Dirty Work By Julia Bell

At fifteen life is fun and full of hope. Many teens think about boys, friends, and school. However some young girls are stolen from their homes and forced to work. The word work is almost a joke because what they are really forced to do is accept rape. Women are lured into prostitute rings and are forced to give their wages to their owners.

Julia Bell’s Dirty Work is a dark story of how lives can be changed in an instant. Hope is an average teenager that wishes for a more exciting life. Her friends are fun and risk takers but she is a good girl that is forced to travel with her parents. Her normally luxurious life is simply the norm for her. However, her life changes when she meets Natasha. At first Natasha is interesting, but as the story progresses life with Natasha is scary. Natasha is not who she claims to be, in fact her name might not even be Natasha. Hope finds out that the life she is being bought into is far from fun. Hope and Natasha tell their own stories of how frightening it can be to be treated as property. Bell tells an alarming story of two women fighting for their freedom.

Bell’s writing is absolutely fantastic in this story. She writes honestly and vividly. She does not write a pretty story of teens because her topic is not pretty. Her book is worth reading for the frankness with which she writes. Some of the young adult books I have encountered are often a bit too pretty. Sometimes happy endings are not so definite. Bell’s writing offers promise but it also offers a sense of reality. This book is interesting for young adults because it is a good precautionary tale. Dirty Work teaches us that we are not invincible and that the world can be a frightening place. It is not a teacher’s job to scare students but it is their job that students be fully aware of what is out there. Sometimes teenagers tend to have a sense of super powers. Many teens feel like bad situations can never hurt them, but that is not the case. We are not immune to catastrophic events.

While the book is very interesting, I find that the content is suitable for high school student’s more than Junior high students. The book is not vulgar but it is definitely honest. It deals with issues of social class and the hopelessness of feeling powerless. More importantly, this book allows for the issue of gender to be discussed in a classroom. Gender can be examined because it raises the question of how different two lives can be based on gender alone.

The video included is a glimpse at the situations that Bell talks about within the book. The idea that young children in Russia are left to defend themselves with little to no money. This video is a real life representation of the world that Bell describes.