“A name can influence a person’s behaviour or circumstances. It can play a huge role in who or what your child becomes in life. Your child’s name is your child’s destiny.”


Genre: Young Adult
Pages: 330
Rate: 3.5 ⭐⭐⭐
Goodreads Synopsis
Based on interviews with young women who were kidnapped by Boko Haram, this poignant novel by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani tells the timely story of one girl who was taken from her home in Nigeria and her harrowing fight for survival. Includes an afterword by award-winning journalist Viviana Mazza.

A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband—these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone—her mother, her five brothers, her best friend, her teachers—can see that these dreams aren’t too far out of reach.

But the girl’s dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors’ radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she’s been told. Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life—her future—is hers to fight for.

My Take
I have to say, Buried Beneath The Baobab Tree is necessary and important book. I feel like everyone should read it. The book is fiction yet it reads like Non-fiction as it mirrors the real life and real situation happening so closely.

Buried Beneath The Baobab Tree gave me a different perspective and insight that I had no idea about. It focuses on the Boko Haram and explores the lives of the girls that were kidnapped. Reading about their stories took me through a roller-coaster of emotions, such a heartbreaking read. The characters are real and vivid and they do come alive in the pages making it really realistic. When I realised what the title means, something in me broke and a deep sadness creeped, something I haven’t been able to shake off till now.

The book is quite short, fast paced and I read it in one sitting. I found the writing simple and quite easy to get through.

“There is something for everyone in the baobab tree, whether man, woman, boy, or girl. Something for beasts and spirits, even.”

In as much as I liked Buried The Beneath The Baobab Tree, I found the chapters choppy which read like a collection of short stories. The flowery language was also something that I struggled with and had a hard time looking past it.

All in all, Buried Beneath The Baobab Tree is a young adult book that I do find necessary and one that I do recommend. I read for my Books and Banter series on my Instagram, which you can watch here.


Have you read this book? What did you think about it?