Girls of Paper and Fire

 

Rating: 3 for potential and social justice fantasy

My Thoughts:

This book has the potential to be something I am interested in: non-white author, social injustice, class system (Paper Caste - humans:  then a couple other castes of demons - Moon Caste, Steel Caste), sexual exploitation, violence, oh my. However, as I got further in, the sapphic relationship was awkward. There was more heat with the Moon Caste wolf demon, Kenzo. When Kenzo carries a broken Lei back, say that is not more passion than any other actual relationship encounter. 

I did make it through to the end, and I am reading book 2, but if you want a really good read with similar themes, I would try Saara El-Arifi's The Final Strife. She has similar problems with her book 2, but the love triangle is so much more interesting.  I have also decided that I am not reading book 3, and when I looked up El-Arifi's trilogy, I realize that I did not read her third book either. 

From the Publisher:

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.

Publication Information:

Author: Natasha Ngan

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (Nov 6, 2018)

Print length: 401 pages