The Girl With The Louding Voice

The Girl With The Louding Voice is a debut coming-of-age story set in Nigeria that has a memorable main character and addresses important issues, but it's also a book I almost didn't finish. What struck me instantly was the broken English vernacular which I found very distracting - so distracting that I put the book down for a few days.

But I'm glad I picked it up again because the strength of this book is its main character, 14-year-old Adunni. She is tenacious, filled with hope and has such a sweetness about her that you can't help but root for her as she strives to have a better life through education, despite the horrible things that have happened to her. Unfortunately, the secondary characters came off with less depth and often felt like they were used as a plot device to pull an issue into Adunni's path.

I also enjoyed the interesting facts about Nigeria which were included regularly throughout the story and applaud Dare for addressing many important issues (forced marriage, lack of education for women, poverty and abuse). But the story felt more like a Young Adult novel in how it addressed the issues and I had a less emotional response to the plot than I had expected. I also felt that the book lacked closure and I would have liked to get a better look at where Adunni's life took her afterwards.

This was a good read and an impressive debut that brings to light some of the living conditions of Nigerian women and girls, but I didn't find it as compelling as I had expected. Please know that my opinion of this book is in the minority as it's received many, many 4+ star ratings.

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Abi Dare

Genre: Contemporary Fiction, POC author

Type and Source: eBook from library

Publisher: Dutton Books

First Published in Print: February 4, 2020

Opening Lines: This morning, Papa call me inside the parlor. 
He was sitting inside the sofa with no cushion and looking at me. 
Papa have this way of looking me one kind.

Book Description from GoodReads: A powerful, emotional debut novel told in the unforgettable voice of a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to get an education so that she can escape and choose her own future.

Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a "louding voice"—the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.

When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing.

But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it. And when she realizes that she must stand up not only for herself, but for other girls, for the ones who came before her and were lost, and for the next girls, who will inevitably follow; she finds the resolve to speak, however she can—in a whisper, in song, in broken English—until she is heard.