Charlotte Kersten

Year published: 2019

Category: YA fantasy

Representation: F/F, main character and side characters, M/M, side characters

Summary: In this mesmerizing sequel to the New York Times bestselling Girls of Paper and Fire, Lei and Wren have escaped their oppressive lives in the Hidden Palace, but soon learn that freedom comes with a terrible cost.

Lei, the naive country girl who became a royal courtesan, is now known as the Moonchosen, the commoner who managed to do what no one else could. But slaying the cruel Demon King wasn’t the end of the plan—it’s just the beginning. Now Lei and her warrior love Wren must travel the kingdom to gain support from the far-flung rebel clans. The journey is made even more treacherous thanks to a heavy bounty on Lei’s head, as well as insidious doubts that threaten to tear Lei and Wren apart from within.

Meanwhile, an evil plot to eliminate the rebel uprising is taking shape, fueled by dark magic and vengeance. Will Lei succeed in her quest to overthrow the monarchy and protect her love for Wren, or will she fall victim to the sinister magic that seeks to destroy her?

My thoughts: I definitely anticipated a case of Second Book Syndrome here based on what I had heard about this book, and that is pretty much what I got. Simply by virtue of Lei and Wren having escaped from the Hidden Palace, the sequel had to be very different in nature and structure from the first book, which was quite contained. What I don’t think was necessary, however, was that Girls of Storm and Shadow be as sort of…meandering? aimless? as it turned out to be. The quest they’re on is somewhat focus-less, in a way, and I have a lot of questions about why it happens the way it does. Why does the rebellion actually have to send emissaries on this perilous journey? Why do they not know anything about each location and its ruler before they arrive there?

I would say that the vast majority of the book is spent in travel, training and banter. The banter really didn’t work for me at all between how forced it felt, how frequent it was, and the fact that it often felt extremely anachronistic with references to fanmail and resumes and things like that. Most of it stems from Bo, who irritated me in basically every scene he was in. Everything about him, from his underdeveloped romance plot to his death, felt completely unnecessary to me. I don’t even know why the leopard siblings are a part of the team in the first place – who would send a pair of incredibly rude kleptomaniacs on a delicate diplomatic mission? Is there really no one else in the rebellion better suited? They are outcast from Cat Clan and they’re not even allowed inside, so that justification for their inclusion feels very flimsy to me.

Wren and Lei’s relationship starts to unravel here, as Wren continually keeps secrets from Lei and is ultimately revealed to be willing to do terrible things for the sake of winning their war against the Demon King. To a certain extent I like this because it presents the natural stage of a relationship where the honeymoon is over and cracks start to show, especially because of the pressure they are under and what they have been through. That being said, the inconsistency of Lei’s feelings is frustrating and I agree with those who have said that it feels like there was never a super strong foundation to their relationship in the first place. The sudden appearance of Wren’s catty (literally!!) and jealous ex felt completely unnecessary to me and detracted quite a bit from that portion of the story.

There is a continued focus on Lei and Wren supporting each other through their PTSD and starting to process what they went through in the Hidden Palace. I still really like how positive sexuality is such a prominent part of their reclamation of their bodies, and there are some good moments exploring both resilience and struggle. I would say that this was my favorite part of the book. Other than that, the writing style is generally very easy to read and pleasant and I felt compelled to keep reading most of the time. The book ends on an extreme cliffhanger, and while this series hasn’t necessarily been one of my favorites of all time, I still definitely think I would like to see the conclusion of the story.