Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree

Redeemed Reader cautions: Intense situations, violence, mature content (menstruation; rape depicted but not graphically)

https://redeemedreader.com/2018/10/buried-beneath-the-baobab-tree-b/

From the dust jacket:

ON APRIL 14, 2014, BOKO HARAM KIDNAPPED GIRLS. SOME MANAGED TO ESCAPE. MANY ARE STILL MISSING.

A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband--these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. A girl who works hard in school and to help her family. a girl with a future as bright as live coals in the dark. 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. Even if the voices on Papa's radio tell more fearful news than tales to tell by moonlight.

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 bests 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.

Based on the experiences of young women who were captured by Boko Harma, and told in stark, poetic vignettes, this novel is a harrowing story of survival and hope in the darkest of places.

From the back cover:

"Who is so ugly that he only comes out at night?" I ask.
"The bat!" Sarah replies. "Who beats a child up right in front of the child's mother?" Sarah asks.
"Hunger!" I reply.
"Who does the whole world fear; he doesn't know mother from father, he can't tell rich from poor, or strong from weak, he wakes you up when your sleep is sweetest?" I ask.
"Death," Sarah replies.