February 4, 2020

1st Line/1st Paragraphs

I’m linking up this week with Vicki @ I’d Rather Be At The Beach who hosts a meme every Tuesday to share the First Chapter/First Paragraph of the book you are currently reading.

I’m pleased to share the first paragraphs of The Girl With the Louding Voice by Abi Dare

Is this on your TBR or have you read it?

Amazon Summary:

“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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The Girl With the Louding Voice

*This post contains Amazon affiliate links

Genre/Categories: Historical African Fiction, Nigeria

1st Line/1st Paragraphs From Chapter One:

This morning, Papa call me inside the parlor.

He was sitting inside the sofa with no cushion and looking me. Papa have this way of looking me one kind. As if he wants to be flogging me for no reason, as if I am carrying shit inside my cheeks and when I open mouth to talk, the whole place be smelling of it.

“Sah?’ I say, kneeling down and putting my hand in my back. “You call me?”

“Come close,” Papa say.

I know he want to tell me something bad. I can see it inside his eyes; his eyeballs have the dull of a brown stone that been sitting inside hot sun for too long. He have the same eyes when he was telling me, three years ago, that I must stop my educations. That time, I was the most old of all in my class and all the childrens was always calling me “Aunty.” I tell you true, the day I stop school and the day my mama was dead is the worst day of my life.”

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This morning when I heard that this was the pick for Read With Jenna, I hustled over to the Libby app and put it on hold. It became available by the end of the day! I knew it was meant to be. I realize it will be a difficult read, but I’m ready. I recently finished two light and lovely reads, and I’m eager to engage with something more substantial for February. From the summary, it seems that Adunni has a strong, clear voice but because of where she was born and her circumstances, she does not yet know how to use it. I’m also pleased to realize that Abi Dare is a debut author!

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QOTD:

Is The Girl With the Louding Voice on your TBR?

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***Blogs posts may contain affiliate links. This means that at no extra cost to you, I can earn a small percentage of your purchase price.

Unless explicitly stated that they are free, all books that I review have been purchased by me or borrowed from the library.

Book Cover and author photo are credited to Amazon or an author’s (or publisher’s) website.