Review: Trafficked, by Kim Purcell

Trafficked
By Kim Purcell
Publication Date: February 16th, 2012 (Viking Juvenile)
Hardcover, 384 pages
Genre: Contemporary; Realistic Fiction; Social Issues; YA
Source: Library

DESCRIPTION:

The American Dream becomes a nightmare...

Ever since her parents were killed and her beloved uncle vanished, Hannah has struggled to support herself and her grandmother. So when she's offered the chance to leave Moldova and become a nanny for a family in Los Angeles, it seems like the opportunity of a lifetime.

At first, Hannah likes her new employers. But after weeks of working sixteen-hour days and not being allowed to leave the house, she still hasn't been paid. As things go from bad to worse, Hannah finds herself doing things she never imagined herself capable of—lying, eavesdropping, even sneaking out late at night to meet Colin, the boy who lives next door. And when she gets caught, the mother threatens her with a fate even worse than being a slave: prostitution.

When Hannah discovers that the father knew her family back in Moldova, she's determined to find out if he knows anything about her missing uncle. But as she uncovers the truth, she may be exposing more than she bargained on—and putting her life in danger.

—from goodreads.com

REVEIW:

Trafficked, by Kim Purcell, made me furious—in a good way. In a "hey-let's-all-go-out-into-the-community-and-spread-awareness-about-human-trafficking-in-the-United-States-because-yes-it-does-go-on-here" kind of way, which is what the author's intentions were, no doubt.

Trafficked isn't about sexual slavery; rather it's more about domestic slavery. In Kim Purcell's Author's Note at the end of the book, Purcell states that trafficked people are "hidden in warehouses, brothels, and regular American neighborhoods," the last fact being chilling because you, dear reader, could have a "Hannah" living in the house next to you.

I feel this way because Kim Purcell has injected her little gem with what I like to call "Emoto-juice," a serum powerful enough to make even the coldest of people emote. The serum is released by unfortunate happenstances when god-awful things happen to a character who does not deserve those awful things to happen to them.

I'd love to provide you with examples from Trafficked, but each misfortunate happenstance is a spoiler in a way, because through inference and prediction you'd know what would happen (and I'm sure you'd figure it out, because the characters are quite predictable. Concerning the predictability of the plot...

The beginning and end were predictable, but the meat of the story wasn't. The web of plot points was made up of lies and those lies kept being rewritten and rewritten until I was slightly lost in the plot. Some points just didn't seem to make sense, or add up. I was content with the ending because I felt like it left a lot of loose ends lying around, and I wanted to know exactly what would happen.

Even though Hannah could be naive sometimes, she deserves the Badge of Courage. She's beautiful, not much of a physical fighter, but she is a psychological fighter with great intelligence and wits about her. She never, ever cries or yells or talks back because she rightly knows it gives the bully satisfaction. She creates a docile facade she uses around her employer, but she was always buzzing with emotion and thoughts under the surface. Even though it was just as easy for Hannah to numb her emotions and become part of the living dead, she refused to do so.

RATING: