Review - "Girls of Paper and Fire"

Girls of Paper and Fire
by Natasha Ngan
rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
published: 6th November 2018
spoilers? no

Goodreads

I know it now with a certainty that has fitted into the lost core at the heart of me, as hard and angular as my hope was soft and shimmering. The King will not have me.

Galley provided by publisher

TW for sexual assault/sex slavery, rape, violence

A good f/f fantasy novel, with a well-paced plot and good writing was starting to seem like some kind of mythical creature before I read this book. Too often, it felt like the focus was more on almost forcing a relationship rather than developing a good plot and letting the relationship build up of its own accord. That is definitely not the case here.

Girls of Paper and Fire tells the story of Lei, who is taken from her village to become a Paper Girl, a pleasure slave to the Demon King. Paper Girls are not allowed to take lovers, let alone fall in love, but it's in the Women's Court that Lei starts to fall for one of the girls alongside her.

One of the things I loved most about this book was the writing. I read Natasha Ngan's debut novel a while back, around the time it first got released I think, and I wasn't the biggest fan of the writing, I'll admit, (as well as the fact that the main character wouldn't stop crying) but the improvement between then and now feels astronomical (although bearing in mind I don't have that good a memory of the writing and it's probably coloured by my frustration with the main character). It's the perfect mix of description and action, setting the scene well, but also keeping everything moving when need be.

Tied into this is the plot. Sometimes, with fantasy books, particularly first books in series, it feels like the plot can drag a little in the middle. Either because there's overly elaborate worldbuilding or because a lot of time is spent getting to know the characters before the Big Moment happens at the end. Especially when there's some kind of lessons going on, it seems like those can make a book drag a lot. Not so in this one. I was never bored by the book, through a combination of great writing, likeable characters, and enough action happening that all I felt was increasing tension as Natasha Ngan ratcheted up the stakes.

Finally, the characters. They're all such good characters, even though not all of them are the good guys - they're still all complex. I particularly loved Lei and Wren, but also the more side characters of the other Paper Girls like Aoki and even Blue for a little bit. Heck, Natasha Ngan also had me feeling sorry for the goddamn Demon King for a hot minute (before I returned to my senses). I loved them, and I loved their relationships. Especially the one between Lei and Wren. It just felt so natural and normalised, even though in this fantasy world, there's a lot of misogyny and women aren't thought of as sexual beings outside of their relationship with men (although m/m relationships are mentioned as being not rare). That was probably my favourite thing about the book, that it makes the whole act of women loving women so natural. (Not to say that other f/f books make it feel unnatural, but there are just some that get it more than others.)

A brief point to end: this is a very heavy book at points. The whole concept is based on sex slavery, but there are scenes of gendered violence (including a non-graphic rape scene and a scene where someone is branded), and also general implications of sexual assault throughout. So that is something to be aware of.

But, overall, I think this is one of the best books I've read this year (and I've read over 300 at this point, so). And it's definitely one everyone should be preordering or preparing to read on 6th November.