3.o/5 stars

While I generally enjoyed my experience reading this book, it doesn't stand out as a new favorite. It included a lot of common tropes in YA fantasy, which is fine, but not all of them were done well in my opinion and there was nothing original enough about the book to make up for it. My biggest problem is that the main character isn't developed enough for how much time we have in her head and she acts in ways that frustrated me as a reader. Some of that is just a product of her situation, which is understandable, but I would have liked to see more layers to her personality and more growth in how she views other people, especially other women. I did like her relationships with Wren and Aoki, but I would have liked to see more development of her relationship with Blue and the rest of the paper girls. I also wanted more information about the other paper girls in general because knowing more about them through a section/chapter in each of their perspectives could have added a lot to the story as a whole.

I thought the world was interesting and fairly original. I'm interested to know more about it, but I think there was enough information to service the rest of the story, even if it didn't have the detail that some other fantasy books have. The writing was engaging enough to keep me reading, but it was a little over dramatic for me at times. The pacing was slow in places, which didn't seem necessary considering how long the book is and how underdeveloped the main character is.

I did overall enjoy reading this and I think I would have loved it when I was younger. I might be growing out of YA fantasy in some ways, but I think someone newer to the genre might enjoy this more, especially if they are looking for f/f representation or East Asian representation in fantasy.