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The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Dare

Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for allowing me to give an open and honest review of this must read 5* book.


This is a debut novel told in the voice of a young Nigerian girl who is entrapped into a life not of her choosing by her father after the loss of her mother to enable the male family members to get an income.

Adunni, is our 14 year old protagonist and despite the loss of her mother at such a tender age she knows what she wants and that is an education, she believes that with this comes the freedom and "louding voice" which will get her the right to speak for herself and gain the respect she feels she is entitled to in life.  

Sadly despite her mothers wishes for her to continue her education, when her mother passes away Adunni is left with her alcoholic father and two brothers to look after.  With all the will in the world her father decides to sell her into a polygamous marriage, being the third wife of a local man whose main focus is to get a male progeny to succeed him.

After an earth shattering event occurs to Adunni, the harsh realisation and reality of the events that have happened to her so far hit home and the shock with the adrenaline and need for escape will ask her to draw on the help of an old friend of her mothers to seek asylum and a new life in the city.  This only leads Adunni into a life of servitude as a housemaid to a wealthy family.  This family will highlight not only the harsh reality of human trafficking but the somewhat outdated beliefs and behaviour's which skewed the value of women at this time in this culture.

Despite this through her exposure to such abusive behaviour, Adunni seems to hold on to her strength of conviction and hope never once losing faith that her goal to receive an education would come true.

I will be honest it did take me quite some time to get into the rhythm of Adunni's voice in this book however, once you get beyond that the beautiful lyricism of the writing draws you deeper and deeper in, whereby you are rooting for Adunni's future with every twist and turn of the road.

This is an amazing piece of debut fiction by Abi Dare and justifiably the winner of the Bath Novel Award in 2019, I look forward with anticipation to further titles written by this author, 5 star must read.

About the Author
Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria and has lived in the UK for 18 years. She studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and has an M.Sc. in International Project Management from Glasgow Caledonian University, graduating as best performing student. Abi completed an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck University of London in 2018, achieving a Distinction. Her novel, The Girl with The Louding Voice won The Bath Novel Award in 2018 and was selected as a finalist in The Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition in 2018. Abi lives in Essex with her husband and children.
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