War Girls
The War Girls series, Book 1
Tochi Onyebuchi
Razorbill
Fiction, YA Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: 2172 Nigeria lays split by civil war, even as the world suffers the worst effects of disasters natural and human engineered: those nations who haven't the resources to spread to space colonies must contend with rising sea levels and vast swaths of land so irradiated that mere minutes of exposure corrodes machinery and induces cancer. At a hidden camp of girl soldiers deep in the jungle, Onyii does her best to look out for young Ify, shielding her from the worst hardships of their lives and even building an android to keep watch over the girl when she goes out on scavenging raids. Though not of the same blood, they are close as sisters. But when their camp is discovered and attacked, the two girls are torn apart. Ify finds herself "rescued" by Nigerian forces, who insist she's really Nigerian and was abducted by "savage" Ibo rebels. Onyii, left for dead, only barely survives. Convinced that Ify was killed, she uses her rage to become the most feared mech pilot and warrior of the fledgling Ibo nation of Biafra. As the years pass, the war rages on, and atrocities mount, it's only a matter of time before their paths cross again... but will they still be war sisters, or will they be the deadliest of enemies?
REVIEW: Inspired by the 1960's civil war that rocked Nigeria (one the government tends to deny or gloss over, even as the tensions that led to it, with roots in colonial exploitation, still simmer and threaten to explode again), War Girls offers a harsh examination of the physical and psychological costs of war, nationalism, mineral exploitation, and foreign indifference. The future war may be fought with giant mechs and borderline-sapient androids, with people who are partly mechanical as often as not, but the devastation remains the same, lives blown apart and holes carved in hearts for causes that rarely, if ever, honor the sacrifices made, let alone repay those who made them. Onyii was at one time a true believer, who ran away from school to become a soldier for Biafra, but even by the time the story starts she's become scarred and more jaded, driven to defend what innocence she can in young Ify. Battle becomes an addiction, a way to deal with loss and anger, until she finally has to ask herself just what she has become, and if that's all she ever will be. The younger girl is a technological prodigy, the kind of child who could someday change the world... if she didn't live in a war-torn nation, if she'd never lost her family or picked up a gun, if the world ever gave her a chance to be herself and not what others make her into. Separated, they find themselves in vastly different circumstances but with some unnerving similarities, both becoming symbols and tools and both having to come to terms with the fact that the nations they pledge loyalty and love to offer no reciprocation of the deal. The tale is intense and fast-paced, with many battles and betrayals and losses and sacrifice. Toward the end is a somewhat plot convenient encounter, plus there's a loose thread or two I wish had been followed up on (one in particular), but overall I enjoyed it, and will probably be looking for the next installment eventually.
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