A Walk Across the Sun by Addison Corban

I just loved the cover of the book...it was kind of 'Pick me up, I look so glam' kind of cover...and yet when I read the blurb, it was anything but a glam book...the first one by the author, set up in Indian background, which coming by an author who isn't Indian, deserves accolades (in fact, I did wonder, why can't the Indian author pick such serious stuff about Indian background rather than concentrating on love stories and collage romance gone right and wrong)...

It's not a happy novel...child trafficking and molestation never is...being a novel it does give everything a believable but happy ending (as happy as it could ever realistically be), but then again, it was honest in a couple of parts...where it clearly said, trafficking isn't something that would stop by stopping the sellers...you can stop one, hundred new would arise...it is going to go on till there are buyers...sex is a commodity, till the buyers exist, people would sell...and there is no way to eliminate all the buyers...not in our lifetime...that's the harsh truth, a truth none of us can change...

I liked the way it moved...at points it made you understand that it's not just India...any country, no matter how advanced, has its own section of people who are living a life worse than hell...simply because there are people in every country who are well-off, rich and still sadist enough to take pleasure in putting someone through hell...it showed the red light areas not just of Mumbai, but went on till France and New York...and they aren't just Asian gals...there are Russians, there are Americans...what started from India, what centered in India, took the global picture...

This is one thought provoking novel (which really tempted me to write a couple of more philosophical posts...I am somehow trying to hold that temptation back...because somewhere I feel I've already turned life too serious and I need happy thoughts not things to ponder and wonder over...the book is great, my timing to read it was wrong)...and then again, no matter how much I liked the novel, I still would say, it's one, one should think twice before reading...for it would leave you feeling helpless...it would make you cringe..it would make you wish you could help change thing...but in the end you 'll know, there is nothing you and I can do (or at least nothing we would really take up to do)..

After coming with all the cons of reading a novel I really would recommend, I'll have to say it has its pro too...it shows you the faith of two young girls..it shows you what being human is...you come to detest life...you want none of it...you count days and minutes of agony...and still you don't think of dying..because there is someone you want to live for...even when it looks like nothing is worth living...it shows love too...not the romantic one, but the bond two sisters, who lost everything in moments, share...none of the cruelties life served them weakened the love they had...

It shows the healing power of memories...living in past doesn't help...but sometimes our past gives us the courage to live through our present...it's just up to us, which past we chose to think about...the happy one or the sad one..and how we perceive the past...

It shows that growing up corrupts us...the sweetest and most angelic person in this book was a ten year old kid...who really didn't care how the world of elders work...even after having a set of parents who were as far as one could be from being role models, the child remained pure at heart..he showed the selfless caring, without a reason...

The two sisters, Ahalaya and Sita (I loved the names), weren't larger than life characters...though at places I really wondered how can they survive through all this...the protagonist, Thomas was very much human...and wasn't made a larger than life character...he had his shortcomings...and he wasn't made a hero turning miracles..things happened, and thankfully they didn't give him the entire (or even little) credit of being the reason behind those things happening...fighting for the gals, he somewhere found peace in his life...his wife would probably need a little more analytic to be understood...

All in all, a nice read...at around 380 pages, coming towards the last 100, I did feel it could be trimmed a little...there were too many details about the combat operations one could have done without...but then again, for most part of it, it was a page turner...even if a sad, heart-wrenching one, it was a page turner none the less...