I was both excited and nervous to read this - I had really enjoyed The Girl with the Louding Voice and was looking forward to more by the author, but was worried about having yet more trauma dumped on Adunni before she got the chance to pursue her education. This was heartbreaking, eye opening, and touched on so many intersecting issues in Nigeria today. I do still wish that we could have let Adunni have her well deserved happy ending at the end of the last book, while maybe focusing more heavily on Tia’s story, but at the same time I liked getting to be back in Adunni’s world and to see her strength in facing her past. Based on the ending I’m guessing there will be at least one more book in this world, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy listening to that as well. 

Disappointed with this sequel. It was so slow for most of the middle and honestly doesn't even compare to The Girl wWth The Louding Voice. 

I cried many times. A really powerful and jarring story. It packs emotional punches but differently than the first book. 

This one felt contrived and preachy. The shock and heartstrings are more of a response to the real world knowledge these terrible things are actually happening to women all over the world, not because of their presence in the story or their narrative role.

The first book was so incredible and should be required reading for high school and parents but this one feels like a forced effort to bring activism. Like using graphic images on a billboard.

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 is the follow-up that I didn’t know I needed! I read and loved The Girl with the Louding Voice, and I thought it had all come to a satisfactory end, and Adunni would be able to get on with her life with Tia’s help. But it seems that the skeletons in Adunni’s closet are coming out, no matter what - along with Tia’s. 


Adunni is forcibly taken back to her village by the Chief and the person who brought her to Lagos, so that she can atone for the suspected murder she has fled from in TGWTLV. The village has been affected by drought, and the sins of a number of girls is apparently to blame. 


At the same time, Tia’s mother is dying, and Tia has argued with her about something that happened when Tia was a teenager. 


But all that pales in the face of what Adunni and the other women and girls go through at the tribal court. 


There are themes of rape, child brides, baby factories, FGM and women as second class citizens, resigned to a life of domestic drudgery. 


And then there’s the reason for the tribal court. Drought, caused by climate change and deforestation. 


This is a really hard-hitting novel, and even in its darkest moments the strength of the female characters shines through. I loved this book as much as the first. 


And before you ask, you DEFINITELY need to read the first book before you read And So I Roar!