I’m ashamed to admit that I went into reading WAR GIRLS knowing almost nothing about the Nigerian Civil War that ravaged the country in the late 1960s, following a declaration of secession and resulting in the displacement and death by famine of countless millions.
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I held my breath through much of this book. It’s the story of two sisters, Onyii and Ify, who find each other on opposite sides of a devastating war, and explores the way violence ripples through lives, particularly those of children — innocents who should never have to watch their families die in front of them or be taught to hold guns bigger than they are. It is brutal, action-packed, and heartbreaking, and it is a masterpiece. It takes an author of great skill to instill such hope, love, and humanity into a topic of such intimate emotional pain, as a child of a mother who survived the civil war that inspired the book.
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I held my breath through much of this book. It’s the story of two sisters, Onyii and Ify, who find each other on opposite sides of a devastating war, and explores the way violence ripples through lives, particularly those of children — innocents who should never have to watch their families die in front of them or be taught to hold guns bigger than they are. It is brutal, action-packed, and heartbreaking, and it is a masterpiece. It takes an author of great skill to instill such hope, love, and humanity into a topic of such intimate emotional pain, as a child of a mother who survived the civil war that inspired the book.