Review – Girls of Paper and Fire (Girls of Paper and Fire, Book 1) by Natasha Ngan (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: jimmy patterson
Release Date: November 6, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0316561365
Stand Alone or Series: 4th book in the Memoirs of Lady Trent series
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“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.”

I got this book in an Owlcrate. This is the first book in the Girls of Paper and Fire series. I didn’t really enjoy this book all that much. I felt like not much happened and it was very slow.

The fantasy world presented was interesting, but the story was lacking. Mostly the book was just boring. For the first 80% of the book you spend a ton of time with a bunch of the King’s new concubines, following them around throughout the day and dealing with the competition between them. Eventually, some rebellion is thrown in but it comes in play pretty late in the book.

I also had trouble engaging with the characters; they just seemed so one-dimensional and shallow and were over characterized. I nearly stopped reading it a couple of times and won’t be continuing the series.

Overall this was another book that was okay but lacking. I really didn’t enjoy it that much. I feel like I’ve been reading a run of rather disappointing YA fantasies here. Not recommended, there are much better YA fantasy books out there.