Speculative Fiction Set in Africa: War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi (Spoiler-Free Review)

Welcome back to Musings of an Arthritic Artist!

 

Today I'm going to be reviewing a book I had checked out from my local library to read during quarantine.

That book is War Girls by Tochi Onyebuchi.

This review will be spoiler-free.

Without further ado, let's get into the review!

War Girls is told from the perspectives of two characters. Two "adopted" sisters named Onyii and Ify. The interesting thing about the perspectives is that they are in third-person. This might not seem like anything different, because there are dozens of YA stories told from third-person (I can think of at least 10 that I've read in the last few years). 

What makes this interesting is the tense it's told from. Every book I've read is either first-person present, first-person past, or third-person past (whether or not it's limited or omniscient is irrelevant). Instead, War Girls is told in present tense. This is the first sentence: 

"The first thing Onyii does every morning is take off her arm."

To me, this is one of many things that sets War Girls apart from other YA books I've read/started.

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I feel as if War Girls is the kind of book you need to be in the mood for. Some books you can read whenever, while others you have to feel a certain way or be in the mood for a certain thing, and to me, this is one of those books. 

This isn't a YA book you would pick up because it's lighthearted. In a book titled War Girls, I'd hope you wouldn't assume that this is a lighthearted read. It's a speculative fiction YA novel that takes place in 2172, but is meant to tell a partial history of the Nigerian Civil War/Biafran War/Nigerian-Biafran War that began in 1967 and ended in 1970. I say partial because it is still fiction, and Tochi Onyebuchi took inspiration from other aspects of African history, as mentioned in the Author's Note.

I don't think the writing style is for everyone. I found it very interesting and different, which is why I didn't rate this book low because it wasn't what I was used to. 

This book--at least for me--had many things going for it. The cover is gorgeous, there are siblings (adopted or not, it doesn't matter--I tend to love them all), it was separated into parts (makes it easier to read a section), and it falls under Fantasy (even though it leans more toward a full-on sci-fi route). War Girls also covers many topics, such as the effects of war, sisterhood, family (blood and not-blood related), country corruption, and child soldiers.

It even has characters that I enjoyed (a few being female, which is a rarity for me). Personally, my favorite character was Agu. He was just so sweet, and I loved him. 

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I had already known what the basic plot of this book was months before I decided to check this out. What I didn't know about was the historical inspiration behind it. I had known because months before I had seen this book listed as a giveaway on Goodreads. I read the synopsis and decided to enter it. On the giveaway, it was marketed as a "futuristic, Black Panther-inspired Nigeria," so I was immediately interested. I enjoyed watching Black Panther with my sister, and have since read some of the comics.

I had this on my want-to-read shelf on Goodreads for a while. A few days before we went to the library, we wrote on sheets of paper the books we thought seemed interesting by looking at the online library catalog. I had three and a half sheets of wide ruled paper with books written on them. I had separated them into my "priority/ideal" list by a star system. 

Zero stars meant that it could wait. One was that I was somewhat interested, but it wasn't a must at that moment. Two meant that I'd ideally like to pick it up. Three was the highest. If a book was labeled with three, it was a priority. I was in the mood for it, it sounded interesting, and I really really want to read it.

War Girls fell under this category. The only problem was that when I looked at the YA section under Onyebuchi, I couldn't find it. Luckily, I found it on display in the YA section. I don't remember why it was on display, but it was, so I picked it up.

Honestly, this book was a pleasant surprise. I expected to like it, but I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. I picked this up a few times to read it, but I never got far. Finally, I decided to get farther. Our library books had been due with zero renewals left, and I knew that if I didn't finish any of the other books we checked out, I had to finish War Girls.

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This book is a relatively quick read, however the middle is a tiny bit on the slower side. The time jumps between parts might confuse and annoy some readers. I think that if you enjoy Black Panther, speculative fiction, sci-fi, and YA, you might enjoy this. It's a very different kind of speculative fiction novel than some other books I've seen. It covers a very different time in history, one that takes place in Africa. 

There are quite a bit of Nigerian words sprinkled in here and there (Igbo and Yoruba), which I thought was intriguing. There are also racial slurs used for both groups on either side of the war, however they are written in Nigerian, which I also found different. 

Overall, I really enjoyed War Girls, and gave it a rating of 5 stars. I thought it was interesting, it had some history of Nigeria in a futuristic setting (which I found fascinating), and it felt very Black Panther-esque. I could see myself re-reading this at a future time.

That does it for my review of War Girls! I hope you enjoyed this post!

See you next week,

Lexi K🖌