Was going to be 4.5 stars; -.25 for the climax and ending, which I felt veered sharply into cliche-land. 

The writing drew me in almost immediately; as the story went on some awkward phrasing (minor grammatical issues, which I couldn’t help but notice because I’m super pedantic: most noteworthy, the use of “castes” to denote both societal standings and the people belonging to them, ie, “Paper castes” to refer to a group of humans, which I don’t think is correct but I’m hardly an expert) began to show, but it still had plenty of lyrical moments. 

The mix of Asian inspiration is unlike anything I’ve seen before — saris, cheongsams, and ruquns; castes, honorifics, place and character names; origami, etc — and I think it works really well to convey a universality of experience (as mentioned in the acknowledgements) as well as serving as a uniquely vivid setting that manages to be exciting without exoticizing/mysticizing its cultural origins. My only issue was when characters would drop a really profound-sounding statement and contextualize it as “a famous/ancient saying”; it felt a little excessive and reminded me of the “Confucius say” meme. 

The characters are all distinct, memorable, and complex; the majority are sympathetic, which I liked — everyone’s the hero(ine) of their own story, and everyone has more going on than you may realize. Sometimes Lei does really stupid and/or naive things, but for the most part her empathy and open mind redeem her for having been somewhat sheltered (apart from the one trauamtic part of her backstory). The romance didn’t come out of nowhere, but it developed in leaps and bounds, which isn’t something I’ve seen a lot in YA but can personally relate to, and which seems to fit with their situation. I thought it was interesting that 

Lei goes almost immediately from “I’ve never seen a pair of female lovers” to “I love Wren, this can’t be wrong except for the fact that we’re Paper Girls”, but it doesn’t always have to be an angsty self-searching transition and the alternative probably would’ve just been annoying

. 

The premise actually reminds me a little bit of a story I was writing years ago, though one might argue the setting and characters make the novel what it is. Either way, I really enjoyed exploring this world and meeting its inhabitants. (Still, I’ve been more into standalones lately, so I’m not positive I’ll pick up the sequel if there is one — the epilogue seems to have been setting it up and it’s listed as the first in a series, but it’ll depend on what approach future books decide to take.)