This is not a comfortable read, to be sure. What I learned after reading the novel is that what happens to not quite 15 year old Adunni in this book is by no means unique. Approximately 15 million children under the age of 14, mostly girls, were working across Nigeria according to UNICEF in 2006. It is currently estimated that seven out of every 1,000 Africans are trafficked into slavery.
It is set in Nigeria in 2014, a pre-election year and the year Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls.
Adunni is a 14-year-old girl from a small village several hours’ drive away from the former capital city of Lagos, where the village chief wields absolute power and makes all the rules. Adunni's father sells her as the third wife to a man looking to have sons. From here forward there are a series of unfortunate events where Adunni's intelligence and ingenuity are tested. It is a good read in 2022 America, where women's civil rights have been trampled upon, so we are reminded that the struggle for autonomy and equality is real, here and abroad.
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