Lone Star Book Blog Tour: Searching For Pilar (Review & Giveaway)

Searching For Pilar was a powerful, terrible look into the world of sex trafficking as it follows a young mother abducted and forced into this world. I tip my hat to author Patricia Hunt Holmes simply on the amount of research that needed to go into this book, as I can’t begin to imagine how difficult it was to process what these women endure.

The variety of ways that she and the other girls abducted with her in Mexico is an eye opener. As she is taken from Mexico to Houston, we see where trafficking coexists alongside impressive sky scrapers, and money, and businessmen, and the horror of this reality is shocking.

In the small windowless rooms in the back of these clubs, the men never stopped coming. There were old men and young men. Some were white, some were Hispanic, some were black or shades of brown. During sports season, athletes came to the club. Pilar tried to get the American men to talk so that she could learn more English and prepare for making her way home, should she escape, but most of the time she was too tired to try.

 

Pilar is a remarkable character for the strength that she possesses and the kindness she shows for the other girls that suffer through this ordeal with her. The strength of her faith never wavers as she hopes against hope for a way out of her situation – unlike many of the other girls she encounters, she never gives up hope that she will escape, even though she fears she wouldn’t be able to return to her family for the shame that she feels would be brought on them.

The pain, brutality and inhumanity of Pilar’s situation is balanced by the near herculean efforts of her brother Diego to locate her. The path he takes, and the unrelentless searching is a testament to the ties that bind family.

The book brings to light so many other issues related to sex trafficking – how the girls are treated should they escape (and well as their ability to cope with all they have been through), the way that these girls are looked at wrongly, when they are truly victims of circumstance.

The strength of Searching For Pilar is in the author’s characterizations – she does a wondrous job of bringing the characters to life. Where the bad guys could easily becomes cartoonish in stereotype, she makes them terrifyingly real. There were a few scenes that were difficult to read, and the description felt a bit awkward in the first rape scene – but I can’t imagine how difficult it was to write, so I quickly moved past it.

The book sets a steady pace and despite the difficult subject I found it hard to put down.