62. The Color of Our Sky by Amita Trasi

read on my iPhone
2017 William Morrow
419 pgs.
CRF (Flips from 1983 to clost-to-current
Finished 7/6/18
Goodreads rating:  4.16 - 3104 ratings
My rating:  4
Setting: Bombay, India 1983 to current

First line/s:  "The memory of that moment hit me like a surging ocean wave -- drawing me into it -- the sour smell of darkness, the sobs erupting like an echo from a bottomless pit."

My comments:  Shifting back-and-forth between the past and the present, and told from the points of view of two young women whose lives and destinies are entwined, The Color of our Sky paints a picture of contemporary Bombay that is fascinating, illuminating, and incredibly sad.

Goodreads synopsis:  A sweeping, emotional journey of two childhood friends—one struggling to survive the human slave trade and the other on a mission to save her—two girls whose lives converge only to change one fateful night in 1993.
          India, 1986: Mukta, a ten-year-old girl from the lower caste Yellamma cult of temple prostitutes has come of age to fulfill her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute. In an attempt to escape this legacy that binds her, Mukta is transported to a foster family in Bombay. There she discovers a friend in the high spirited eight-year-old Tara, the tomboyish daughter of the family, who helps her recover from the wounds of her past. Tara introduces Mukta to a different world—ice cream and sweets, poems and stories, and a friendship the likes of which she has never experienced before. As time goes by, their bond grows to be as strong as that between sisters. In 1993, Mukta is kidnapped from Tara’s room. 
          Eleven years later, Tara who blames herself for what happened, embarks on an emotional journey to search for the kidnapped Mukta only to uncover long buried secrets in her own family.
          Moving from a remote village in India to the bustling metropolis of Bombay, to Los Angeles and back again, amidst the brutal world of human trafficking, this is a heartbreaking and beautiful portrait of an unlikely friendship—a story of love, betrayal, and redemption—which ultimately withstands the true test of time.