Learning to Drive

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By: Patricia McCormick

I finished this novel this morning and threw the book down in the middle of a SSR period. The class, all senior boys, laughed and were excited to get to the end. This book….is the heart-wrenching tale of a young girl from Nepal who gets trapped in the world of human sex trafficking. 

What’s cool about this book is that it’s told through vignettes instead of prose, but it’s first person perspective hits you right where it hurts. Although the character is fictional, she is a collective representation of interviews McCormick conducted in India from survivors of the sex slave world. McCormick takes no prisoners in her readers and exposes you to the horrors Lakshmi encounters: rape, disease, beating, starvation, and tragedy. 

This book is not for the faint of heart. I want to go to India and help. Maybe I’ll go abroad this summer.