REVIEW: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

**I received an ARC from the publisher (thank you Jimmy Books!). In no way was I compensated for this review, and these are my honest opinions.**

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Book: Girls of Paper and Fire (Girls of Paper and Fire #1) by Natasha Ngan

Release Date: November 6, 2018

My Rating: 5 stars

Rep: ownvoices Asian-inspired characters and world; wlw protagonist and love interest

CW: violence, sexual abuse

Summary: 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.

Read my review of book two, Girls of Storm and Shadow.

Girls of Paper and Fire was one of my most anticipated books of 2018; I’ve been so excited for it that when I received an ARC, I definitely screamed a little. Yet I put off reading it for a bit because I was scared. You know when you read something that you’ve waited for for so long, and then when you finally read it, it doesn’t live up to your expectations? Yeah, that did not happen with this book. Girls of Paper and Fire lived up to my expectations and then some.

There were two aspects that I was particularly excited for in this book: the Asian-inspired setting and the f/f relationship. I’ll talk about those more separately, but first, generally I’m just so in love with this book.The characters, the writing, the worldbuilding, all of it!

So: the setting. Natasha Ngan is British Chinese Malaysian, so she wrote Ikhara partially based on her experiences when she grew up in Malaysia. And it shows; the care she put into this world is so obvious and so lovely. Also, this book doesn’t only contain East Asian customs; no, it has South and Southeast Asian influences as well, which I loved. People love to call anything “Asian inspired” when it’s really just inspired by East Asian cultures, but this is not the case here.

The romance was something I was especially excited for; f/f relationships are so rare in YA, especially in fantasy. The relationship here, of course, is forbidden but not in the way you’re thinking. Since they’re both Paper Girls, Lei and Wren are not supposed to be involved with anyone else because they belong to the Emperor. It’s not forbidden because they’re both girls, and I loved the normalization of these feelings. Lei never questions her attraction to Wren; she just knows, and I think we need more of this normalization in books.

However, I will say this is a story that you should be cautious with, especially if you are triggered by violence and sexual assault. Girls of Paper and Fire is centered around these girls who are essentially forced to be concubines; Lei herself has no choice in the matter and there is one very triggering scene in particular. I found myself heavy with dread with some scenes, so please please know content warnings for violence, sexual abuse, sexual assault, and offscreen rape.

Fashion, food, mythology, all aspects of this book create such an atmosphere in the worldbuilding. Combine that with Ngan’s writing itself, and you get such a lovely, breathtaking, magical, exquisite gem of a book. Preorder this book today, add it to your tbr lists, support it in any way that you can!

Here are some artsy things I did because I love this book so much!

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About the Author: Natasha Ngan is part young-adult author, part yoga-teacher, part habitual nap-taker. She grew up between Malaysia and the UK, speaking Chinese with her mother mainly as a way to talk about people without them understanding. She studied Geography at the University of Cambridge and later worked as a fashion blogger, social media consultant and freelance writer.

Natasha recently moved to Paris, where she likes to imagine she drifts stylishly from brasserie to brasserie, notepad in one hand and wineglass in the other. In reality, she mostly spends her time lost on the metro and offending locals with her French.

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