Release Date: February 4, 2020
Read from: 2/12/20 - 2/19/20
Format: Print (My February 2020 BOTM pick)
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads Rating: 4.51 stars
❝I want more than just a voice, I want a louding voice. I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping.❞
I procrastinated the review for this book majorly because there is so much to write about it that I wanted to take some time after I finished it to absorb everything I was going to feel, hoping to not sell it short. But now I feel like I waited too long! 😕
However, for one regular sized (approximately 350pg) book, it was certainly JAM packed with events. There was always something different happening in poor Adunni's life that it was nearly impossible to get bored. The story did not focus on one subject or event for very long.
Adunni is our main character. She is 14 years old and living in a small Nigerian town when the book opens. We are introduced to her simple life with a father who doesn't treat her all that great, and a younger and older brother, who are of course viewed as more important than her because they were boys. Her mother has recently passed, and she is left to navigate the world of womanhood alone.
-Rural Nigerian Village
Adunni's life is quickly turned upside down when she learns her father is basically selling her to a much older man to be his wife. She must leave home and essentially leave her friends behind to go live in a new house with a disgusting sexually, physically and emotionally abusive husband who also has two other wives. The first wife despises the ones that came after her. She was unable to produce a son, so her husband had to go looking elsewhere. Adunni knew her life was not meant to be like this though. She was meant to go to school, get an education, and in turn teach others. Her goal in life was to raise others up. To be the best she can be so that others can be their best as well. Her determination doesn't keep her there for long, in the grand scheme of things. But her journey to her next stop is harrowing.
Between the conditions of her childhood home, her husband's home, and other houses in nearby villages, we learn about the difficult and often disgusting conditions that the poor (who are a huge amount of the population) lives in. People don't have access to basic hygiene and suffer from illnesses that can easily be prevented. It is an absolutely eye opening story.
As if all of this so far isn't exciting enough, Adunni next finds herself sold as a slave to a rich, mansion-dwelling couple in the massive coastal city of Lagos. Here, she is able to have proper hygiene, and a proper place to sleep at night, but she is not fed properly, and she is abused more than ever. She steps lightly around her boss, who is miserable in her own life. She takes it out on Adunni, but despite all of this, Adunni still cares about how her boss's husband mistreats his wife and reduces her to nothing. At the same time, she needs to keep herself from being raped by the same man, work on learning to write better so she can apply for a scholarship to escape the horrid life she currently has, as well as try to figure out where the missing maid from before her is. In the darkness, Adunni does find friends that help her secretly along her path. She exhibits incredible strength that continues to drive her towards her goals, no matter how rocky and dangerous the path. I was so invested in her as a character and wanted nothing more than to see her succeed.
-Lagos, Nigeria
(https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/02/13/lagos-nigeria-motorcycle-ban-busari-lkl-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn)
I don't think many people will be disappointed in this story. Written by a native Nigerian, it sheds bright light on things that are happening only halfway around the world. We in western culture are often extremely ill-informed about things that are happening outside of our own cultures, and we need to be better educated about it. Books like this can be essential in keeping the average person educated about world events. I personally love reading books about other cultures and other places. I love learning new things from my reading, and it's fun to write a blog post about a book like this because I can help everyone better imagine the story with pictures such as there.
This book is inspiring in that it is driven by an incredibly strong female character that will stop at nothing to be the best she can be. More people need to be like Adunni, and I think you all need to read this book.
"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."
-Sunset in Lagos, Nigeria
(https://food.jumia.com.ng/blog/5-great-signs-lagos-is-becoming-a-24-hour-city-5101)
(https://food.jumia.com.ng/blog/5-great-signs-lagos-is-becoming-a-24-hour-city-5101)
