Tuesday, January 28, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan



Girls of Storm and Shadow is the sequel to 2018's Young Adult Fantasy Girls of Paper and Fire (Review Here).  Girls was a tough book to read, featuring a world in which humans are the lowest of castes (the Paper Caste) in a world ruled by Demons, and in which the horrible demon king takes human girls to be his concubine "Paper Girls", whether they want to be there or not.  Needless to say, as our protagonist is one of those Paper Girls for that first book, it was not an easy book to read at times, and yet through it all the story managed to feature a really well done fantasy (F-F) romance with some solid characters through it all, although its cliffhanger ending was a bit of a bummer.

Girls of Storm and Shadow continues the story, expanding the world as our characters focus on the next step of their quest for freedom.  The result is markedly mixed: where the story is best, is when it deals with the protagonist's struggle with coping with trauma or where it deals with introducing other characters who have similar views towards freedom and justice but different ideas about them.  Where its weaker is in an underlying theme of the question of whether an end goal can make certain means to achieve them ever justified, and, more disappointingly, in how it deals with the next stage of the central romance.

Trigger Warning:  Grief/Self-Harm/Trauma - our protagonist and others in this trilogy suffered horrible sexual and physical abuse in the last book and are trying to recover in this one.  It's not an easy read as a result, although it's easier than the last book.



-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------
Lei and Wren are on the run, after Lei has seemingly assassinated the king before their flight for freedom.  Now, together with a group of Moon-Caste (demons) and Paper-Caste (humans) allies, including another shaman, they travel across the land on behalf of Wren's father in search of clans to serve as allies in their coming rebellion, with Wren using her political (and Magical) skills, and Lei using her new role as a symbol to convince potential allies to their cause.

But the Demon King has survived Lei's attack, although not without severe damage.  And Lei finds herself haunted terribly by her memories of him and what he did to her, unable to sometimes tell reality from flashbacks....and only able to find comfort in either drink or Wren's tender embraces.  But with the Demon King alive and vengeful, the threats to Lei's life aren't only in her own head, and if Lei can't find the strength to get through her own traumas, she may not survive much longer.  And as Lei journeys further with Wren, she begins to learn secrets that threaten everything she believes in in this world....and threaten to tear her apart from those she loves, as the costs of the struggle for freedom become frightfully high....
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Girls of Storm and Shadow is told mainly from Lei's point of view, as the main character, although every few chapters the story will flip to the perspective of a character from the first novel who is elsewhere trying to deal with the ramifications of that novel's outcome.  These one shot chapters serve to fill in the details of the setting, although a few of them serve unintentionally just to remind us of some of the more interesting characters we've since lost track of.  Still, this is Lei's story, so there was no other way to keep tabs on these characters, a few of whom still have an impact on Lei's thoughts throughout.

But again, this is Lei's story, and Lei is an excellent character, who is undergoing substantial pains as she attempts to move forward after seeming to have killed the Demon King.  Her trauma is painful to read, but written especially believable as she attempts to find a way to move past it all - which is only made harder by the Demon King turning out to be alive after all.  And as Lei, a girl who wasn't raised for fighting but was forced into this cause, sees what others - including the girl she loves - are willing to do in the name of the cause of freedom, her reactions are really well done and carry this story to some interesting places.

Most of the newer side characters are also excellent.  A pair of thieving cat (leopard) demons Nitta and Bo are entertaining and endearing new associates for Lei, especially when paired with Merrin, a bird demon who usually wouldn't associate with cats but finds herself falling for the joking Bo (in a nice side M-M romance).  Then there's Qanna, the bird demon clan's daughter who hates patriarchal societies and wants her clan to strike out for freedom...but no necessarily under the rule of another, in a nice and very understandable twist.

Wren on the other hand, is a trickier character who has her ups and downs.  The book really leans in to Wren's magical abilities as the driver of the plot here, as they are slowly revealed to Lei and the reader.  And Wren's own single minded determination to fight for freedom, a fight she has spent her whole life aiming for only to see Lei seemingly steal her goal from under her, drives a conflict between her and Lei and Wren follows her father's lead in taking actions of horror to justify the ends she seeks.

This is the other theme underlying the conflict in this novel (in addition to Lei's attempts at getting past her own traumas), but it doesn't really work, as Wren's actions get more and more outrageous before Lei finally reacts.  The book also doesn't seem to trust its own work in creating this conflict, throwing in a previously un-referenced former lover to create additional conflict in the final third, which just feels tacked on and unnecessary.  Add in an ending that allows the book to never really bring this conflict to a head, it just is a bit of a disappointment.

Basically this book suffers from 2nd book in a trilogy syndrome, expanding the world and creating new conflicts but failing to resolve any of them in favor of trying to create a cliffhanger, which left me with nothing but disappointment as a taste.  There's a lot of interesting stuff here, particularly in the side characters and the main characters' dealing with grief and trauma, but the other major theme falls flat.  I'll be on board for the finale, but man I had higher hopes.


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