Welcome back to the beautiful world of Adunni and Ms. Tia, the brave woman who has taken Adunni under her wing and done everything in her power to help Adunni change her own life. This book picks up almost directly after the events of The Girl with the Louding Voice. Adunni has gone shopping for her clothing and supplies for school. Tia is grappling with her changing relationship with her husband. But the night before Adunni is set to go to school, some members of her old village show up and kidnap her. You see, their village has experienced a drought and it is now up to the young female members of the village to be a sacrifice in order for the drought to end. Tia isn’t about to let Adunni go that easily, so she follows and urgently tries to convince her husband to do something, anything, to prevent this horrific killing to happen.

This book follows two storylines:
1. Adunni as she is held in a makeshift prison with several other girls until the fateful time of midnight. Midnight is when these girls will be killed so rain will return to their village. Adunni decides the only thing she can do is write down her wisdom in a book that will hopefully printed and shared with the world.  
2. Tia who has followed Adunni to her home village and is not allowed to visit Adunni. Instead, she embarks on her own journey to learn about Adunni’s family from Iya and Kayus’ help. She is also forced to reckon with the truth of the life-altering secret her mother has been keeping from her for many years.

As with The Girl with the Louding Voice, this book is full of truths that are hard to read and even harder to hear in Adunni’s voice. Adunni hasn’t lost any of her spark or love of life as she encounters these new challenges and what seems to be, inevitably, death on her doorstep. This book is a beautiful look at the role of women in various places in Africa, the lies that surround the education of climate change, and how the secrets we keep from those close to us have the power to change absolutely everything in front of us.

 And So I Roar picks up shortly after where The Girl With the Louding Voice left off, with Adunni about to start school and fulfil her ambition of finishing her education. But then she is unexpectedly forced back to her home village of Ikati where she will face a traditional ritual to determine her guilt or innocence in the death of Khadijah, the second wife of the man she was forced to marry. The following 24 hours are so full of tension, with not only Adunni's dreams but her life at stake. Adunni really shines in this book. It's impossible not to love her and root for her. She's intelligent, resourceful, brave, compassionate, determined, impassioned, feisty, principled, and so much more. This book has a wider lens than its predecessor. As well as Adunni's story, we get some important backstory about Tia and are introduced to several other young girls who are being held with Adunni and being forced to participate in traditional rituals. Their stories introduce issues such as female genital mutilation, sexual abuse, child marriage, domestic violence, misogyny, particulalry in the context of traditional rituals, and the divide between rural and urban areas. Ikati is suffering through a major drought, which allows for the introduction of issues like climate change and international aid. But this is still very much Adunni's story; the other characters and issues help place her experiences in a wider context. I loved how propulsive this book was. The pacing and the countdown included in section headings - Five hours to midnight, Three hours to midnight - really ramped up the tension, highlighting the risks Adunni faced and the way time was running out to save her. I was on the edge of my seat, frantically turning pages and hoping my family wouldn't inconveniently need me. While I know some valid criticisms could be made of this book, I was so fully absorbed in the story that I barely noticed them. A fabulous character and important feminist themes meant this was a winner for me and is one I'd love to see on the 2025 Women's Prize longlist. 

from looking at the early reviews, i’m clearly the outlier in opinion when it comes to and so i roar, and i hate to give it a negative review. i reread The Girl with the Louding Voice last month, having first read it in 2020, and i loved it even more the second time around (it’s my top book of this year so far). so to have to give the follow-up a 2* review is upsetting. but it feels like in the four years between books one and two, abi daré forgot how to write her characters well.
massive thanks to Hodder & Stoughton, Sceptre and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced digital copy in exchange for an honest review!

✧ full review on my tumblr ✧