Dreaming of a Better Life: Child Marriage Through Adolescent Eyes

This review examines Dreaming of a Better Life: Child Marriage through Adolescent Eyes (Crivello and Mann Citation2020), focusing on how the volume complicates dominant narratives around child marriage. Rather than treating early marriage as a singular problem driven by poverty or patriarchal norms, the book brings together diverse empirical accounts that highlight uneven forms of agency, constraint, and negotiation in young people’s lives. The review engages with three key contributions of the volume: its attention to the instability of agency, its inclusion of boys’ experiences, and its framing of child marriage along a continuum of gender-based violence. At the same time, it considers the limits of the volume’s engagement with development discourse, particularly in moments where complex lived realities are translated into familiar policy categories. Overall, the review argues that the strength of the book lies in its refusal to produce a coherent or unified account, instead opening up important questions about how child marriage is understood, represented, and addressed.