hardcover, 384 pages

English language

Published Sept. 20, 2021 by Penguin Teen.

ISBN:
978-0-7352-6993-4
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(72 reviews)

Science fiction and East Asian myth combine in this dazzling retelling of the rise of Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history

The boys of Huaxia dream of the celebrity status that comes with piloting Chrysalises - giant transforming robots that battle the aliens beyond the Great Wall. Their female co-pilots are expected to serve as concubines and sacrifice their lives.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, her plan is to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But on miraculously emerging from the cockpit unscathed after her first battle, the Iron Widow sets her sights on bigger things. The time has come to take on the entire patriarchal military system.

11 editions

Better towards the end

Another YA dystopian trauma-porn book for me, I'm afraid. I appreciate where it went, in the long run, but it definitely hurt more than I'd usually like to get there.

Generally I found Zhao's writing a bit clumsy - and I definitely became irked by the constant use of "guys" and "girls" and "boys". I dunno. I get that it's about teenagers, but there are a few "man" dropped here and there but I'm pretty sure the word "woman" doesn't actually appear in this novel anywhere.

Despite it all, the themes around internalized sexism were quite good, but overall a bit heavy-handed I think.

reviewed Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow #1)

Iron Widow

I gave this book a reread before getting to the sequel because it had been a bit.

I forgot how this book starts off with such a YA anime-esque tone. There's something about celebrity mecha pilots and media companies that rings a lot of hunger games-esque bells. But the world itself is almost too overly defined, where pilots have an objective "spirit pressure" for their piloting strength and there's both a mecha and enemy taxonomy that feel like something that could go into a wikipedia entry. In the end, these largely (thankfully) fall away and are more hook than truth.

One thing that's interesting to me is that Wu Zetian is a messy character who does unlikeable things at times. The plot is fundamentally a revenge plot that escalates, and she's willing to get her hands dirty to do what she feels is right.

The book ends on a bit …

None

Some of us were born to be used and discarded. We can’t afford to simply go along with the flow of life, because nothing in this world has been created, built, or set up in our favor. If we want something, we have to push back against everything around us and take it by force.


For the first 25% or so, this was shaping to be close to a five-star read for me. I definitely took note of the writing being rough around the edges and how transparently beat after beat got lifted from the most prominent books in the genre. But there was so much soul here, so much emotion, and Zetian was so relatable in her all-consuming anger. For as long as she had that very specific first goal in front of her and pushed toward with all the force of that anger, I was absolutely hooked.

Unfortunately, …

reviewed Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow #1)

Review of 'Iron Widow' on 'Storygraph'

 Nowadays I'm hesitant to start series that aren't already finished, but this one has come up often enough with enough praise that I decided to just go for it. And I only wish I'd done that sooner. As an anime fan who was wildly disappointed that Darling in the Franxx did not live up to its promise, I went through each chapter of this book with ever-increasing glee. All of my thanks go to the author for writing the kind of story that I'd wanted to see from that show.


I didn't read this book so much as devour it - from the second the main character chooses revenge over love, you're there in the whirlwind of events that follow. I could not put this book down. I needed to know just how far Zetian would go to tear down the society that was trying so hard to grind her …

reviewed Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow #1)

Vicarious revenge fun; sometimes a bit too video game for my taste

This is a very cathartic book in which the heroine goes magnificently all-in on a revenge that grows from the initial single person target to patriarchy itself. It does suffer a bit from the YA tensions getting resolved too quickly/tidily syndrome, and I found its setup a little too video gameish, but I'll probably still read the sequel.

At first I was very annoyed with the simplification of qi into categories and a precisely measurable "spirit pressure", but I can see how doing that sidestepped having to do a hundred pages of worldbuilding before anything much happens.

Iron Widow

Iron Widow is a sci-fantasy story that incorporates various genre tropes, but they are covered in a fresh and interesting skin. I appreciated that certain recognizable beats were, at least so far in the story, subverted or not followed through. Despite that, and probably for personal reasons rather that book-related ones, I was not invested and didn't have that anxiety and delight that I feel with the best stories.

Review of 'Iron Widow' on 'Storygraph'

Finally got around to reading this mecha battle futuristic Sci-Fi piece rooted in Chinese history. The mechas are piloted by a man, with a concubine whose life force is essentially used as a battery. The women, sold by their families to the military, don’t survive long. Wu Zetian volunteers to serve as a concubine to the pilot who killed her sister, intending to murder him in bed before the fight. But when she is drawn into battle early, she turns the tables on him in a more unexpected way.

I’m not usually a fan of the mecha thing, but this takes an interesting line on it. The feminist line of the story is cathartic but doesn’t say anything particularly new - it feels a bit entry-level. Yet the positive poly relationship is very welcome and it is quite enjoyable despite some pacing issues in the second half and an ending …

reviewed Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow #1)

Review of 'Iron Widow' on 'Goodreads'

I didn't know what to expect when I bought this book, based on Zhao's great video essays. It catched me right away with the complex, fleshed out characters. The final twist was logical, but I still didn't see it coming - also the layers of societal critique she waved in so effortlessly

reviewed Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao (Iron Widow #1)

Everything All At Once

I like Xiran Jay Zhao. They're a great content creator and their Twitter is something to behold. So it was only a matter of time until I got to Iron Widow. That time was this week when I had a 5 hour bus journey in front of me and needed something to entertain me.

It was certainly a quick read for my standards. But then, I always seem to eat through YA literature as opposed to everything else I read, even if I go out of it with a sense of dissatisfaction. Which is not really something I felt here, even though the book has left me wanting in the worst possible way. The characters are... fine. Wu Zetian is the main character and thus the most fleshed out. The two love interests (it's an actual love triangle!) are somewhat shallow and everyone else is either window dressing or someone …

Iron Widow Is Fine

Content warning Spoilers beneath a break at the bottom!

Review of 'Iron Widow' on 'Goodreads'

The trouble with reviewing a book you really like is toning down the firehose of feelings into a readable piece that isn't just a bunch of heart emojis and squeeing. I'll give it a go however for the sake of the Iron Widow because I really enjoyed this book for very specific reasons.

The Rage - This is by far the best thing about the story. Women just don't get to be ANGRY in stories for very long and certainly not to their benefit. The main character of the Iron Widow is furious from the moment we meet her with damned good reason and instead of tripping her up it fuels her rise to greatness. God its so refreshing.
Even better - that reason is not because someone raped her. Yes, world, women can be angry about a number of things just like real people.

The Battle Scenes - Having …

Burns Quickly, Leaving Ash

Relentless pacing that eventually crashes into the wall of its ending. It's pretty great worldbuilding and plotting, but I wish it had cut some of the subplot revolving around the Yellow Dragon Chrysalis and spent more downtime exploring with that pilots do when they're not beating each other senseless.

Solid adventure, some thought provoking aspects

I found my self making time to listen to this audiobook by doing things like taking the dog for extra walks. So that in itself is a pretty good review.

The protagonist is an interesting character, who is quite relatable. I'm not sure I would make some of the choices she does, but I haven't lived her life either.

From a genre point of view, it was (for me) closer to fantasy than "hard" science fiction. That might depend on how familar one was with traditional Chinese Chi theory. I'm not even familiar enough to say how close the book is to tradition.

Some of the twists are not quite as surprising as the author might have intended. It is very much set up for a sequel, which I understand the author needs to make some more money to write. So I hope my USD13 helps (or whatever small share …

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