“Two sisters are torn apart by war and must fight their way back to each other”

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RATING:

⭐️⭐️⭐️

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SYNOPSIS:

The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much fo earth unlovable. 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.

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REVIEW:

Before beginning my review I just want to thank Dark Room Tours, Penguin Teen and Tochi Onyebuchi for allowing me to be part of the blog tour for this gorgeous book. I am so grateful for the opportunity.

I was so excited to receive this book and dive in. I read War Girls in its entirety on the plane to and from Barcelona (2 hours each way from the UK). I could not wait to dive in. My perception of strong warrior girls in a sci-fi like world just really called out to me as being original and so exciting.

The first 100 pages of this book was so exciting and action packed, so much happened that I just wanted to carry on reading. However, the action really did have an impact on the story as for me there was a lack of character and world building in that crucial stage of the book. A lot of the time I had no clue what was happening and I feel like a little bit more explanation would have helped me with this.

I really enjoyed the fact that this book was based around the Nigerian Civil War. I did not know anything about this before reading the book and since reading the book I have had the urge to research this topic more as I find it really interesting. I have never read a book based on this era before, and I love the twist around a historical event happening in the future. I’m not sure I have read anything quite like War Girls before.

I also enjoyed the diverse nature of this book, having strong women of colour in any book is a very rare occasion  and I definitely believe that there should be more of this in the book community. Tochi really drew attention to this and thrived on it, he really did complement the characters.

I really feel that this book needed a glossary. I’m still unsure of certain terms that were used throughout and the vast amount of characters really didn’t help with this. A glossary would have made it easier for me to relate to the story as I could have skipped to find out exactly who/what the author was talking about. It probably would have added to my enjoyment of this book as I found myself frustrated.

These characters were so strong and independent but I feel that the character development really lacked which stopped me from building up a relationship with them. I didn’t feel much of a connection meaning that the ending didn’t effect me as much as was desired. I think if more development had occurred I may have loved this book a lot more than I thought.

I am intrigued to read more by this author. On the whole I did quite enjoy it however based on the premise I believe it could have been a lot more than it was.