1) Girls of Paper and Fire ★★★★


SapphicAThon: read a book by an author of colour


content warnings: discussions of past sexual assault, trauma related to sexual assault, self-harm (blood magic), violence, death, loss of a loved one, gaslighting, manipulation
representation: entirely Asian cast, Asian lesbian main characters with PTSD, f/f main relationship, mlm Asian main characters, m/m side relationships

I hate that it feels like all my reviews lately have started with "I'm conflicted about this book", but goddamn, I'm conflicted about this book. Girls of Paper and Fire, despite being read early in the year, was a highlight of 2019 and I was hoping its sequel would be the same. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't awful by any means, just underwhelming and nowhere near as spectacular as the first book. A lot of my good feelings toward this book are entirely because I love the first one so much, which is why I've ultimately decided to give it a similar rating.

Without spoiling the first book, Girls of Storm and Shadow follows Lei and Wren after everything that happened and the journey they must go on to seek freedom from both the oppressive society the Demon King has created and the emotional scars he has left.

My biggest knock against this book is that it feels pretty generic in a way the first didn't. Girls of Paper and Fire was an incredible fantasy about a group of diverse, complicated women and their different experiences of all being the concubines of one abusive tyrant told through the eyes of one of them. It was a gentle romance between two women set in stark contrast with the harsh, abusive environment around them. Its worldbuilding wasn't great but its characters were so clearly defined and three-dimensional that I never cared.

Girls of Storm and Shadow, though, leans far more heavily into the fantasy aspects, something which isn't inherently bad, but Natasha Ngan's writing style often feels too modern and it clashes with the world. There are many times when a group of characters will be talking and it feels straight out of a contemporary. That also wouldn't be inherently bad if it were at all consistent, but whenever we're in Lei's head as she thinks about something or describes somewhere the writing transitions to lush prose with words only found in fantasies and historical fiction. It's been too long since I've read Girls of Paper and Fire to remember with complete certainty whether that book had the same issue, but from my memory it had a much more traditional YA high fantasy style of writing that you would find in a Leigh Bardugo or Roshani Chokshi book.

Easily my least favourite thing about this book, though, were the few chapters where we switch to another characters POV. It only happens a few times, each time a different character, and I thought they were utterly useless. Almost all of it was information we could get while staying in Lei's perspective, whether in this book or the next. In general I'm not a giant fan of authors changing perspectives midway through series (hello, Veronica Roth) but this example felt especially useless.

Outside of the general writing style, the plot also just follows similar beats other YA I've read. The beginning feels very similar to Mockingjay; starting in medias res a few weeks after the first book with the protagonist doing something, then returning to their new home where they've become a symbol of a rebellion with a strange nickname. Then, as the main cast of characters begin to embark on a quest it started to remind me of She-Ra season 1 as they appeal to other clans in an attempt to get them to support the rebels. This was easily my favourite section as I am always a sucker for a quest. The third section is the ending of every epic YA fantasy I've ever read, with some characters dying and new, mysterious characters being introduced and several battles taking place, ultimately ending in a cliffhanger.

The first book wasn't the most original thing I'd ever read, but Ngan's decision to set her YA high fantasy novel almost entirely in one place from a perspective we rarely get set it apart from the rest of the pack. And while Girls of Storm and Shadow is still better than most middle entries in trilogies I've read (namely because it actually moves the plot forward unlike most others), it is far less memorable.

I unfortunately also found the main characters we're introduced to pretty forgettable. Don't get me wrong, I liked them all, there are just very few of them who I think I'll remember a week from now. The only ones who made any true impression on me were Nitta and Merrin, and neither hold a candle to most of the other Paper Girls in the first book. The rest I thought were fine, except for Shifu Caen and Lova, both who actively annoyed me. They're meant to be prickly characters, but I found Caen to be so useless throughout most of the book and Lova's function in the plot kind of infuriated me.

You may be reading this review, hearing me talk about almost exclusively negative things, and wonder why I gave it 3.5 stars that I've rounded up to a four. Here's the thing: I still love Lei and Wren so much. They infuriated me a little in this book, but in ways I really enjoyed, and their growing romance gave me so many feelings that I couldn't help but be happy anytime they were together. This feeling lessened as the book went on, but those first 250 or so pages with them was absolutely wonderful.

Asides from that, I do ultimately just enjoy this world despite my many gripes with it. The cliffhanger at the end is predictable but incredibly effective and I'm excited to see how this trilogy is going to conclude.

This book has gotten a surprisingly mixed response so I can't honestly say if you would enjoy it if you liked the first book, but I think that if you at least have a strong affection for Lei and Wren you could definitely get something out of this. And if you still haven't read Girls of Paper and Fire then you definitely should because it's truly fantastic.


sometime in 2019

Update: NEVER MIND, THEY SOMEHOW MADE IT EVEN P R E T T I E R, HOLY SHIT.