“Who knows what else tomorrow will bring? So, I nod my head yes, because it is true, the future is always working, always busy unfolding better things, and even if it doesn’t seem so sometimes, we have hope of it.”
The Girl with the Louding Voice was a phenomenal read. The voice of the main character (Adunni) was so pure and heartbreaking. I felt liked I was sitting across from Adunni as she whispered to me all the things she had endured.
This is the story of a 14 year old Nierian girl who loses her mother to a sickness in her small village. With the passing of her mother and inability for their family to get by without her mother's added income, Adunni's father sells her to a man in her village so that he can use her "bride price" to pay their rent and provide food for her brothers. Adunni is devastated and shocked. She discovers that the man she is to marry is quite old and already has two other wives.
I could have sat down and read this cover to cover if I weren't in the haze of postpartum. This story swallowed me whole. Adunni suffers so much but never loses her optimism or her "louding voice." She speaks up when no one else does even when she knows it will cost her. The lightness of Adunni's narrative voice carried this story. Without her joy and desperate hoping, this would have been a very depressing and dark novel, but I had to keep reminding myself of her hardships because she remained positive and courageous.
This plot had legs. It was up and running whether you were ready or not. The description on the book flap and the plot I described above are only a fourth of the book. It takes off from there and it doesn't give you time to catch your breath. I loved it!
An added layer of depth developed slowly the more Adunni questioned why women in her village and in Nigeria were held responsible for everything wrong with the men in her country. Her questioning grew and drew deeper breaths as she witnessed the worst in the men around her and didn't allow it to discourage her. Instead the inequities drove her to dream bigger and call out the patterns that favored the men at the expense and sometimes death of the women in her community.
3/5 Stars
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