A Review of Natasha Ngan’s Girls of Fate and Fury (Jimmy Patterson, 2021).
Posted by:
![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1491408111i/22407843.png)
samhiggins
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Sam Higgins
Here we are with the review for Natasha Ngan’s Girls of Fate and Fury (Jimmy Patterson, 2021), the final installment in this trilogy! Let’s move over to that very pithy marketing blurb:
“The final pages of Girls of Storm and Shadow brought a jaw-dropping conclusion that had the fates of Lei and Wren hanging in uncertainty. But one thing was certain - the Hidden Palace was the last place that Lei would ever consider home. The trauma and tragedy she suffered behind those opulent walls would plague her forever. She could not be trapped there with the sadistic king again, especially without Wren...The last Lei saw of the girl she loved, Wren was fighting an army of soldiers in a furious battle to the death. With the two girls torn apart and each in terrorizing peril, will they find each other again or have their destinies diverged forever?”
Lei is trapped back at the Demon King’s Palace, while Wren is figuring out how to forge ahead with the plan to depose the Demon King. Naturally, Ngan has to bifurcate the narrative perspectives, so we get Lei’s standard first person (my favorite just because I always find this viewpoint style to be immersive) and then Wren’s third person. Ngan basically has to figure out a way to get the two back together, so Wren’s section really deals with how she is rallying the troops together to try to get enough military support to take over the Demon King. Lei’s part involves just trying to stay alive.
The only benefit of being back in the Palace is that she’s back with the other surviving Paper Girls from book one, so we’re treated to the reunion with Chenna, Zhen, Zhin, Aoki, and Blue. Aoki is the real issue here because she’s basically become smitten with the Demon King and actually finds Lei’s presence there to be an issue because Lei has become a rival. The Demon King has not killed Lei because she’s become known around the kingdom as the moonchosen, and so it’s important to have her in his orbit for the larger support of others. Lei is eventually forced to become a pawn in the Demon King’s quest to retain power. In this process, she finds out that the Demon Queen has become pregnant. The issue is that she’s as much of a prisoner as Lei and the paper girls are, so Lei realizes that she not only has to save the paper girls but the Demon Queen as well. Eventually, the climactic battle occurs, with Wren trying to breach the Palace, and Lei leading an internal revolution from within the Palace. In this process, a number of lives are lost. Most notably, Chenna is killed, which leaves a lasting mark on Lei.
On Wren’s side, Merrin ends up sacrificing himself. Shifu Caen is killed by Lei so that he can avoid being tortured further. Finally, Ketai Hanno ends up dying in the final major battle. I was glad for a character like Nitta to make it, and if I have one beef about this series, it’s that so many of the minor ally characters end up dying. Even Nitta undergoes significant harm, as she becomes paralyzed. Fittingly, Lei gets to kill the Demon King, and readers will cheer at this moment. Ngan also takes a decent amount of time wrapping up storylines, which I very much appreciated. Ngan doesn’t treat the paper girls as discardable characters. In fact, we see that they develop a kind of alternative family in the wake of leaving the Palace, with all of them choosing to be together. The other issue is the reconciliation between Lei and Wren. Given all that they have been through and Wren’s sometimes questionable decision-making (e.g., taking the life of someone to fuel her magic), their relationship has been on the rocks. Ngan takes time to figure out how to make this reconnection feel earned. The best thing about these YA trilogies is that they ultimately try to imagine a more just future. Even as some may cast aside these books as lowbrow entertainment, their political messages seem ever more important in these turbulent times.
Buy the Book Here
comments
samhiggins
Written by Stephen Hong Sohn
Edited by Sam Higgins
Here we are with the review for Natasha Ngan’s Girls of Fate and Fury (Jimmy Patterson, 2021), the final installment in this trilogy! Let’s move over to that very pithy marketing blurb:
“The final pages of Girls of Storm and Shadow brought a jaw-dropping conclusion that had the fates of Lei and Wren hanging in uncertainty. But one thing was certain - the Hidden Palace was the last place that Lei would ever consider home. The trauma and tragedy she suffered behind those opulent walls would plague her forever. She could not be trapped there with the sadistic king again, especially without Wren...The last Lei saw of the girl she loved, Wren was fighting an army of soldiers in a furious battle to the death. With the two girls torn apart and each in terrorizing peril, will they find each other again or have their destinies diverged forever?”
Lei is trapped back at the Demon King’s Palace, while Wren is figuring out how to forge ahead with the plan to depose the Demon King. Naturally, Ngan has to bifurcate the narrative perspectives, so we get Lei’s standard first person (my favorite just because I always find this viewpoint style to be immersive) and then Wren’s third person. Ngan basically has to figure out a way to get the two back together, so Wren’s section really deals with how she is rallying the troops together to try to get enough military support to take over the Demon King. Lei’s part involves just trying to stay alive.
The only benefit of being back in the Palace is that she’s back with the other surviving Paper Girls from book one, so we’re treated to the reunion with Chenna, Zhen, Zhin, Aoki, and Blue. Aoki is the real issue here because she’s basically become smitten with the Demon King and actually finds Lei’s presence there to be an issue because Lei has become a rival. The Demon King has not killed Lei because she’s become known around the kingdom as the moonchosen, and so it’s important to have her in his orbit for the larger support of others. Lei is eventually forced to become a pawn in the Demon King’s quest to retain power. In this process, she finds out that the Demon Queen has become pregnant. The issue is that she’s as much of a prisoner as Lei and the paper girls are, so Lei realizes that she not only has to save the paper girls but the Demon Queen as well. Eventually, the climactic battle occurs, with Wren trying to breach the Palace, and Lei leading an internal revolution from within the Palace. In this process, a number of lives are lost. Most notably, Chenna is killed, which leaves a lasting mark on Lei.
On Wren’s side, Merrin ends up sacrificing himself. Shifu Caen is killed by Lei so that he can avoid being tortured further. Finally, Ketai Hanno ends up dying in the final major battle. I was glad for a character like Nitta to make it, and if I have one beef about this series, it’s that so many of the minor ally characters end up dying. Even Nitta undergoes significant harm, as she becomes paralyzed. Fittingly, Lei gets to kill the Demon King, and readers will cheer at this moment. Ngan also takes a decent amount of time wrapping up storylines, which I very much appreciated. Ngan doesn’t treat the paper girls as discardable characters. In fact, we see that they develop a kind of alternative family in the wake of leaving the Palace, with all of them choosing to be together. The other issue is the reconciliation between Lei and Wren. Given all that they have been through and Wren’s sometimes questionable decision-making (e.g., taking the life of someone to fuel her magic), their relationship has been on the rocks. Ngan takes time to figure out how to make this reconnection feel earned. The best thing about these YA trilogies is that they ultimately try to imagine a more just future. Even as some may cast aside these books as lowbrow entertainment, their political messages seem ever more important in these turbulent times.
Buy the Book Here
comments
No comments have been added yet.
