Somaly Mam- Thoughts on the signifance of the book title

The book is titled The Road of Lost Innocence, while her name Somaly means the ‘necklace of flowers lost in the virgin forest’.  Further in the post I will explain why I started with that realization.

Mam begins the book mentioning that she has had many names throughout her life time. This is symbolic of her journey through life to find her identity, or something she could identify with.  The fact that she chose to keep Somaly as her name is symbolic because, based on its meaning, that’s how she portrayed herself and this “road of lost innocence” is more like a journey she is taking in order to “find the flowers in the virgin forest” or find the good and the pure in her life, which she does eventually through starting her organization to help the other “somaly” girls that have been where she was and want to find a way out.

Also I find it interesting that, although unintentional, the initials of the book spell T.R.O.L.I. which I translated to being trolley, which I further interpreted it to be representative of the journey she takes us on in the book (though I may be stretching that just a bit, just something to think about).