Review: The Girl With the Louding Voice

The Girl with the Louding Voice 

Abi Daré

384 pages

Published February 4, 2020 by Dutton Books

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 * As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The cost to you is exactly the same. Source: Purchased for myself from Book of the Month (Get your first book for $5!) 

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 fight for her dreams 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.  

 There is so much to love about this book, and so much to think about and discuss with this book! It is an absolutely fantastic read from start to finish. I adored Adunni--what an amazing young woman with a beautiful spirit and innate desire to learn. One of my other favorite characters was Ms. Tia. In addition to these wonderful characters, I learned so much about Nigeria in this book, thanks to  the facts at the beginning of many of the chapters.  There were so many good passages and quotes from this book--there were many times I had to stop and write them down. This one was my favorite:

"We all be speaking different because we all are having different growing-up life, but we can all be understanding each other if we just take the time to listen well."

There are absolutely parts of this book that will make you angry, and sad, and overall just make you feel things.  This is a book that will stay with me for a long time, and will definitely be on my top ten of 2020 (I know I've said that a lot lately, but this one is fantastic.) This book is a definite five star read, and I absolutely recommend it to everyone. I heard about the book (and bought it) through Book of the Month, so it would be a fantastic add on to your next box!