(Full disclosure: I received a free copy of this book as part of a Goodreads give-away)
After seeing the gazillion four and five –star ratings for this book I am clearly in the minority, cutting across the grain with a three star rating. While the story was interesting, entertaining, suspenseful and intricate, tackling the very serious and significant subject of human trafficking in the United States, ambivalence, superficiality, water strider aptly describe my feelings towards this story.
Yeah, water strider. You know those black spider-like insects that glide upon the surface tension of the water of local lakes and ponds. Just like a strider, I felt forever suspended on the surface of this story, never allowed to dive deep into the story plot or into the hearts, minds and emotions of any of the characters. I felt at arm’s length all the time with minimal emotional engagement to any of the players. I never felt assaulted by anxiety or tension during this read by the serious subject matter behind the story plot, the abhorrent behavior of the sex traffickers, the violence perpetrated onto the victims of sexual slavery or the murder of one of the main characters.
Not that I didn’t want to – this book should have kept me up at night worrying about the people I met in this story. But I was never allowed to fully understand them and develop an emotional investment in their well-being, safety and success. I wanted to know so much more about everyone in this story but only received a superficial, perfunctory glimpse into their emotional and ethical compositions. For me deep, articulate character development is the glue that binds a story. The glue was seriously lacking in this tale.
Understand that I couldn’t wait to get back into the book each time I put it down but it never inflicted angst, anticipation or emotional hooks into me like a true page turner.
On a very positive note, the story did prompt me to do some research. I was appalled to learn that human sex trafficking generates about $95 billion annually in the United States, according to The Covering House, a nonprofit organization that seeks to provide refuge and restoration for girls who have experienced sexual exploitation or sexual trafficking. Approximately 300,000 children are at risk of being prostituted in the United States with the average age of entry into prostitution for a child victim in the United States between 13-14 years old. A pimp can earn up to $150,000-$200,000 per child each year and the average pimp has 4 to 6 girls. One in three teens on the street will be lured toward prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home.
According to The Covering House, traffickers, or pimps, often use methods such as threats, coercion, abduction, fraud, deceit, and deception to lure victims into the sex industry and to keep them under their control. Sex trafficking in the U.S. is largely operating within the bounds of the general sex industry and as such, has been able to silently infiltrate our society disguised within a variety of venues such as online escort services, pornography, street prostitution, strip clubs, massage parlors, truck stops, & residential brothels.
Truly sobering statistics and this is in the United States of America. Imagine the horrors endured by young girls in less affluent and under developed parts of the world!
While I expected so much more out of this work of fiction, I am thankful for the education and awareness of the modern day slavery that stills exist in our nation today.