Sunday, May 28, 2017

Trafficked (A Mex Anderson Novel) by Peg Brantley | ARC | A Book Review

Trafficked by Peg Brantley | ARC | A Book Review by iamnotabookworm!

This book is about human trafficking, specifically sex trafficking of minors. And the setting is not in some third-world country but in the land of milk and honey-the US.

The hero of this story is Mex Anderson. A private investigator who was tasked to find three girls. Jayla is fifteen. A smart kid from a poor family. Her mom can't survive without a man. Alexis is seventeen. A daughter of a rich businessman and a drunk mother who can't even take care of herself. Olivia is twelve. A middle child who is hungry for attention. These three will tell their horrendous experiences under their horrible captors. Mex, along with his smart girlfriend Cade and his friend, Darius, who is a writer with a lot of useful connections, will find these girls and get them home.

This story implied that this is not Mex, Cade and Darius first rodeo. They have done this assignment before but the difference is it was not human trafficking. Saving girls from sex trafficking is a total different playing field which they found is very dangerous and very rampant. These three people will come to deal with a totally different specie of human evil. Good thing they are a lot smarter.

Oh, what horrors this book has divulged. No one is safe from human trafficking. Boy or girl, white or black, rich or poor. And you can't trust anyone. These three girls trusted the wrong people which led them to a nightmare they never even imagined. What saved them was their belief that even if their bodies and will were broken but their souls are still intact. Their souls belong only to them. They refuse to surrender everything to their captors and those that violate them. 

Books like these are what everyone should be reading. I think teens and those unsuspecting kids who are most likely the target should read this book so they will be aware. So they won't fall prey to those people who are likely to take advantage of their innocence and trust. Parents should read this too. This is a very educational story. It is not a bedtime story but I guess we are all better aware than sorry. It is indeed a difficult and scary time that we live in. We can't even trust some of those we call friends just like what happened to one of the characters in this story. 

I give this book 5/5 stars. This is a very brave undertaking.  Taking on stories of this subject is dangerous. You have to balance both fiction and reality to make the story believable and credible. Putting in the news article excerpts added in the weight of truth and stab of reality to the whole thing. Reading this did not feel like reading fiction at all, it was like listening to a painstaking recounting of a very traumatic experience. I was like praying each time that Mex will find these girls before they totally give up and lost it. 




Congratulations Miss Peg Brantley. A very well-written and scary tale but is a good doze of very hard facts. I hope this story will serve as an eye-opener to those who are still unaware of these unforgiving and indiscriminate traffickers. That parents and kids will always be very vigilant and aware of their surroundings and of the people around them. That those who were unfortunate victims of these soulless traffickers and pimps will have more strength and hope that whatever happened to them was not their fault and they should not blame themselves. They were victims and these devils deserved to be hanged over and over again for the nightmares and evils they have done. They are unforgivable.

I feel like that every day. It's like I work toward this one life and then a gust of wind comes along and pushes me towards another one, scraping off a part of me every time.
- Peg Brantley, Trafficked - 



Release Date: May 23, 2017


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