Title: The Girl With The Louding Voice
Author: Abi Dare’
Publisher: Dutton
Genre: Cultural Fiction
Why did I let this book sit on my bookshelf for an entire year!? I’m an idiot. That’s why! Don’t be like me. If you haven’t read The Girl With The Louding Voice yet you simply must. Adunni is on my favorite character list, for sure. She is so special.
“Your schooling is your voice, child. It will be speaking for you even if you didn’t open your mouth to talk. It will be speaking till the day God is calling you come. That day, I tell myself that even if I am not getting anything in this life, I will go to school. I will finish my primary and secondary and university schooling and become teacher because I don’t just want to be having any kind of voice . . .
I want a louding voice.”
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants . . . an education. She is the only daughter of a broke father so she is a valuable commodity. When her mother dies, her father removes her from school and sells her to be the third wife of an old man. Adunni finds her life is worth four goats, two bags of rice, some chickens and a new tv.
When something happens to the old man’s second wife, Adunni fears for her safety. Seeking help the only help she finds is being secretly sold as a domestic servant to a wealthy household in the enclaves of Lagos.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This is a heartbreaking and difficult (It involves rape and abuse) read, but one that is filled with hope. Through the darkness there is some shining light when Adunni befriends the household Chef and Ms. Tia a rich neighbor. Adunni is repeatedly told that she is nothing, but she won’t be silenced. And in the end she isn’t! Oh Adunni! You have my whole heart!
*This book has made an impression on me. I feel led to find charities I can support for education.