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A review by bioarla
Girl by Edna O'Brien
3.0
Girl by Edna O’Brien focuses on the kidnapping of 276 female students by the terroristic organization Boko Haram in April 2014, in Nigeria. We follow the story through the eyes and thoughts of a single narrator, Maryam, and we are not spared any of the brutalities, including rapes and stoning, that she experiences or witnesses. She is given as a prize to a soldier and has a baby before being able to escape the camp. Surviving a perilous journey, she’s finally rescued by the Nigerian army and reunited with her mother and relatives. It is at this point that a second nightmare starts: in the eyes of her community she’s considered a “jihadi wife” and her baby daughter a “stain” for her family reputation, and Maryam has once again to fight for herself and her child.
It is undoubtedly a well-written novel, with a style characterized mostly by plain and terse sentences. I believe this choice is effective in conveying all the hideous abuses Maryam and the other girls had to endure, but I also found it to be a little de-personalising, like if you couldn’t get to the very soul of the narrator. I found more interesting the second part of the novel, when Maryam and her daughter are rejected by their family. After the abduction of these Nigerian girl by Boko Haram, the news travelled all over the world and we all become familiar with the slogan “Bring Back Our Girls”. However, after the official celebrations for the rescue of some girls, little news reached the mainstream media in my country, thus Girl also prompted me to go and read about the lives of the survivors and what is currently being done for the girls still missing.
It is undoubtedly a well-written novel, with a style characterized mostly by plain and terse sentences. I believe this choice is effective in conveying all the hideous abuses Maryam and the other girls had to endure, but I also found it to be a little de-personalising, like if you couldn’t get to the very soul of the narrator. I found more interesting the second part of the novel, when Maryam and her daughter are rejected by their family. After the abduction of these Nigerian girl by Boko Haram, the news travelled all over the world and we all become familiar with the slogan “Bring Back Our Girls”. However, after the official celebrations for the rescue of some girls, little news reached the mainstream media in my country, thus Girl also prompted me to go and read about the lives of the survivors and what is currently being done for the girls still missing.