Book Review: Lets Talk About This

Book Title: Let's Talk About This

Author: Moraa Gitaa

Year of Publication: 2020

None of them, however, could predict that the night would mark the beginning of something too dark for neither themselves, nor their parents to handle, reads the last sentence of the prologue to Moraa Gitaa's latest Young Adult novel Let's Talk About This.

My first impression of this 204-page novel is that it comes as a double blessing: to the author and to its audience. At a time when the world is grappling with the mysterious coronavirus pandemic, Moraa's book comes in handy to remind parents to not take matters of sexual assault lightly. There have been reports depicting rise in unwanted teenage pregnancies and sexual contact between school going kids who have had to stay home. With parents struggling to balance between looking after their children  (especially teenagers) and keeping the family afloat economically, the time some parents spend with their children has been reduced to [only] a late night brief chat.

This is exactly the picture Moraa paints in Let's Talk About This: parents who are too busy to sit and find out what actually happens to their daughter. Yet this is not the only way that this story set in Nairobi's posh area Karen, portrays the triviality (which sometimes extends to indifference) with which sexual assault is handled in society even when it involves adults, let alone minors as is the case in the novel’s protagonist Patricia.

Patricia finds it unbelievable that before the rape incident, her father had been “talkative and lively” and always took the family on vacations. Afterward, Mr Kwela becomes “silent and not ready to talk about what she had gone through that night.”

The protagonists; Patricia and Halkano are of the same age but come from sharply contrasting backgrounds/social classes. Patricia is from a rich family living in the Karen suburb of Nairobi. Her drink is spiked at a party. Halkano is forced into an underage marriage, ironically to a graduate. While both have been raped, Patricia’s was at an end of school year party while Halkano’s is out of a forced marriage where the man posing as her husband assaults her on the first night. The two meet at Angels of Mercy Girls Crisis Centre where they get therapy.

Moraa drives the point home that society must change how it treats sexual assault. It is not an easy issue to grapple with because it does not discriminate class or cultural background.

Halkano comes from a nomadic pastoralist community, a cultural setting that the author uses to expose the plight of women in this society. While it appears that oftentimes Halkano is too bright for her age and cultural set up in which she has grown, the author seems to use her to push the point that things are changing (and must change).

The language use is sometimes not appropriate for certain characters. Some words for instance are too heavy to be expected from a girl of Halkano’s age. Such an example is when Halkano is talking to her sister Guyo “...young girls like you and I should not get married because our bodies and our minds are just not yet ready to do the grown up stuff of women.”  I would have expected this to come from an older or parental figure. Perhaps this is Moraa’s (unconventional) way of dealing with this difficult subject. Among the central concerns raised in the book are teenage mental health, underage marriage, psychological trauma and rape and defilement.

The story of the two is told side by side, a style that augments the contrast in their backgrounds and traits.

The book also grapples with the extreme ends to which some parents are ready to venture, including telling lies and conspiring to tamper with evidence, in order to save their children from the law. Arthur’s father who is the deputy DPP colludes with parents to two other boys who together with Arthur had raped Patricia to conceal the evidence.

The conclusion is wittily crafted that it puts to a closure to the conflicts that arise throughout the story.

This novel is recommended for teenagers of ages between 14 and 17. You will be moved by the emotional Patricia; a light-hearted Halkano who has seen it all; amateur teenager boys misusing their freedom; conniving parents; a graduate who 'has gone through school' . This is a thrilling book that can help teenagers understand what sexual assault entails and how it messes up with the victims, the reason why we should "...talk about it." Even to parents, this is a stern reminder that you must create an enabling environment to discuss this emotive issue.

A copy can be purchased through direct contact with the author ([email protected]).