A Girl Within a Girl Within a Girl

DEBUT Reddy’s first novel is told in two timelines: in the present, wife and mother Maya receives a letter from her past; in the past, Sunny, a smart child growing up in Guyana, comes to the United States and survives to grow up and become Maya. Sunny loves Guyana, but she also pines for the glamorous life she’s heard about in the States. Dreams are one thing, but the reality is far different. Her father arranges for 12-year-old Sunny to travel to Miami using another identity. She is now 15-year-old Neena. The life she was promised—living with a family, going to school, and eventually marrying someone to help her family emigrate—turns out to be a lie. She is put to work cleaning houses to pay back the money owed for her journey and is desperately unhappy in the family she’s placed with. Sunny, now Neena, then Synthia, and finally Maya, endures years of hardship and abuse but keeps fighting against the odds.