What does it take to win your own freedom? What will you do for love? How do you take power when it was never given to you? Set in the small village of Indravalli in India in 2001, Girls Burn Brighter answers these questions and more, as it spins its take on what roles freedom, love, and power play in the lives of two young, impoverished girls growing up in rural India. Savitha and Poornima are female in a society where everyone wants a son, and no one wants to pay for a daughter's dowry. In this world, the relationships between sex, class, freedom, love, marriage, power, and destiny are hopelessly intertwined, and Savitha and Poornima are at the bottom of the totem pole.

At the novel's outset, Poornima's father hires Savitha to help weave and sell saris, and the girls find an instant connection. Savitha shows Poornima how to be confident and independent, to take ...