Orphaned, then adopted into a sadistic family at 8-years-old, Muna's entire childhood is spent in the abyss of awful, completely void of love and laughter.
"The Cellar" is a very twisted thematic R rated version of Cinderella. The focal character, Muna is taken out of an orphanage somewhere in England when she is just a child, and from the start, she is abused both physically and sexually before she reaches her 9th birthday.
African immigrants, the Songolis are a married couple with two spoiled boys of their own who hornswoggle an adoption agency to seize the rights to young Muna. Mrs. Songolis, Yetunde, is the true definition of ugly, both physically and spiritually. She beats Muna when her 13-year-old son Olubayo tries to rape her, accusing Muna of being too sexy, which makes it her fault Olubayo wants to ravage her.
Muna is forced to sleep on the concrete floor of the cellar and is frequently raped by Mr. Songolis, Ebuka, in the middle of the night while his family sleeps.
For six years Muna's life is a living hell, and then when she is 14-years-old, it still is, but the tides begin to turn her favor when the Songolis youngest son Abiola turns up missing and the police become regular visitors at the Songolis dwelling for various questioning and investigating. With regular visits by the authorities, Muna is allowed to stay in Abiola's room to give the police a facade of living with a loving and caring family.
As the story progresses, Muna is convinced the Devil himself lives in the cellar and she claims to communicate with the Dark Lord who aides her in her revenge against the Songolis. Without giving too much of the story away, some of the revenge is indeed sweet to me.
Muna pushes Mr. Songolis down the cellar stairs and he ends up paralyzed and confined to a wheel chair, thus unable to ever rape her again. Muna tortures Mrs. Songolis to death, a slow painful death which she more then deserves. I relished in my reading as Muna continually buried a heavy hammer into Mrs. Songolis's knee caps until the bones of her knees where broken and exposed from the skin.
Muna claims to have gotten her courage to fight back against the horrid Songolis family via the Devil. Until the very end of the book, it's not clearly known if Muna was indeed in touch with Lucifer.
Best selling novelist Minette Walters enticed my imagination to its very heights. Without directly stating it, the Devil may be a better being then God Himself, after all, the Devil never does anything wrong in the Bible, the Bible rants of the Devils temptations, but Lucifer Himself never commits evil like God does.
From the Bible; The first book of Samuel;
I Samuel; 15; 2-3: 'Thus saith the Lord (God) ...spare them not, slay both man and woman, infant and suckling...' (Exodus; 20; 13, 'Thou shall not kill.') The definition of contradiction.
"The Cellar" is a three and half star read with a fabulous tale of terror, violence and rage which makes a legitimate case that Lucifer may indeed be superior to God.
Local library's are a great source for books as well as movies. "The Cellar" was first published in January of last year.
