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cicelyvford 's review for:
The Girl with the Louding Voice
by Abi Daré
The folks over at Dutton Books sent me The Girl with the Louding Voice last year to read before its February 2020 release. I was not paid to review this book.
I am a bit torn about this story. The author did a phenomenal job with the voice of the main character, Adunni. She’s a fourteen year old Nigerian girl from the town of Ikati who endures more in her young life than most people ever will. She’s uneducated and speaks in broken English with a Nigerian accent. One would think that it would be jarring to read 365 pages of broken English, but the author wrote it so masterfully. She managed to maintain an effortless flow in the narrative, capture the raw emotions of the characters while never straying away from the vernacular of the main character & of the region in which this story takes place.
There was such a steady pace in the first half of the book, but in the last 15 or so chapters it began to decelarate. Dare' peeled back the layers of each character in exceptional detail, but almost to the detriment of the main character. It felt as if there were many moving fragments that weren’t quite coming together.
Adunni, throughout her life, has had emotionally, mentally and physically abusive relationships. Even her healthiest relationship is a bit complex in my opinion. Her mother died & she works with her father in a parlor in Ikati; a small town in Nigeria. From thinking about the inner workings of tradition & culture, I conclude that her father is probably NOT pleased that Adunni was born a girl & has some illogical resentment about it because boys are lauded in this society and so he is a bit distant and unloving. Adunni expresses from chapter one, and throughout the story, the way her father looks at her “as if he wants to flog her for no reason” like she’s “carrying [excrement] in her cheeks”. When her father runs into financial problems and can’t pay the rent for the parlor, he sells his fourteen year old daughter into an arranged marriage with a local man named Morufu.
The child bride & sister-wife component of this story disturbs me immensely which is one reason why I can not fully love it. Her marriage to Morufu causes a sequence of events that spiral Adunni’s life even more out of control. One of Morufu’s wives, Labake, is cruel in spirit and the other is Khadijah. Khadija is kind and loving and takes a liking to Adunni. Adunni finds comfort in her and they become close, but Khadija can not bare a boy for Morufu and so she brings Adunni to seek ritualistic methods from a sketchy “healer” to make this happen. Without spoiling this book for you, something awful happens during this excursion in which Adunni feels she needs to run away to the city to protect her family from scrutiny and to make a better life for herself with the hopes of returning to them someday. Unfortunately she runs right into the bowels of slavery & servitude.
I absolutely despise Big Madam and her husband Big Daddy whom Adunni ends up working for as a maid.
They both are disgusting, unconscionable characters. Big Madam beats Adunni incessantly and “Big Daddy” is a pedophile and philanderer to which no young girl, within his reach, is safe. Adunni was no exception. I felt enraged when she continually said, “He didn’t rape me”. It’s as if she doesn’t quite comprehend the weight of his actions. Adunni soon discovers that a young girl named Rebecca used to work in the compound and she becomes obsessed with what happened to her and even more so after finding an unfinished letter Rebecca had written. The word around the compound is that she just disappeared. There is much speculation about her disappearance, but knowing that Rebecca is the same age, Adunni feels her pain, her suffering and wants to be a voice for her.
Sidebar: I like the overarching idea that Adunni has a desire to use her voice for change. This becomes an even greater desire when she learns about Rebecca and the secrets of Big Daddy but her barriers are seemingly impenetrable. I have long struggled with the idea of needing to be “strong” from the most heinous, egregious and mentally damaging of circumstances. This is has been true for woman generationally. Adunni is a child who lost her childhood and is forced to grow up quickly. The author sort of frames her growth as “perseverance” but what she goes through is deplorable and she should not have to wave the proverbial flag of “strength”. Not to mention it is an overused trope. Rewinding back, Adunni’s healthiest relationship is with an acquaintance of Big Madam, Ms. Tia. She reminds Adunni of her mother & Ms. Tia sees something special in Adunni that she wants to mold. She recognizes that Adunni is uneducated but also honest and speaks plainly. Children often say things unknowingly that adults have lost sight of so Adunni causes Ms. Tia to have much introspection about some things happening in her own life. Ms. Tia is written as soft spoken, classy and very much wants Adunni to reach her goal of teaching so she starts to teach her proper English. She is, by far, my favorite character but her own suffering with infertility and a sordid relationship with her mother-in-law who thinks she’s worthless also exposes Adunni to certain situations that she should not be exposed to.
As much as I admire Dare’s writing, unfortunately, I just didn’t love this book. When I thought it should have ended, it didn’t. I found myself huffing small breaths of frustration because I struggled to navigate through the pages and pages of mundane things that I didn’t think were important to the overall narrative. I really appreciate authors who vividly write simple mundanities which Dare accomplished. However, for my personal reading taste, there’s a fine balance because it can get boring & slow quickly.
In addition, the story is wrapped around various unsettling traditions and generational attitudes that have not benefited women in any way since the beginning of time. I understand said traditions are rooted in another culture different from my own, but it’s still a hard cookie to swallow.
3.5/5
I am a bit torn about this story. The author did a phenomenal job with the voice of the main character, Adunni. She’s a fourteen year old Nigerian girl from the town of Ikati who endures more in her young life than most people ever will. She’s uneducated and speaks in broken English with a Nigerian accent. One would think that it would be jarring to read 365 pages of broken English, but the author wrote it so masterfully. She managed to maintain an effortless flow in the narrative, capture the raw emotions of the characters while never straying away from the vernacular of the main character & of the region in which this story takes place.
There was such a steady pace in the first half of the book, but in the last 15 or so chapters it began to decelarate. Dare' peeled back the layers of each character in exceptional detail, but almost to the detriment of the main character. It felt as if there were many moving fragments that weren’t quite coming together.
Adunni, throughout her life, has had emotionally, mentally and physically abusive relationships. Even her healthiest relationship is a bit complex in my opinion. Her mother died & she works with her father in a parlor in Ikati; a small town in Nigeria. From thinking about the inner workings of tradition & culture, I conclude that her father is probably NOT pleased that Adunni was born a girl & has some illogical resentment about it because boys are lauded in this society and so he is a bit distant and unloving. Adunni expresses from chapter one, and throughout the story, the way her father looks at her “as if he wants to flog her for no reason” like she’s “carrying [excrement] in her cheeks”. When her father runs into financial problems and can’t pay the rent for the parlor, he sells his fourteen year old daughter into an arranged marriage with a local man named Morufu.
The child bride & sister-wife component of this story disturbs me immensely which is one reason why I can not fully love it. Her marriage to Morufu causes a sequence of events that spiral Adunni’s life even more out of control. One of Morufu’s wives, Labake, is cruel in spirit and the other is Khadijah. Khadija is kind and loving and takes a liking to Adunni. Adunni finds comfort in her and they become close, but Khadija can not bare a boy for Morufu and so she brings Adunni to seek ritualistic methods from a sketchy “healer” to make this happen. Without spoiling this book for you, something awful happens during this excursion in which Adunni feels she needs to run away to the city to protect her family from scrutiny and to make a better life for herself with the hopes of returning to them someday. Unfortunately she runs right into the bowels of slavery & servitude.
I absolutely despise Big Madam and her husband Big Daddy whom Adunni ends up working for as a maid.
They both are disgusting, unconscionable characters. Big Madam beats Adunni incessantly and “Big Daddy” is a pedophile and philanderer to which no young girl, within his reach, is safe. Adunni was no exception. I felt enraged when she continually said, “He didn’t rape me”. It’s as if she doesn’t quite comprehend the weight of his actions. Adunni soon discovers that a young girl named Rebecca used to work in the compound and she becomes obsessed with what happened to her and even more so after finding an unfinished letter Rebecca had written. The word around the compound is that she just disappeared. There is much speculation about her disappearance, but knowing that Rebecca is the same age, Adunni feels her pain, her suffering and wants to be a voice for her.
Sidebar: I like the overarching idea that Adunni has a desire to use her voice for change. This becomes an even greater desire when she learns about Rebecca and the secrets of Big Daddy but her barriers are seemingly impenetrable. I have long struggled with the idea of needing to be “strong” from the most heinous, egregious and mentally damaging of circumstances. This is has been true for woman generationally. Adunni is a child who lost her childhood and is forced to grow up quickly. The author sort of frames her growth as “perseverance” but what she goes through is deplorable and she should not have to wave the proverbial flag of “strength”. Not to mention it is an overused trope. Rewinding back, Adunni’s healthiest relationship is with an acquaintance of Big Madam, Ms. Tia. She reminds Adunni of her mother & Ms. Tia sees something special in Adunni that she wants to mold. She recognizes that Adunni is uneducated but also honest and speaks plainly. Children often say things unknowingly that adults have lost sight of so Adunni causes Ms. Tia to have much introspection about some things happening in her own life. Ms. Tia is written as soft spoken, classy and very much wants Adunni to reach her goal of teaching so she starts to teach her proper English. She is, by far, my favorite character but her own suffering with infertility and a sordid relationship with her mother-in-law who thinks she’s worthless also exposes Adunni to certain situations that she should not be exposed to.
As much as I admire Dare’s writing, unfortunately, I just didn’t love this book. When I thought it should have ended, it didn’t. I found myself huffing small breaths of frustration because I struggled to navigate through the pages and pages of mundane things that I didn’t think were important to the overall narrative. I really appreciate authors who vividly write simple mundanities which Dare accomplished. However, for my personal reading taste, there’s a fine balance because it can get boring & slow quickly.
In addition, the story is wrapped around various unsettling traditions and generational attitudes that have not benefited women in any way since the beginning of time. I understand said traditions are rooted in another culture different from my own, but it’s still a hard cookie to swallow.
3.5/5