None of these kids really want to die, they just want to stop hurting. Some unknowingly have gone into a sexual self-destruct mode already. Any kid who was on the street five years ago when he was 13 or 14, picking up three or four johns a day, runs a high probability of testing HIV-positive. The process of self-destruction is psychological as well as physical. What is left for them is simply to die, and they do that very quickly.
Readers inevitably become contributors, and vice versa.
Some stories seem to leap right off the page. A girl is kidnapped off the streets of her hometown, brought to New York by the pimp, and forced to work as a prostitute. A boy is sold to a Fortune 500 company that maintains a stable of girls and boys. Their job is to entertain clients. The book is also revealing in another way.