"Slammerkin"

I read "Slammerkin" by Emma Donoghue right after I read the "Sealed Letter" (or skimmed through most of it).

The main character, Mary, is a plain young girl living in the slums of London. Her family is very poor and she longs for bright, colorful things like she sees in the streets. One night, she asks a peddler to buy a ribbon, but the price is too much. She begs him for it; he rapes her and gives her a ribbon. When she gets home, she starts to tell her family what happened, but something prevents her. 

A few months later, her mother receives a note saying: "Your daughter is a hore. Just look at her." Her mother flattens Mary's dress against her stomach, sees the baby bump, and freaks out. She throws Mary out of the house to fend for herself. 

Mary is 14. 

A prostitute, or "miss" as they're call in the book, finds Mary laying in the gutter after she's been accosted by several more men. Doll Higgins becomes Mary's good friend. She takes her to a place in London where Mary gets "the baby business" taken care of. She'll never be pregnant again. Because Mary is on her own, now, and Doll found her, Mary becomes a Miss, just like Doll. She likes the freedom and money that comes with the job, although she dislikes the job itself. 

About a year later, Mary gets sick and goes to a hospital for the winter. Doll tells her they let people in to take care of them and it's very easy living. When Mary leaves in the Spring, she goes back to find Doll frozen to death in the alley outside their apartment. She feels sick and scrapes together all the money she can find, packs her bags, and heads to a town in Welsh country where her mother grew up. She ends up as a maid/apprentice to a seamstress in town--an old friend of her mother's. Mary lies to her and tells her that her mother died with the final wish of Mary living with her old friend. 

Mary hates being a maid. After a few complications, she finds a job as a Miss at a stable in town. She works nights as a Miss, and days as a maid. As this life continues, something snaps inside Mary. One day, she tries on a beautiful dress that her mistress has just finished making because she thinks she deserves it more than the customer. Her mistress finds her wearing the dress and tells her to take it off. Mary gets mad and kills her mistress. She is then put on trial and hanged, ending her life at 16 years of age.

Throughout the book, Emma Donoghue points out that Mary's view of the world is very materialistic. She carefully hoards her stash of "expensive" clothing--which she finds out really isn't that valuable after working for her seamstress mistress. "Clothes are the greatest lie ever told" writes Emma.

Her writing is much improved from The Sealed Letter although you may have to suffer through a few "gross" passages where Mary's tragedies are described in great detail. It's a dark book, but well written in general.