Factory Girl

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.