SOLVED. Young Adult Fantasy. Caste systems are based off of human/ animal hybrids, and girls are chosen from villages to learn how to be consorts to a bull king. Read around 2018-2019. [s]

[Grace]

I read this book around 2018/19 in high school and what I remember from it is it's set in an east asian (like Chinese or japanese) culture and there's a caste system where the highest class is fully animal and if I remember correctly they have magic, the middle class is half animal and half human with limited magic and the lower class is fully human with no magic. One day a human girl is taken from her family tea shop to go to what is pretty much a "brothel school" with several (8 I think) other girls where they learn palace etiquette and are trained on how to be prostitutes for a bull king. I think the main girl falls in love with one of the other girls in the school and at the end of the book they try to kill the king to escape

[Zenta]

Could it be Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

[Grace]

@zenta yes, that's actually the book. I thought that Girls of Paper and Fire was a separate series so I didn't even think to look up the preview of it. Thank you very much