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Book Summary and Reviews of The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré

The Girl with the Louding Voice

by Abi Daré

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  • Feb 2020, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

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.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Captivating…Daré's arresting prose provides a window into the lives of Nigerians of all socioeconomic levels and shows readers the beauty and humor that may be found even in the midst of harrowing experiences." - Booklist

"Daré provides a valuable reminder of all the young women around the world who are struggling to be heard and how important it is that we listen to them. A moving story of what it means to fight for the right to live the life you choose." - Kirkus Reviews

"A powerful debut about fighting for our dreams." - PopSugar

"The Girl With the Louding Voice is a character for the ages. Adunni is a girl who narrates her own suffering with levity, who paints depth and texture and beauty into her Nigerian homeland, who tenderly cultivates her own humanity even while everything around her seeks to thwart it. She is an ambassador for girls everywhere. She is important, funny, brave, and enduring. Abi Daré has written an unforgettable novel, by the strength of her own louding voice." - Jeanine Cummins, author of American Dirt

"A bold new storyteller…Abi Daré's fearless debut is a celebration of girls who dare to dream and those who help unfurl their wings so that they might soar." - Imbolo Mbue, New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers (Oprah's Book Club pick)

This information about The Girl with the Louding Voice was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Auds

Hardships of females and hope
“The Girl With The Louding Voice” by Abi Dare showed a world many people refuse to see, a world of poverty, rape, abuse, and more. This book is set in Nigeria where the culture there is different than other places and they value men over women and this is apparent during the novel. Adunni, a 14 year-old girl, displays a lot of strength through very difficult times in the story where her role as a female caused others to harm her mentally and physically. Her hope to a better future relied on having a education which was hard for her to obtain. She aspires females to strive towards larger goals in life especially in some parts of Nigeria where women are thought to be only married off. She values education very much and that gives her hope for a better life. This book provided awareness too because when an average person compares their life to Adunni’s, they realize how very fortunate they are and how they should be thankful of their education. Even though this book is fiction, it has most likely happened to many young girls like Adunni and the world needs to help people like them. Overall, “The Girl with the Louding Voice” by Abi Dare demonstrated how the world can be cruel to people whether mentally or physically and people need acknowledge this and try to help them.

Becky H

You should read this book
This was a wonderful book – after I got past the dialect the main character and narrator speaks. Adunni, the young Nigerian girl with the “louding” voice, is fourteen as the novel begins. From an extremely poor family, she is sold into marriage with an older man who stops her schooling although she is a good student with the promise of a scholarship to continue her education. The rest of the books deals with the vassitudes of her life.
The dialect improves as the novel proceeds and by the end I no longer noticed the dialect. In fact, the use of dialect enhanced the impact of Adunni’s story. Adunni’s story, unfortunately, is not unusual in Nigeria or many parts of the world.
AN excellent read that would be a great choice for a mother/daughter book group or a group made up of mostly educators.

LANI

Female empowerment
May this 14 year old Nigerian girl never leave the imprint of her struggle, her humanity and her bravery from my brain. As she narrates how her world widens from her poor home in her village to the city of riches in Lagos, one watches the unfolding of the chrysalis becoming a butterfly. She dreams of becoming a teacher but her dreams were decimated when her mother died and her father married her to an older man in order to have money to support himself and his other two boys. As she continues to struggle through life, I was torn at my very being by her goodness, forbearance and compassion even when she was subjected to many abuses of the spirit and the body. Written in a broken English style, it was easy to immerse into this pattern and made the book feel more authentic. Not only was it a story of strength and empowerment, but the author made you feel you found the pulse that composes Nigeria. Seriously, I cannot recommend this book more highly.

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More Information

Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and has lived in the UK for eighteen years. She studied law at the University of Wolverhampton and has an MSc in International Project Management from Glasgow Caledonian University as well as an MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. The Girl with the Louding Voice won the Bath Novel Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2018 and was also selected as a finalist in the 2018 Literary Consultancy Pen Factor competition. Abi lives in Essex with her husband and two daughters, who inspired her to write her debut novel.

More Author Information

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