*Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan (304 pages) ★★★★Set in a magical fantasy world where there are various castes of people, we follow Lei who is part of the lowest caste, paper, as she is brutally ripped from her hard and unremarkable life with her father to join the group of paper girls who are to become the concubines to the cruel demon king. Lei stands out not only because she's the ninth paper girl when usually there are only eight but also because she has an unusual feature, especially for a paper girl (the caste of people without any magic), her mesmerising golden eyes.
What follows is a tale of not only courtly rituals, power play, caste differences and rebellion but also friendship, camaraderie and forbidden romance. I have read a fair amount of fantasy but I haven't read anything quite like this before especially in terms of the magical asian inspired world and the castes of people who have various animal features depending on their clan and caste. For example, girls with deer antlers, men with lizard scales and others with bull, boar, eagle or tiger features.
One of my favourite things about this read was the world as it managed to be simultaneously rich, detailed, vivid and filled with information but it never felt overly detailed, info-dumpy or confusing. It was an enchanting fantasy read with an easily imagined and wonderfully magical world, vivid characters and fantastic themes of friendship and feminism.
I managed to read exactly half of the book in one day as I didn't want to put it down as it's just so easily consumable, entertaining and absorbing, from the striking part-animal characters, the cruel world of the paper girls and the F/F romance. Even though the paperback I have has fairly small text (which is a pet peeve of mine) it read very quickly and I loved exploring it's exotic, unusual world.
My only negative is the kind of insta-love between Lei and Wren. Some might not view it as insta-love as the book does take place over a few months but because we only see snippets of that time, their relationship felt rushed and with less emotion, in my opinion. Despite that one negative, I would highly recommend this fantastic dark YA fantasy filled with feminism, magic and friendship.
Have you read Girls of Paper and Fire?
*Gifted
This sounds right up my street
ReplyDeletehttps://littlemissmelanie.com/
Sounds like a great summer read. đź’ś
ReplyDeleteWith love, Alisha Valerie x | www.alishavalerie.com
I love it when a book is so consuming you just have to keep reading! x
ReplyDeleteTiffany x www.foodandotherloves.co.uk
I haven't read this but the cover is amazing x
ReplyDeleteJenny
http://www.jennyinneverland.com
The fact that it's detailed without being overwhelming is very appealing! xx
ReplyDeleteI haven't read this no, or a book for a long old time!
ReplyDeleteOoooh this sounds like my kind of book! Definitely going to add this to my to purchase list!
ReplyDeleteLove, Amie ❤
The Curvaceous Vegan
ooh this sounds like a great read - i've only got a couple of chapters of my book left so will look out for this one.
ReplyDeleteEm x
Ooh this sounds right up my street - I'll have to check it out!
ReplyDeleteJasmine xx
Jasmine Talks Beauty
This sounds so good! I think I would love it!
ReplyDeleteErin || MakeErinOver
This sounds like a wonderful read!
ReplyDeleteIf only I could read that much in one sitting! X
ReplyDeleteI am the same with books, I only ask for the ones I really want to read x
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure this is for me but I enjoyed your review.
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