Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Girls of Paper and Fire #1
Publisher: Jimmy Patterson Books
Publication: November 6th, 2018
Rating: 3.5 Stars??
Source: Audible
Format: Audiobook
Pages: 400
Summary (from Goodreads):
Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It's the highest honor they could hope for...and the most demeaning. This year, there's a ninth. And instead of paper, she's made of fire.
In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back and this time it's Lei they're after -- the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king's interest.
Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learns the skills and charm that befit a king's consort. There, she does the unthinkable -- she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world's entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.
Trigger warnings for rape, sexual assault, and animal death.
Girls of Paper and Fire follows Lei, a girl with golden eyes, who is taken from her village and forced to become one of the Demon King's Paper girls, or basically one of his teenage concubines.
Usually there are only eight Paper girls chosen, but Lei was taken from her village by a disgraced general who wanted to redeem himself with the Demon King. So she was kidnapped and made to be the ninth Paper girl, I think mostly because of her eyes and the fact that golden eyes are supposed to be lucky and the Demon King is superstitious.
Based on the synopsis, I thought that her being the ninth Paper girl was going to be more important than it felt to me. I also thought the "fire" part was going to be bigger, but this could all be me not paying close enough attention to the audiobook. Also, the golden eyes, for as much as they were talked about in the beginning of the book, didn't feel like that big of a deal.
So, in Ikhara, there are three types of people. Regular humans are known as the paper caste, they are the bottom class. Steel caste people are half demon and half human. And then the Moon caste people are full demons and they are the ruling class.
When Lei is forced into life as a Paper girl, she follows along dutifully with most everything she has to do because the general who took her said that if she didn't, her family would pay. She eventually kind of settles into life with the other Paper girls because she is hoping that she will be able to find her mother, who was taken from her village in a similar fashion seven years earlier. She makes friends with the girls and goes to her classes and does what is asked of her.
Until the first time she is called to the king's bedroom. When her name is on the paper that the king sends, she is taken to her first ye (?? I'm not sure, I listened to the audiobook) lesson, basically a sex lesson so she will have an idea of what to expect with the king.
So, overall, I do think that I liked this book, but I'm not 100% sure what I think of it. I think part of it is because I listened to the audiobook while I was doing other things.
I don't know what I think of Lei. I don't actively dislike her, but I don't think I really actively like her either. She rebels against her role as a concubine by refusing the king because this isn't what she wants for herself. Which, I respect that. But I didn't like how she treated other girls who maybe embraced their position for whatever reason. They had no choice, maybe the actually found that they enjoyed it, they didn't want the punishments that came with refusing. Particularly the way she talked to her friend Aoki.
I liked the romance. Lei and another one of the Paper girls end up falling in love. I liked how Lei realized what her feelings were when she was at her first ye lesson and the instructor, Zelle, told her to just imagine during their lesson that she was with the person that she had feelings for instead of imagining the king. I liked how the girls relationship progressed. I feel like the only thing I didn't really like in this regard was how it felt like Lei was kind of demanding some of the other girl's secrets? I don't know.
I feel like not a lot really happened in this book? Which, of course, so many of my problems could amount to how much attention I was able to give the audio at any given time. But it felt like she got taken, then there was a lot of stuff with the Paper girl business, then some stuff about a rebellion thrown in at the end. I don't really feel like Lei was qualified enough to be given as much of an opportunity to participate in this rebellion as she was. She had like five minutes of training at the end and then was forced into a main role.
The more I write in this review, the less I feel like I should be reviewing it at this point, honestly.
One thing I really didn't like about this book was how one girl was repeatedly described as "feline". As having "feline" features and whatever else. I could see that as being something to describe her once or twice, but after a certain point, I kept forgetting that she was a Paper girl and not a Steel or Moon caste cat form demon.
And one thing that I thought throughout this book (as someone who is absolutely not the target audience) was that it could possibly benefit from being NA or adult even. It is a book entirely about a group of girls who are chosen to be the king's concubines, who are called one by one to his bedroom, and who have sex lessons every time they are chosen by the king. Girls sneak off with lovers. For a book that is so centered around people having sex, I feel like the story would have benefitted from not having to be so fade-to-black.
But once again, I am not the target audience for this and am probably projecting the types of things I want to find out there to read.
So, when I finished this book, I was like, "Yes! This was so good!" And while, I still feel like I liked it, the more I think about it, the more the details are fuzzy (I only just finished it two days ago), and I just feel like I am confused. I will absolutely be continuing on with the series because I am curious to see what happens next. But I will definitely benefit from a physical re-read of this book. Also, the covers are goooorgeous.
This is 100% why I tend to prefer audiobooks for rereads. I always feel like I get more from the original story, with this I just feel confused at this point. What a great starting point for hopping back into reviews! Love this for me. I feel like you can just see where things started going downhill in my head.
Have you read this book? What did you think of it?
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