Shannon Staub Book Club: "The Girl with the Louding Voice"

This month we will be reading and discussing "The Girl with the Louding Voice" by Abi Daré. 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.

This title is available through our catalog. "The Girl with the Louding Voice" is also available as an eBook and eAudio through CloudLibrary.

Copies of this book are available at the Shannon Staub Reference Desk. Please visit our desk or call 941-861-1744 to reserve a copy.

We will be meeting in-person in the Shannon Staub Library Conference Room, as well as virtually on Zoom. Register online to receive the log-in information for the Zoom session.