Jordan Reads Too Much

Girls Burn Brighter by Shobha Rao
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for providing a copy of this novel to read and review. All opinions are my own.

This debut novel is a story of a fierce friendship between to young women, Poornima and Savitha. They live in poverty in India during the early 2000's. Poornima's mother has died, her father makes saris, and has to hire another person to help after his wife's death. Enter Savitha. The two women are of similar age, teenagers, and the form a fast friendship. Savitha lives in even greater poverty than Poornima. But when Poornima's father begins to arrange Poornima's marriage she is afraid she will never see her best friend again. A horrible incident takes place and Savitha runs away. Poornima spends the following years searching the world for her friend.

I cannot say I loved this book, but I did become engrossed in the pages. The story was beautiful and horrific all at once. The friendship at the forefront of this story is intense. Poornima and Savitha both have horrible things happen to them which was quite difficult to read at times. Still, this book made me think of what one might endure to return to someone they deeply care about.

Human trafficking is a big part of this story. One of the girls even becomes involved with the trafficking. This was very eye opening to me. This is a topic that I've always knew to be a concern but have never learned much about. The abuse these women and girls experience is heartbreaking. Their naivety is disconcerting. Regardless, this is a book that will be tough to forget. I look forward to reading more books from Rao in the future.

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