Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

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 cruel.

But this year, there's a ninth girl. And instead of paper, she's made of fire.

In this lush fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most oppressed class in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards still haunts her. Now, the guards are back, and this time it's Lei they're after--the girl whose golden eyes have piqued the king's interest.

Over weeks of training in the opulent but stifling palace, Lei and eight other girls learn the skills and charm that befit being a king's consort. But Lei isn't content to watch her fate consume her. Instead, she does the unthinkable--she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens the very foundation of Ikhara, and Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide just how far she's willing to go for justice and revenge.

TW: violence and sexual abuse

This book is such a dark book and doesn’t shy away from talking about very deep and triggering stuff. I was surprised each time something insane happened in the story because I had never read about those topics in detail in a YA story. I would have expected to somewhere else in the book world ( adult, etc.) but seeing all those intense scenes right after each other made me shudder. I did have some criticisms with some parts of the story ( I disliked the main character for most of the book) but I did understand where her characterization was coming from and I still respected her and her actions. I have read some reviews about Lei and there are a many who have the same opinion as me. That opinion is the fact that Lei is not really an active character and there is no endearing thing about her that can lead the reader to engage with her. I had actually engaged more with. One review that I read even stated that Lei was a Mary Sue (AND I COULDN”T AGREE WITH HER MORE). I had actually fallen in love with Wren and her character arc more and I wish we had followed Wren instead. As much as I would like to talk about a f/f romance, I really wish this book was written tonally different.

Spoilers: Wren’s backstory is so intriguing that I wish that we had followed Wren from when she was a child to the Demon King’s palace. I also wish that if that happened, Wren would get a love interest (female of course) who was infinitely more relatable than Lei was.

I also wish that we saw more of the world as we followed Wren along on her journey. I did see the ending for GOPAF and how there is some inkling of the rest of the world, but as the first book of the series I expected more “infodumping” about the world the story was set in ( AND MORE POLITICS INSTEAD OF DANCING CLASSES).

Please feel talk about the book in the comments if you have read it. I would like to see your opinions about this book and the future of this series.