Girls Burn Brighter

Author: Shobha Rao
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary
Published: March 2018
Book description (from Good Reads): When Poornima first meets Savitha, she feels something she thought she lost for good when her mother died: hope. Poornima's father hires Savitha to work one of their sari looms, and the two girls are quickly drawn to one another. Savitha is even more impoverished than Poornima, but she is full of passion and energy. She shows Poornima how to find beauty in a bolt of indigo cloth, a bowl of yogurt rice and bananas, the warmth of friendship. Suddenly their Indian village doesn't feel quite so claustrophobic, and Poornima begins to imagine a life beyond the arranged marriage her father is desperate to lock down for her. But when a devastating act of cruelty drives Savitha away, Poornima leaves behind everything she has ever known to find her friend again. Her journey takes her into the darkest corners of India's underworld, on a harrowing cross-continental journey, and eventually to an apartment complex in Seattle. Alternating between the girls’ perspectives as they face relentless obstacles, Girls Burn Brighter introduces two heroines who never lose the hope that burns within them.

Thoughts:
It begins with two girls building up a friendship, they are not in the same social status to say it in a way. Ponima lives with her parents and three younger siblings but they have a house and even if they struggle a bit they get by. 

Ponima is pulled out from elementary school to get to work in the house and help out her mother so they could weave and get money. But this is only while her marriage is arranged, she has no other aspirations. She is not totally ok but has no hope of anything different. 

Sabitha is a girl from a poor family, they live in a pseudo house made up of scraps, looking through the garbage to try to make a living and survive. But her father is not as commanding (imposing) over her. 

Hard to make up my mind about the book.

It is a fictional work but I feel it reflects the discrimination and dismissal females have in the culture. Girls are not very appreciated and parents or family members feel they are more of a burden and treat them as such.

I understand why there had to be some violence mentioned but it felt like too much, there was a lot of rape, violence against them (actually against women in general) for no reason.... In part, it was understandable that it was meant to show the way women are treated, it might be a personal thing, I always have a hard time getting through those topics, be it books, film or whatever. 

*Spoilers kind of very specific situations the girls face*
Women are badly treated by their employers, for example, Savitha was raped by her employer (Ponima's father) she is shunned by the village and they refer to her as damaged goods, really? Also, the way to fix the damage she must marry her rapist. That is completely illogical, unfair, the victim is punished way worse. 
*Moving on*

Savitha feels trapped and runs away where she finds a horrible fate as well.

It moves on to show the way an arranged marriage, how bad the husband's and their families can mistreat the woman and no one gives a damn. That part was also filled with sexual violence which I do not like it but it was a necessary evil for the point that was being made in the story. 

It felt like too many bad things happening to the girls, some make sense for the sake of the story, like the consequences of girls who run away from their horrible homes but they have nothing they do not go to their families and with nothing to defend themselves with, no one to stand up for them they find themselves at the mercy of criminals.

There is human traffic, women being forced into brothels and slavery pretty much. The women do not receive a payment, they are shipped off to "buyers" and are even maimed in order to fit their tastes without any regard to them. 

The one thing that annoys me or I found disturbing the most is that, even if Sabitha and Ponima when they no longer work in the brothels men still come to them for sex for no other reason than because. Really? 
If you are a person to cleaning houses and such but still must sexually please your employers... Really? This felt so unnecessary, also it was a bit on the nonsense side. Sabitha starts to open up to one of the men who are holding them prisoner and uses her for sexual release, in part, she is starved for affection and in a sea of violence just a glimmer of someone treating her a little bit like a human, it is realistic that she grabs on to it and develops some sort of feelings for him.

I just felt that it was full of bad things happening to the girls one after the another, they spend most of the story just missing each other. Ponima is so focused on trying to find her only friend Sabitha doing ultimately many things she would have not done it otherwise. It is a fine line between being angry that they spend so much time just so close and yet so far... In some way, its extremely convenient, Ponima is actually successful in following the path Savitha took from all the places her friend could have taken from the first try she is in the right path, just wow, because it takes almost half of the book just looking for her friend.

On the other hand, Ponima is very smart, she self teaches herself accounting, she learns English, she invests time and patience trying to get to America to find her friend. The friendship here was so strong and the girls faced so much yet they never allowed themselves to be completely broken and never gave up.

So in the premise, I love it. But the development is not so enjoyable because it touches a lot of topics that makes me pretty uncomfortable. 


Beware, a lot of violence towards women: rape, emotional abuse, physical abuse, human traffic practically slavery. 

I was annoyed in the ending, it felt like everything was so close and yet so far.... It was frustration on the top of the emotional rollercoaster XD