Official review -The Elastic girl by Olivia Rana

[maogaja]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Elastic Girl" by Olivia Rana.]

[rbc=4]id224155-125[/rbc][i]The Elastic Girl [/i]by Olivia Rana



On a scale of 1 to 4, I gave this book a [b]3 out of 4[/b]



[i]The Elastic Girl[/i] is a story set in India and it begins in a town of Ambattur, Western Chennai. When Muthu Tikaram is born she is labeled bad luck by her supposed grandmother. Henceforth, she is treated differently by her family- her two elder sisters allowed to go to school, while she is not and becomes a street hawker. Through a series of events, her father takes her to join the Great Rawan Circus of Chennai. At the circus she makes friends and enemies. She is later defiled and later runs away. She comes back after discovering herself. She also discovers the reason why she was mistreated by her family.



The reason why I gave this book [b]3 out of 4[/b] is that it is an interesting read and it gives you a glimpse into the lives of children who are taken advantage of by sex predators. In return for trinkets and success these abandoned children are molested, misused and later discarded. Near the end of this story, the heroine, Muthu tries to help another girl who is being molested-forcing the molester to run away. We get to see about her hopes and aspirations, her failures and successes. At this point she grows up and discovers herself in the process.



What I did not like about this story is how the author seems to rush to the end of the story. We are not really told what she discovers about herself. The book ends abruptly with Muthu and her son as hawkers. However, the story is told in a straight forward manner, easy to follow. One empathizes with the heroine and hopes things work out for her. At the end of the story, we learn she has an epiphany about her life. As mentioned before in this paragraph we do not get to find out what her life turns out to be like. I would have wanted the author to spend more time on the ending just as she did on the rest of the book, but maybe that was the real point of the ending- we get to write our own happy endings.



This book will appeal to eclectic readers who like books from diverse cultures from around the world. It will also appeal to readers who like books where the main character has a positive impact on the lives of others and rises above their situation to make something of themselves.



In conclusion, this book brings to mind one of the current social problems we are facing in the world today- human trafficking. It is a thought provoking book, one which will hopefully make us do something about this situation.

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Elastic Girl
View: [url=http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelves/book.php?id=224155]on Bookshelves[/url] | on Amazon

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