The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare
I wanted to like this book. It tells the story of a young woman named Adunni, whose story begins in a small village in Nigeria. Though her plight begins before the narrative begins with the death of her mother, it worsens at the beginning of the novel when she is married, against her will, to a local man who has promised to pay her fathers' rent in exchange for Adunni. It is the first of Adunni's captivities, for no sooner does she escape the home of her new husband than she finds herself the maid of a tyrannical woman in the city of Lagos. She receives no pay for her work beyond the daily beatings she receives on behalf of her new employer. Nevertheless, through it all, Adunni remains hopeful and, in the end, is rewarded with a new life.
Obviously, the subject matter is important. It is a story of neo-slavery that hasn't been told much in the west. But the ending was evident from the beginning. From the moment Adunni learns of a possible scholarship for domestic servants, it is obvious that she will get it. But it takes the author more than a hundred pages for that inevitability to become a reality. In the meantime, the other events of the story don't offer much insight into the character or much in the way of suspense. For me, that left it a slog that I was happy to finish.
