Synopsis:

When Tia accidentally overhears a whispered conversation between her mother—terminally ill and lying in a hospital bed in Port Harcourt, Nigeria—and her aunt, the repercussions will send her on a desperate quest to uncover a secret her mother has been hiding for nearly two decades.

Back home in Lagos a few days later, Adunni, a plucky fourteen-year-old runaway, is lying awake in Tia’s guest room. Having escaped from her rural village in a desperate bid to seek a better future, she’s finally found refuge with Tia, who has helped her enroll in school. It’s always been Adunni’s dream to get an education, and she’s bursting with excitement.

Suddenly, there’s a horrible knocking at the front gate. . . .

It’s only the beginning of a harrowing ordeal that will see Tia forced to make a terrible choice between protecting Adunni or finally learning the truth behind the secret her mother has hidden from her. And Adunni will learn that her “louding voice,” as she calls it, is more important than ever, as she must advocate to save not only herself but all the young women of her home village, Ikati.

If she succeeds, she may transform Ikati into a place where girls are allowed to claim the bright futures they deserve—and shout their stories to the world.

Review:

Follow-up to The Girl With The Louding Voice, we are back with Adunni, this time safe and living with Miss Tia. We already knew that Adunni’s greatest wish was to go to school and when we join her at the beginning of this book, she is excitedly awaiting her first day, in awe of her uniform (so much so that she wears it to bed) and impatient to get going. However, a pounding on the front gate pushes school out of reach again, and Adunni’s life, and the lives of others, are dropped into peril.

As with book one, there are some very heavy subjects addressed. Reading this, and knowing that the horrors told on the page are the reality for so many girls in Nigeria was gutting, and I applaud Daré for using this story to highlight these injustices.

Adunni is such a wonderful character, and I grew even more fond of her than I had in the first book. Her spirit would not be broken, and her determination to make sure everyone got a good ending was endearing. I also enjoyed seeing things from Miss Tia’s point of view in this book and learning more about her history. The juxtaposition of young Adunni with an educated adult was interesting and added a lot to the narrative, especially when it came to understanding why things were happening as they were.

This was another read for the Climate Fiction Prize shortlist, and it is my personal choice for the winner. Climate change underscores everything that happens in this book, and reading through the eyes of Adunni and Miss Tia, we in the West can start to understand the realities faced by so many people who aren’t as privileged as we are.
As Adunni says, “Our land is bleeding, the world is bleeding, and it is the girls that are suffering the most.”

Overall, a fantastic sequel, and another powerful book from Abi Daré. I feel it’s such an important story that needs to be read, but of course, be mindful of all the content warnings.