Nine-year-old Lola's sad story unfolds in her letters to DJ when she is wrenched from London and taken to live with her grandmother in rural Nigeria. It's a harsh culture shock for the westernised girl. Often hungry, shabbily dressed and cruelly treated, her over-riding feelings are loss, bewilderment and hatred. The book reads in parts like a Nigerian misery story, but Lola's feistiness helps her to overcome self-pity and look to the future.