Factory Girl

October 24, 2016
This hard-hitting novel focuses on the indenture of 16-year-old Roshen, who is forced to leave her close-knit Muslim Uyghur family in northwest China and work in a uniform factory. La Valley (The Vine Basket) sensitively conveys the culture shock of the sheltered Uyghur girls during their harrowing journey—via van, train, and the cargo box of a truck—and within the factory itself. Their cruel matron and draconian bosses dictate that they can no longer wear their headscarves and must only speak Mandarin or lose pay. Roshen emerges as a quiet leader, inspiring the other girls and protecting them when she can. The narrative strongly sketches the brutal conditions in the factory, including long hours in windowless workrooms, tea laced with stimulants, surveillance cameras in bathrooms, acute hunger, and the refusal to pay the Uyghur girls until they have worked off their trip. An already tense story becomes even more so as the bosses try to force some of the girls into sexual situations. Readers will admire Roshen’s resilience in the face of stark exploitation. Ages 14–up. Agent: Marietta Zacker, Gallt & Zacker Literary.

October 15, 2016
When Roshen, a 16-year-old Uighur girl from northern China, is sent away for a year to work at the Hubei Work Wear Company, a factory in the south, she faces cultural, societal, physical, and psychological challenges far beyond her worst nightmares.Roshen is proud to be Uighur, an ethnically Turkic enclavewith its own language, customs, and culture apart from China's and whom the Chinese government mistrusts. Before she leaves, Roshen's beloved, Ahmat, gives her a white jade pendant as a symbol of his faithfulness. Hoping for possible email exchanges, they create secret codes, so as not to arouse governmental suspicion. On route to the factory, Roshen meets Ushi, the cruel Chinese matron who favors the Chinese girls and forbids the Uighur girls to speak their native language--they must only speak Mandarin. Forced to work long and to avoid food the Uighur can't possibly eat, Roshen bonds with her co-workers, including Mikay, the most outspoken, Zuwida, the most fragile, and Hawa, perhaps the most misunderstood. It is through these friendships that the story engages the most. Roshen's perseverance sears as she struggles to preserve her sanity and her heritage by remembering and secretly writing Uighur poems in her notebook. The Chinese and Uighur girls' divisiveness feels familiar when cultures clash. A senior editor at Radio Free Asia contributes an afterword providing context. A thought-provoking look at oppression and the power of words from a viewpoint not often heard. (author's note) (Fiction. 14-18)

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December 1, 2016

Gr 9 Up-La Valley's novel is about the exploitation of Chinese factory workers. "Selected" at age 16, Roshen leaves her family in the remote Uyghur region of northwest China to work in a clothes factory. She works 12-hour days in a windowless, stuffy room and suffers abuse under horrific conditions. Rounding out her dismal life, Roshen and her fellow Uyghur workmates are Muslim, but they are served pork and are forbidden to wear headscarves. Roshen's friends lack character development and serve merely as vehicles for the author to portray the horrors that Chinese factory workers may experience, including death and prostitution. Likewise, Roshen comes treacherously close to rape, yet she is saved in a convoluted bait-and-switch scenario. Despondent, she finds strength through Uyghur revolutionary poetry and chooses a nonviolent escape: Roshen starves herself and stops bathing to make herself unappealing. A safer escape than her friend Mikray manages, it also makes for an abruptly tidy ending. La Valley clearly feels for the Uyghur situation and has skillfully highlighted these topics, but her efforts may have come at the cost of a richer story. Despite a compelling subject, the lackluster voice and shallow character development leave readers more connected to the themes of injustice than to the individuals. VERDICT Roshen's tale may satisfy readers interested in labor conditions and abuses. A secondary purchase.-Laura Falli, McNeil High School, Austin, TX

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2016
Grades 9-12 How far would you go to save your family? For 16-year-old Roshen, a Muslim Uyghur girl from northwestern China, that question brings her thousands of miles away from her tight-knit family, close friends, and quiet life to a soulless uniform factory in southern China. When she and a group of other sheltered Uyghur girls are sold into years of indentured servitude to keep their family's farms in Uyghur possession, Roshen must leave behind her shy nature and become a leader, keeping hope alive for girls withstanding brutal factory conditions, including 14-hour work days, tea mixed with stimulants, starvation, no wages, and, finally, forced sexual situations to save their own lives. A harsh and provocative look at oppression, this novel brings to light the tense, yet infrequently discussed, relationship between the Uyghur people and the people of mainland China. La Valley's time spent with the Uyghur, traveling across the Taklamakan Desert, adds an impressive layer of emotion and authenticity, reminding readers of the ultimate power of words to change one's world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)