Content Warning: This Character Analysis section references child sex trafficking, the commercial sexual exploitation of children, and physical abuse.

Lakshmi is the novel’s young protagonist, who initially lives with her mother, stepfather, and baby brother in a remote mountain village in Nepal, where she has not been exposed to most types of modern technology and has never seen a city. As a very intelligent girl, she is the best student in her class at school, but she has been sheltered and does not know much about the world beyond her village. Lakshmi is hard-working and loyal to her mother, Ama, for whom she will do anything to support. This is why Lakshmi is willing to go work in the city as a maid for rich people, like her old friend Gita has done.

However, once Lakshmi’s stepfather sells her off, she soon learns that she is not a maid but has instead been sold into the illicit world of commercial sexual exploitation of children. In order to escape this situation, Lakshmi must sort through the various lies she has been told and pick out the few grains of truth that will ultimately set her free. This task is much more difficult because Lakshmi is only a young girl who has been taken to a place in which she does not speak the dominant languages and is perpetually locked inside one building; indeed, the only people who visit are customers and a Street Boy who sells tea.