Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan @girlinthelens @jimmy_books #bookreview #fantasy #YA

Title: Girls of Paper and Fire

Author: Natasha Ngan

Publisher: jimmy patterson

Publication Date: November 6, 2018

Page Count: 400

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

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 demeaning. This year, there’s a ninth. And instead of paper, she’s made of fire.

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan is a young adult fantasy read that again I must stress should be for the more mature audience. There are several things included in this one that deserve a bit of warning before picking it up, violence, slavery, abuse, rape along with animal cruelty.

Natasha Ngan’s world she’s created consists of three different levels to the society known as castes. First we have the Paper caste which are the lowest in the world of Ikhara, this caste consists of the humans which includes the main character Lei of the story. Then we have the Steel caste which consists of a cross between humans and demons. And then there is the Moon caste which are fully demon including the King that rules Ikhara.

Lei was born with brilliant golden eyes which set her apart from other humans and draws the attention of the Demon guards who kidnapped her away from her family to take her as an offering to the King. Every year eight girls are taken to become the Paper Girls and served up as concubines to the King but this year Lei has become number nine.

Now, the idea of a group of lower class citizens being taken is not a new one in young adult at all. This story reminded me of the darker edge of the Hunger Games being mixed into The Selection. When we have demons ruling the world within obviously things are not pretty but with the girls being taken to compete against one another for a promised better life serving the King you have that vibe of the Selection with some friendship, some cattiness and Ngan went one step further with a love interest among the girls.

Now one may ask why bother if the story is similar to others? Well, the world is certainly different and oozing with darkness so as much as I did have those reminders I still felt as if I were dropped into something new too. Lei was the new Katniss or girl on fire who didn’t want to just go along with what was expected which leads to a deeper plot as the story goes on which certainly had my interest. With the imagery and pacing being spot on I flew right through this one so I do think readers will enjoy the dark and dangerous vibe.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online: 

Goodreads  /   Amazon

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, but in reality she mostly spends her time lost on the metro and offending locals with her French.