Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan is young adult novel published by James Patterson’s publishing imprint.
Every year eight girls are chosen as paper girls, consorts selected to serve the daemon king. Their only job is to serve the king and obey; the paper girls, once chosen, will live in the palace for the rest of their lives.
Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest members of society. Paper caste’s have no daemon blood in them, they are perfectly human. The Silver caste is the middle class and their appearances may take on some aspects of a daemon. Finally, the Moon caste has control of all of Ikhara. They are powerful and fully daemon.
Seven years ago, the Moon caste guards took Lei’s mother and now they have returned for her–the golden eyed paper girl, a prize for the king. But Lei refuses to give in to her role as a paper girl and over the course of her training at the palace, Lei does the unthinkable… she falls in love.
Now Lei will give everything to fight the daemon king and protect those she loves. But what will she have to give up in order to do it? And will the price be something she is willing to pay?
I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t overly keen to start this one. It’s one I’ve had on my TBR list but I kept putting it off knowing that there would be a fair amount of sexual violence. And there certainly is a fair bit of it. Nothing overly graphic, the majority of the sexual violence happens behind the scenes but we all know it’s happening.
As much as I wasn’t overly keen on the consort plot, I did like the rebellion behind the scenes. I do wish this was built up a little bit more because I feel like this might be a story where a book two was intended but it may not happen. We’ll see.
There was also a nice balance between the paper girls themselves. There was a sense of comradery but also jealousy and wariness. This was well done without too much cattiness.
This one gets 3.5 stars from me. An interesting read but maybe not one for me.
That’s all for now!
-M-