Gupta tells a very important story in I Kick and I Fly; one that is powerful, moving and true while also being entertaining for teen readers. She has taken the classic underdog story and turned it into something that will break and warm your heart.

14 year old Heera lives in the Red Light District in Bihar, India, where most girls her age are sold into the sex industry by their poverty-stricken parents. Gupta handles this with extreme compassion, painting a realistic picture of the struggles and difficult choices forced on people like Heera's parents. Heera goes to school everyday knowing that the chance of her graduating is slim.

For Heera, a chance at freedom presents itself in the form of a Kung Fu teacher who sees something in Heera that she cannot see herself. We then get to witness Heera grow stronger in every way. Throughout the story, Gupta develops every character fully so that we witness and understand the way they change.

This is an inspirational story with relatable characters who will solicit a tear or two from empaths like myself.

Librarian lowdown:
- sex trafficking is a central theme; it is not inappropriate for readers of 14+ but it is also not an easy theme and so a trigger warning may be helpful

Inspiring and brutal story about a young Indian girl who is repeatedly told that her only path in life is that of a prostitute, like her cousin, aunt and grandmother. After her friend Rosy vanishes, Heera does everything she can to avoid a similar fate, through meeting Martial Arts teacher Rini Di, she discovers a talent for the sport and sees a possible life away from the Girls Bazaar. Heera is an inspiring character, never giving up on her hope of finding out what happened to her friend, standing up to her alcoholic Baba, looking after her siblings, dealing with grief and school bullies.

Hits hard, like its heroine. Distressing story that invigorates and educates.

Sadly this is based on real people, places and events. The author describes her reasons for writing it at its close, and readers will probably not be surprised that stories like this are not simply made up.

So as an example of being born into hardship, Heera brings us brutally into her reality - as a teenage girl born to a low-caste family unable to rise from the roofless hovel they share in a Red Light district in India, surrounded by brothels and gambling dens. Too hungry to study in school, mocked for her origins and fate, Heera knows it is just a matter of time until her drunkard father sells her into the same sexual slavery that has taken cousins and friends.

A brother has aspirations towards academia, her mother cannot afford medicine for Heera's sick sister despite daily back-breaking labour. Her cousin next door is sold regularly by her own brother to men on request. Heera and her family are tied and bound and the reader isn't spared the descriptions of their poverty.

But she is not helpless. When things seem at their darkest after she is expelled for confronting a bully, Heera is given refuge at a hostel for girls. A refuge not only for her physical safety, but somewhere she finds she can also learn to defend herself. With martial arts. And through this, learn about bodily autonomy, freedom and aspiration.

This story has plenty of moments that will shock and upset, but it's an empowering book and set of characters, with the aim of educating and inspiring. I very much enjoyed the novel and hope it shines a light on a hugely topical issue that goes unseen.

Not just a book for young women, the trade in human trafficking affects parents, children, brothers, sisters and as such this story should be passed around in schools widely.

For ages 12 and above.

With thanks to Netgalley for providing a sample reading copy.

A fabulously female empowering story that will speak to so many women of so many ages that is utterly breathtaking.