be clear: it's not the language that makes this novel so tough. In fact, just based on language alone, the Tough-O-Meter would probably drop to Base Camp level—no dictionary required for th...

Home Is Where the Heart IsWe first meet Lakshmi on a swallow-tailed-looking peak on a mountain in Nepal. Because she's so poor, she's jealous of what others have—but life isn't too bad because sh...

Sex trafficking takes place all over the world. Here's a site that helps people identify victims of human trafficking.(Source)One of the major purposes of the novel is to incite its readers to reac...

This is a young adult book about human sex trafficking—so the rating for this one is more for the content matter than, say, explicit language in the text.In Sold sex is not equated with romance o...

The Bold and the Beautiful (92.WhatIsNormal.12, 103.UnderstandingAnita.2, 136.InsteadofHarish.3)David Beckham (94.MeetingtheDavidBeckhamBoy) (Note: Until Lakshmi learns Harish's name, she calls him...