War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi

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.

Reviewed by readingwithwrin on

5 of 5 stars

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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.

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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!

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 23 November, 2019: Finished reading
  • 23 November, 2019: Reviewed