Imagine This by Sade Adeniran

Imagine This

Sade Adeniran

Nine-year-old Lola's sad story unfolds in her letters to DJ when she is wrenched from London and taken to live with her grandmother in rural Nigeria. It's a harsh culture shock for the westernised girl. Often hungry, shabbily dressed and cruelly treated, her over-riding feelings are loss, bewilderment and hatred. The book reads in parts like a Nigerian misery story, but Lola's feistiness helps her to overcome self-pity and look to the future.

Extract
I've accepted the fact that HE has nothing to offer me, maybe I look like my mother and HE remembers her leaving HIM and HE can't bear to look at me, so instead I'm left to accept the kindness of others. I've often wondered if HE'D ever treat me like a daughter again, could we ever go back, was there actually ever a time when HE said I love you or I'm proud of you? I don't remember it, maybe one day HE will say it. I read it in a book that one should believe in miracles but not depend on them.
Parallels
  • Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
  • The Icarus Girl by Helen Oyeyemi
  • Street Kid by Judy Westwater
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Violence
Explicit sexual content