[3] She also revealed that she initially wrote the book as a single narrative, before editing it to jump between the two girls' points of view.

Due to her disfigurement, she is saved from prostitution and instead hired to keep the ring's accounting books, a skill she picked up during her marriage.

Determined to be reunited with her, Poornima convinces Guru to use her as a “shepherd” – a middleman to deliver girls from the pimp to foreign clients.

"[6] San Francisco Chronicle likened it to "a Thomas Hardy novel on steroids — if not leavened with subtle moments of humanity and joy, smaller emotions conveyed with tremendous lyricism".

[7] The Guardian called it "a timely and harrowing portrayal of human trafficking, cultural misogyny and the battles still fought every day by millions of women worldwide" but also noted that "the relentlessness of the abuse [means] that by the time we reach the novel’s final act of sexual brutality, there is a feeling of weary acceptance – by both Savitha and the reader – that this is just how life is".

[8] The New York Times echoed this sentiment, and also called the portrayal of India in the book as "hazardous in the current global moment [...] If all Indians really were so relentlessly cruel as the characters in Rao’s novel, you couldn’t blame someone for not wanting them living next door".