Review of Warrior Girl by Matt Lazar and Amanda Thomas
I received a copy of this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Sun Hi has traveled from Korea to Oxford University where her family has sacrificed and saved to send her. Her goal is to get the best education she can while there so she can return home and help her family. The second she steps off the train she catches the eye of Miles, captain of the Oxford rowing team three years in a row. Of course, Miles isn’t the only rower with eyes for Sun Hi
Filled with the traditional story lines of a girl transplanted from her country into one she is not totally sure how to live in. Sun Hi is unsure of social cues or how to act in certain situations and is ill-equipped to handle the highly competitive atmosphere of Oxford University. In addition, Sun Hi instantly makes an enemy of the well-off Japanese student in her major simply because of her nationality and her struggle with this rival almost ruins her first year of college.
Lazar and Thomas have a simple, plain prose writing style (as any other review posted about this book has stated). It’s effective and gives an element of reality to the story that makes it feel less like fiction and more like you’re simply seeing the life of a young girl in her first year of college. Sun Hi is a believable character, but doesn’t quite live up to her title of “warrior girl”. In fact, Sun Hi almost never fights her own battles in the real world, but instead is lucky enough to have several friends willing to fight her battles for her. I’m not very familiar with the Korean culture, so I’m not sure if this passivity is simply part of a culture I’m not familiar with, but it became frustrating to see Sun Hi simple step back and let the world run her over. Still, the story of Sun Hi’s friendships were charming enough to keep her a likable character and I was interested in how Sun Hi’s story would play out.
The element of the book I was most disappointed with was the World of Warcraft addiction. I’m not sure what I expected from the synopsis, but WoW really doesn’t add much to the story. Sun Hi plays it, a few of the other characters play it, but that’s about the extent of it. Even the climactic scene where Sun Hi decides she’s no longer going to be a cleric but become a warrior isn’t as strong or plot driving as I’d hoped.
I did enjoy the book overall. It’s a short, charming read about a girl trying to find her place in the world, but even with the short appearance of a dead body there’s little more to the novel than a coming-of-age story. Inspite of her flaws I did find myself rooting for Sun Hi and I was interested to see how her story would end. Lazar and Thomas have written a story that’s simple and sweet, but not much more.
