The Girl with the Louding Voice - Abi Daré

How do you rate a book that emotionally wrecks you with the pain caused to the main character? How can I say that I enjoyed it when Adunni is so harmed? Perhaps its Adunni's spirit, which takes so many hits but cannot be crushed or denied. That she gets up again and again and is determined to find a way to make her life better.

I am no longer surprised at the cruelty humans inflict on other humans. Our capacity to cause pain is unbounded. In The Girl with the Louding Voice, we can see how the various characters are driven to pain or compassion. How the cruelties inflicted upon them can cause irreparable harm that they then inflict on others. We can also see how the kindness of just one person can change the trajectory of another's life.

Adunni is the only daughter of her mother and father. With an older and younger brother, and living in a small Nigerian village, Adunni's mother is aware of how vitally important it is for Adunni to go to school and leave the village. She wants a better life for Adunni than she has had for herself. She sells street food in order to feed her family. Money wasted on drink by her husband. When her mother dies, Adunni is unprotected and falls victim to her family's poverty. Her husband is forced to sell her into marriage, at 15, to an older man with two wives already. Due to some tragic circumstances (yes more tragic than forced child marriage) - Adunni runs away and finds her way to Lagos, where she is sold to a family to work as a house servant.

The man who brings her to Lagos collects her pay every month and never visits. She is for all purposes, enslaved to this family. The wife of the house beats her and starves her. The father has an eye for her that is far from fatherly. And by chance she meets a neighbor who may prove her only way out. If the neighbor only has the courage to step forward and do something.

I think the portrayal of the neighbor was really honest. We all can look away from things that we don't want to get involved in. We can all suspect people who are asking for help may not have the best motives. But the neighbor here takes a chance and it literally saves Adunni's life. May we have the wisdom to see these opportunities when they come.

4/5 Stars.