Dirty Work by Julia Bell
Feb. 23rd, 2008 02:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
Money doesn't buy happiness. Hope may be spoilt, but her ut-of-touch mum doesn't get her. In fact, as far as Hope's preoccupied parents are concerned, she's hopeless.
Oksana doesn't have a mum. And her dad and brother are miles away, left behind in Russia. She thought the West would offer a better life - instead, sold into prostitution, she lives at the mercy of dirty men. Hopeless doesn't even begin to describe the bad dream her life has become.
Oksana and Hope are thrown together in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable; their only real chance of survival lies with each other. But how do two girls with so little in common find a way to meet in the middle ...?
Prostitution and sex trafficking may not appear to be appropriate subjects for Young Adult fiction, but when so many of the girls being tricked and sold into prostitution are under the age of 18, it's a subject that should resonate with teenage readers. For her willingness to tackle such a difficult subject matter, Julia Bell should be commended.
However ...
Whilst Bell does well in creating two distinct first person voices as she tells the story of Oksana (a Russian girl who's been sold into prostitution) and Hope (an English teenager who gets kidnapped by Oksana's coked-up trafficker), I felt that this is a book that very much pulls its punches. Oksana's voice is well-handled and Bell doesn't try to shield the reader from the horrors that have been perpetrated on her (including rape and other physical abuse) whilst at the same time never descending to gratuitous description. I liked the way in which Bell built up a credible picture of the Russia that Oksana's grown up with and in particular, its crushing economic deprivation. I was interested in her relationship with Adik, a boy who like her, dreams of a life in the West and who buys into the promises made by flash-car driving Tommy and I could believe in her attitude towards her brother Viktor and her widowered father.
By contrast, Bell is curiously protective of Hope, the spoilt, sometimes dense and most definitely whiny, English girl. I had big problems in buying into the reason why Zergei would kidnap her in the first place as it seemed more of a contrivance to bring her into the plot, but Bell makes it even more difficult to believe in by shielding her all the time. Given that we're shown the ruthlessness of the people responsible for trafficking these girls, I didn't understand why they were so reticient to either put Hope to "work" or to otherwise mistreat her. Bell seems to be suggesting that Hope's ethnicity makes the Turkish brothel owner reluctant to engage with her beyond a lame ransom claim towards the end of the book. Consequently, any tension that may exist when we see Hope being made to try on cheap lingerie or threatened is too hollow to be believed. I will also admit that the 'poor little rich girl' set up that Bell creates for Hope made it difficult for me to sympathise with her as her biggest complaints seemed to be that her dad worked too much and her mum was too interested in material possessions. When you contrast this with the genuine deprivations that Oksana has suffered, you do wish that Hope would suffer more of a reality check.
The ending to the book is very much a soft soap. The fact that there is a 'sympathetic' Turkish boy who wants no part of his uncle's gang operation stretches credibility too thinly and the build-up to the book's denouement rests on contrivance more than it does on character initiative. I questioned whether anyone in London living near a business identified as a "massage parlour" would really be ignorant as to what goes on inside and Bell's open-ending made me wonder if Hope had actually learnt anything from her experience or grown emotionally.
To be fair, I think that writing about this subject-matter is a difficult tightrope to navigate, particularly for a YA audience. However, the message I took away from it was that forced prostitution and sex trafficking only happens to girls from poor countries, which I found distasteful and incredibly misleading.
The Verdict:
Ultimately, this is a missed opportunity, which is a shame. Bell's central message that prostitution only happens to girls from other countries left an unpleasant taste in my mouth and I didn't find Hope to be an engaging or sympathetic enough character to take me through the horrors. This is a shame, because the Oksana sections are well written and credible and I think this was a book that has the potential to be an emotionally hard-hitting work.
Money doesn't buy happiness. Hope may be spoilt, but her ut-of-touch mum doesn't get her. In fact, as far as Hope's preoccupied parents are concerned, she's hopeless.
Oksana doesn't have a mum. And her dad and brother are miles away, left behind in Russia. She thought the West would offer a better life - instead, sold into prostitution, she lives at the mercy of dirty men. Hopeless doesn't even begin to describe the bad dream her life has become.
Oksana and Hope are thrown together in the most terrifying circumstances imaginable; their only real chance of survival lies with each other. But how do two girls with so little in common find a way to meet in the middle ...?
Prostitution and sex trafficking may not appear to be appropriate subjects for Young Adult fiction, but when so many of the girls being tricked and sold into prostitution are under the age of 18, it's a subject that should resonate with teenage readers. For her willingness to tackle such a difficult subject matter, Julia Bell should be commended.
However ...
Whilst Bell does well in creating two distinct first person voices as she tells the story of Oksana (a Russian girl who's been sold into prostitution) and Hope (an English teenager who gets kidnapped by Oksana's coked-up trafficker), I felt that this is a book that very much pulls its punches. Oksana's voice is well-handled and Bell doesn't try to shield the reader from the horrors that have been perpetrated on her (including rape and other physical abuse) whilst at the same time never descending to gratuitous description. I liked the way in which Bell built up a credible picture of the Russia that Oksana's grown up with and in particular, its crushing economic deprivation. I was interested in her relationship with Adik, a boy who like her, dreams of a life in the West and who buys into the promises made by flash-car driving Tommy and I could believe in her attitude towards her brother Viktor and her widowered father.
By contrast, Bell is curiously protective of Hope, the spoilt, sometimes dense and most definitely whiny, English girl. I had big problems in buying into the reason why Zergei would kidnap her in the first place as it seemed more of a contrivance to bring her into the plot, but Bell makes it even more difficult to believe in by shielding her all the time. Given that we're shown the ruthlessness of the people responsible for trafficking these girls, I didn't understand why they were so reticient to either put Hope to "work" or to otherwise mistreat her. Bell seems to be suggesting that Hope's ethnicity makes the Turkish brothel owner reluctant to engage with her beyond a lame ransom claim towards the end of the book. Consequently, any tension that may exist when we see Hope being made to try on cheap lingerie or threatened is too hollow to be believed. I will also admit that the 'poor little rich girl' set up that Bell creates for Hope made it difficult for me to sympathise with her as her biggest complaints seemed to be that her dad worked too much and her mum was too interested in material possessions. When you contrast this with the genuine deprivations that Oksana has suffered, you do wish that Hope would suffer more of a reality check.
The ending to the book is very much a soft soap. The fact that there is a 'sympathetic' Turkish boy who wants no part of his uncle's gang operation stretches credibility too thinly and the build-up to the book's denouement rests on contrivance more than it does on character initiative. I questioned whether anyone in London living near a business identified as a "massage parlour" would really be ignorant as to what goes on inside and Bell's open-ending made me wonder if Hope had actually learnt anything from her experience or grown emotionally.
To be fair, I think that writing about this subject-matter is a difficult tightrope to navigate, particularly for a YA audience. However, the message I took away from it was that forced prostitution and sex trafficking only happens to girls from poor countries, which I found distasteful and incredibly misleading.
The Verdict:
Ultimately, this is a missed opportunity, which is a shame. Bell's central message that prostitution only happens to girls from other countries left an unpleasant taste in my mouth and I didn't find Hope to be an engaging or sympathetic enough character to take me through the horrors. This is a shame, because the Oksana sections are well written and credible and I think this was a book that has the potential to be an emotionally hard-hitting work.
