Book of the Month : FEBRUARY 2020

Dear FictionAddicts,  

Welcome to F-E-B-R-U-A-R-Y. It took forever to get here, like it was travelling from some very far off planet! Well what do you expect of the month of love? ☺. Ain’t no hurrying love... May true love find us, all.

I hope you enjoyed the last book of the month and as you know it’s time to unveil the books of the month. I had in the past promised that we will read more Nigerian authors from time to time and in keeping that promise, this month we are adding a new author, Abi Dare and a genre new to this blog- African Literature.

This month’s books of the month are The Girl WithThe Louding Voice by Abi Dare and The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Dare

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 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 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 misfortune 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 other girls, for the owns 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.

The Girl With The Louding Voice is Abi Dare’s debut novel and it has been named Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by The New York Times, Marie Claire, Vogue, Essence, PopSugar, Daily Mail, Electric Literature, Red Magazine, Stylist, Daily Kos, Library Journal, The Every Girl and Read It Forward!

The Girl With The Louding Voice also won the Bath Novel Award for unpublished manuscripts in 2018.

You can download a copy of The Girl With The Louding Voice, here

The Flight Attendant by Chris Bohjalian

Casandra Bowden is no stranger to hungover mornings. She’s a binge drinker, her job with the airline making it easy to find adventure and the occasional blackouts seem to be inevitable. She lives with them, and the accompanying self-loathing. When she wakes us in a Dubai hotel room, she tries to piece the previous night back together, already counting the minutes until she has to catch her crew shuttle to the airport. She quietly slides out of bed, careful not to aggravate her already pounding head, and looks at the man she spent the night with. She sees his dark hair. His utter stillness. And blood, a slick, still wet pool on the crisp white sheets. Afraid to call the police- she’s a single woman alone in a hotel room far from home – Cassie begins to lie. She lies as she joins the other flight attendants and pilots in the van. She lies on the way to Paris as she works the first-class cabin. She lies to the FBI agents in New York who meet her at the gate. Soon it is too late to come clean- or face the truth about what really happened back in Dubai. Could she have killed him? If not, who did?

Popular quotes from The Flight Attendant

·        “Remember that person you wanted to be? There’s still time.”

·        “A smart girl is nobody’s pushover and nobody’s foe. A smart girl is both sword and smile.”

·        “Supposedly, whatever we do that’s selfish goes with us to the grave: whatever we do that’s selfless lives on.”

You can download a copy of The Flight Attendant, here

That’s its people. Grab whatever drink works for you while reading and get to it.

Much Love,

FictionAddict.