Review: Girls of Paper and Fire

Girls of Paper and Fire
Rating: 4/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher! 

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. 

I've been really excited for this book because I can't really name any other fantasy books with an f/f relationship, plus the world sounded incredibly intriguing, and while I wasn't lucky enough to win one at YALC, I did get sent one by the publisher! First things first, I'm gonna have to say TRIGGER WARNING for violence, domestic abuse, animal death and rape. 

The General and the King's soldiers, immediately got my back up, not only because of kidnapping Lei and their general attitude, but I'm not here for a dog death okay. Chapter two in case you want to skip it. It was just uncalled for. It was at that moment that I knew I was going to hate them all. It was also at that moment we met two of the other castes, and I was reminded of certain anime's with beast people! 

The world is really fascinating, as is the history of it and how it all works along with the different castes. I'm not sure what the author's inspiration is and I'm very curious to know because I got a sense of Japan because of certain things, and China because a lot of the names appear to be Chinese. Then again I've been watching a lot of Chinese drama's lately so maybe I'm just looking for things that aren't there! I'm wondering if it's a mashup of both, or if the world is inspired by various different Asian mythologies and cultures. 

Either way, I really enjoyed the world building and the vivid descriptions throughout. I had some aesthetic mental images of various different settings as I was reading, and I loved it! I found myself really pulled in to the world of the book, and the writing was brilliant too. 

I really felt for not just Lei but all of the other girls too, and what they where going through. I was so nervous and on edge, right along with Lei, waiting for her to be called and I was dimly hoping it wouldn't turn out as I was expecting or as it would appear...but that was swiftly shattered...and quite brutally too. 

Lei...she's so determined to protect her family and she's determined not to cower and be weak, I actually feel like she's quite a strong character in her own way, and you get to see her fire a couple of times, particularly at the end. Wren was quite aloof, and she is hiding secrets which doesn't make things easy for she and Lei. She is quite the badass however, and I do understand why she is quite aloof. 

I really enjoyed the supporting cast too, Chenna stood out to me in particular. I really felt like there was more to her like she knew things...or knew something. I can't explain it. I just felt like there was more to her. Zhin and Zhen where fun too, I'd have liked to see more of them. It was nice that the girls weren't all bitchy to each other. They where there for each other and looked out for each other as much as they could. Of course there's an exception in Blue, I wanted to dislike her but mostly I just felt sorry for her. Until the end that is. I did get her though, I got her motivation. Aoki...I liked her at the start but she's so naive, and I get it. She's in love with the King, but she's so...on his side no matter what that it's sickening and I was waiting to see if she'd be a snake or not. I basically didn't trust her for the rest of the book after a certain point. 

I have a favourite character too, but we only see him briefly at the end...my sassy dude Merrin is going to be awesome to get to know in book two! 

As for the romance I really enjoyed how it was done, you could see it building up slowly. The feelings starting to develop, you could see it in the lingering glances, the looks and the little almost offhand comments about how Lei was feeling. It was truly well done, and I ship them so hard. I feel like they make a perfect pair, Wren helps Lei to be strong when she needs her and they obviously have each others backs. I'm really looking forward to seeing more of their relationship, and see how it grows more. 

The pace is quite leisurely as the world is built up for us, along with the context and situation to what the animosity was between the castes. We see Lei get stronger and stronger and everything she has to endure that builds her up in to who she is at the end of the book. We see all the bad parts with how things are run, and what's going wrong. It can be pretty brutal at times. 

The only thing that disappointed me was that there was a chunk of the book where things lagged for me a little bit. Lei didn't really have any particular goal for part of the book, and I wasn't entirely sure where the story was going to go. But the last part of the book had me glued to it. I didn't even know what the time was or how long I'd been reading when I was done. Once I'd stopped screaming at the epilogue that is. Not only was I screeching "NOOOOO" but there where a few curse words too!