War Girls (War Girls, #1)

by Tochi Onyebuchi

Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other in a futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria. The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky.

In a war-torn Nigeria, battles are fought using flying, deadly mechs and soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as the years-long civil war wages on, survival becomes the only way of life.

Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. Their lives have been marked by violence and political unrest. Still, they dream of peace, of hope, of a future together.

And they're willing to fight an entire war to get there.

Acclaimed author, Tochi Onyebuchi, has written an immersive, action-packed, deeply personal novel perfect for fans of Nnedi Okorafor, Marie Lu, and Paolo Bacigalupi.

• ISBN10: 0451481674
• ISBN13: 9780451481672
• Publish Date: 15 October 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Razorbill
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 464
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780451481672

Reviews

[readingwithwrin]

I will not apologize for what he did to you the last time you two met. You must have been children, but this is war. And we will win it.

See reviews first on my blog!

War girls is told in multiperspective for the different sides of the war, as well as showing the different lives of the sisters.
Onyii is known as the demon of Biafra and is part machine. Onyii is the older sister and has been in charge of a camp and commander of in the war. She is a strong character who proves, again and again, the lengths she will go to to protect those she loves and fight for what she believes is right.
Then we have a younger sister who is Ify and she understands technology easily and loves working with it. Ify is young when all of this is happening and we see her grown and her views change as she finds things out.
The two sisters are separated for most of the book so the vast majority is them fighting in the war and trying to get back to one another.

I am the only one who will care about me, she realizes. I am the only one who can save me. I am all I have."

Overall I loved this book. Going into it I knew nothing about the Nigerian Civil war so this was all new to me. The technology and the way the author was able to explain this sci-fi world was easy to understand well thought out. I never found myself getting confused, which is amazing since sci-fi isn’t a big genre for me because of how easily I can get confused while reading them. I loved the dynamic between Onyii and Ify, there was the sisterly bond at first, and then as time went on and things were discovered that evolved and changed, but they always cared about each other.
All of the side characters were well thought out as well. So many of the side characters that Onyii was around I loved, while a lot of the people that were around Ify I found myself despising because of who they ended up being.

War Girls had me feeling so many different emotions while reading it. I can’t wait for the second book that is coming out later this year!

[moraa]

I love the fact that this book is set in Nigeria. That's a big deal. I also love that the author has managed to write a science fiction story set in Africa. It goes without this saying that this is one of the authors we need to watch out for and this book only proved my point.

Although I'm not a huge fan of the sci-fi genre, it's easy to see when a book is well written. The author has done a good job with the characters and the world in this one and I am quite surprised to say that I will be on the prowl for more of their works.

I would recommend this to anyone looking for something a little different, a refreshing sci-fi book that will spin you in and out of worlds that you have never imagined.

[Quirky Cat]

I received a copy of War Girls through BookishFirst in exchange for a fair and honest review.

War Girls is the latest novel by Tochi Onyebuchi, and is the first novel in a new series (of the same name). It's the tale of two sisters thrown together by the means of war, and their different journies on the path to survival.
Set in 2172, the world has gone through climate change, has survived a nuclear war, and yet those lessons weren't enough for humanity. With large chunks of the earth unlivable, war still is a fact of life for many.
Nigeria is one such land torn apart by war. This is due partially to the lack of resources, but also the many cultural differences between the opposing sides. And this is the world that Onyii and Ify were born into.
Onyii is a warrior. She lives to fight. She chose war, but mainly as a way of controlling her life. She adopted Ify, and became the Demon of her people – fighting, destroying, and seeking revenge everywhere possible.
Ify was an orphan of the war, and Onyii took her in. They may not be sisters by blood, but they are sisters regardless. Ify loves her accent, a type of tech that she has to keep hidden. Until one day everything changes and she no longer has to hide the tech she loves. But at what cost?
Enyemaka is an android, one who was abandoned but then repurposed by the two sisters. It's her job to take care of Ify. To teach her and make sure she's safe. It's a job she took to heart. And a job that she'll do to her last.

“Other War Girls have gotten used to sleeping without their arms or their legs. But Onyii's phantom limb haunts her in her sleep. In her dreams, she has all of her arms and legs and she can run.”

Warnings: War Girls touches upon a lot of heavy – yet very real – subjects. These are the sort of things that happen in the real world – in any world that is touched upon by war. There are subjects such as kidnapping, child soldiers, and the like all within these pages.

War Girls was described to me as a female-focused and futuristic Black Panther novel. And that was more than enough to sell me on this novel. And you know what, it absolutely lived up to that promise.
I know that some people will be intimidated about picking this novel up, thanks to the heavy basis is has on the Nigerian Civil War. I know I personally was a bit overwhelmed at the idea, since I'm not an expert at the subject. But I honestly had no trouble following along and can say that I have a stronger appreciation now, having read this book. So I encourage anybody that is hesitating to just go ahead and give it a try.
War Girls was a beautiful and emotionally compelling book. The story of Onyii and Ify was both beautiful and heartbreaking, eliciting dozens of different emotions from me at any given point. I can't recall the last time I was so invested in the well-being of two characters. These girls felt real to me, it was as if they truly were living, breathing people, and I was desperate to see them through to the end.
This novel will start out in such a way that I found myself immediately sucked into the action. It helps that it started off running – throwing us right into the more intense parts that come with an active war.
The ups and downs in this novel were rough at times, but honestly, that was perfectly suited to a novel that was designed to make us feel the devastation of civil war. There's something eerie and beautiful about that fact. And a bit heartbreaking as well, of course.
War Girls was an amazingly intense read – it may have been a science fiction novel, but it was heavily rooted in real life. And that added weight to the tale – especially in regards to emotions. I know that this is the first in a series, and I'll be curious to see where Onyebuchi takes this tale.

For more reviews check out Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from BookCon 2019 and Razorbill in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

At the beginning, I was absolutely enthralled with War Girls. The first hundred pages hooked me. The characters were interesting and the world building was fascinating. A lot of science fiction coming out these days feels copy/pasted. The language and setting feel the same – that’s not the case with War Girls.

The science fiction in this book was so refreshing. It was sharp and technical enough that it felt modern and real… even though it’s set a century in the future. A lot of sci-fi I’ve read in the last couple years is very comfortable talking about space, but that’s the end of it. Hand-in-hand with space is technology. War Girls has bionic implants, mechs, and advanced weaponry. It doesn’t shy away from technical jargon, and that makes the book feel more immersive.

War Girls centers around a Nigerian-Biafra conflict far in the future. The conflict itself is based on various wars that have devastated the African continent and continue to do so to this day. War is gruesome and unforgiving. The action sequences are intense. There’s death and dismemberment. War Girls is realistic about the affects of war.

Onyii and Ify are great characters, and I was really hoping for an amazing sibling story… but I don’t feel like that’s what happened. In part one, everything flowed perfectly. There are strong characters, emotional attachments, and good stakes. After that, I felt like things got a little muddled. There was a lot of back and forth in time. I wasn’t sure who the author wanted presented as the “good guys” or the “bad guys” in the conflict. There were just a lot of ideas going on at once and not a lot of follow-through on any of them.

I enjoyed certain, specific scenes. There was a piece in the middle where Enyemaka is in the desert, and that’s a great scene. It’s also not relevant to the story, unless it comes to the surface in the next book. War Girls is over 400 pages and the last 60% is very ambling. I understand that there needs to be a level of chaos, and there was an ongoing conflict, but there didn’t seem to be a straight direction for the story. When something happened, it just seemed to incidentally come together. It felt like there was a lot of high tension all the time and nothing really seemed to flip the switch.

War Girls had a lot of starting potential, but the messiness of story as I got further in was a bit of a deterrent for me. While I’m not entirely against picking up the second book when it comes out, I think I will wait to see some reviews, and even then, maybe go the audiobook route. I think it was really original in many ways, and honestly, it started off really good. I’d still recommend giving it a try, if you’re interested in a post-apocalyptic, story with a lot of diverse characters. It didn’t click with me because of the pacing, energy levels, and the writing in the second half of the plot, but I still think it’s a good overall book and I really hope it does well.