Bought and sold | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books
Diane Samuels reviews Dirty Work by Julia Bell, a previous 'ACHUKA Choice' title:
...the growing relationship between the two adolescents, both emerging against the odds as young women of courage, provides a strong backbone to the tale and enables the reader to engage imaginatively. Bell avoids getting to grips with the grittier and more intimate details of life as an underage forced sex worker, the uneasy inevitable result of grappling with adult territory for a pre-adult readership. That apart, the sense of authentic detail - cheap underwear falling off the skinny frames of the girls, the types of cars the pimps drive, the descriptions of typical trafficking methods and routes - does not feel like journalism but serves to give some edge to what is essentially a rite-of-passage tale.
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