Read The World - Niger - Harmattan

Book: Harmattan
Author: Gavin Weston
Pages: 576
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: NO, but he lived there for awhile
I have visited: NO

This is my 99th read for the year

I finished the book up on Friday - squeezed one more in for the month of August.  So close to making 100 before summer ended.

This is the story of Haoua - a 12 year old girl.  She lives with her parents and siblings in a remote village in Niger.  Her mother soons takes ill and has to be taken away to a hospital for treatment.  Haoua's brother and neighbors inform her that their mother is HIV positive and the outcome is going to be grave.  In the meantime, Haoua's father decides he wants to take a second wife.  The second wife is terrible to Haoua and her siblings - treating them more like servants than children.  Haoua's father is gone more than he is at home. 

Haoua wants desparately to find her mother and visit her before she dies, so she enlists the help of one of her father's friends to get to her brother and then get to the hospital to see her mother.  The travel to and from is treacherous, and when Haoua comes home, she finds out that her father has promised her to her father's friend to be married.  At 12 years old, she becomes the wife of a terrible man and begins a completely different path she was hoping for.

This book was just okay.  It isn't well written, and the story was a bit too long.  The characters don't have a lot of depth.  It is a very depressing story, that I am sure is true to reality, but still just really, really depressing.

Stars: 3