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War Girls (War Girls, Book 1) by Tochi Onyebuchi

Reading it backwards made it better. ⏪

If you just want to read my review, then scroll down ⬇️. But I’m going to go off on a small tangent here first, because I feel like I should explain myself:

So as previously mentioned, I read this book backwards (literally). I started at the end and read each chapter in reverse order 🤪 (don’t judge me, I had my reasons). Admittedly, this was an experiment. Partially because I was just curious. Primarily because of the way I read, I often find myself rereading previous portions in order to fully understand what I just read. But also, I find that I enjoy books more when I know where they’re going. Not necessarily knowing the ending, but the comfort in knowing that things are happening for a reason, that it’s leading to something, and the writing isn’t just aimless (cough ACOTAR cough).

And honestly, I think I liked it better. If I had read it normally I’d probably be criticizing this book as another unoriginal YA novel trying too hard to be original. In my experience, YA novels are incredibly boring early on. But by starting at the end, all the good parts happened at the “beginning”, and did a much better job of holding my attention “later” in the book. On top of that, it was rather interesting to jump right into the action, and then work backwards to see how they got there (like my own little version of Momento).

*Review*
So yes, this is yet another YA novel riding the coattails of Black Panther. But what I like is that War Girls doesn’t try to hide it, and instead was its intention all along. Between its characters, setting, and advanced technology, War Girls knows that it’s basically copying Black Panther, but to a point were it’s more of an homage than a rip-off.

"She can’t waver now. Not when everything that has happened has finally caught up to her. The murder of her family, her life with the Biafran War Girls, her kidnapping, her time with the Nigerians overseeing the separation of families and the detention of children dubbed “enemy combatants,” her time in prison when she had lived as an accused traitor, her attempted assassination of the person who slaughtered her family. All of it has been leading to this moment."

(Going back to reading it backwards, this segment gave me quite a bit to look “forward” to.)

Just like any other YA fantasy, War Girls is slow in the beginning, predictable in the end, and mediocre as a whole. There’s no x-factor or wow-factor here, and nothing that hasn’t already been done before to make it standout in an already over-saturated genre.

But where I will give it credit is, in comparison to other YA fantasy, War Girls is pretty nonstop. As mentioned in the excerpt, lot happens throughout the story, and they come almost one after another with little downtime in-between. It does a good job of keeping you on edge, but once you get about halfway through is when things really get interesting. Alliances are made and broken, scenes of mass destruction, body augmentation, hover bike chases, and if anything, War Girls offers a unique perspective on futuristic terrorism.

Typically, I don’t recommend reading a book backwards, but I was really curious. I knew what kind of book this was, and knew I wouldn’t have liked normally. It worked out pretty well, but I doubt I’ll be doing it again (except for maybe the sequel, just because 😉).