Girls Burn Brighter

A once-in-a-lifetime relationship between two girls who are torn apart but never give up trying to find each other again is the subject of this searing, explosive first book set in India and America.

Poornima finds hope, something she had assumed she had lost forever with her mother's death, when she first sees Savitha. Savitha is hired by Poornima's father to work on one of their sari looms, and the two girls fall in love right away. Despite being considerably poorer than Poornima, Savitha is passionate and vivacious. She demonstrates to Poornima the beauty found in a bowl of yoghurt rice and bananas, a bolt of indigo fabric, and the warmth of friendship. Their little Indian town suddenly seems less cramped, and Poornima starts to envision a life outside of the forced marriage her father is doing all in his power to keep her in. However, when a terrible act of brutality pushes Savitha away, Poornima abandons all she knows in an attempt to locate her companion. Her adventure leads her across continents in a terrifying manner, into the deepest recesses of India's underbelly, and finally into an apartment block in Seattle. Girls Burn Brighter presents two heroes who never give up on the optimism that burns within of them, switching back and forth between the girls' points of view as they encounter insurmountable challenges.

Shobha Rao addresses the most pressing problems that women face today in her amazing prose: feminism, immigration, human trafficking, and domestic violence. Rao's first book is a literary masterpiece that is both a heartbreaking meditation on friendship and a compelling page-turner.