Even When Your Voice Shakes by Ruby Yayra Goka Buy the Book • Goodreads
A young woman speaks out against her wealthy abuser in this riveting YA novel from one of Ghana’s most celebrated children’s book authors.
When Amerley is offered a job working for one of her mother’s old school friends, she knows she has to accept. Her wages will feed her family, help her sisters stay in school, and ensure that her mother won’t have to worry about them. Amerley’s move to Accra isn’t easy, but she soon settles into her new life away from her small village—until she is raped by the son of her employer. Torn between keeping quiet to keep her job and speaking up for herself and for justice, Amerley must decide how to live her truth, and the impact of her choice will be felt through her entire community.
Through the life of an ordinary girl from a small country village, Even When Your Voice Shakes exposes the damage wrought by institutionalized misogyny and poverty and reveals how even those who are most disadvantaged are never without their own power.
Ruby Yayra Goka is a dentist and a writer from Ghana. Six of her young adult books have received CODE Burt Literary Awards for Young Adult Literature. She lives in Accra.
