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astrangewind's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I’m so genuinely disappointed that Iron Widow was not as good as I thought it was going to be.
“Way of the Fox,” the first of four parts, is flawlessly executed. Wu Zetian is a firecracker of a character - she is single-minded in her goal to kill Yang Guang , utterly uncaring about her family’s wellbeing and throwing aside her love for Yizhi, throwing away even her life. It’s this deep, feminist rage that characterizes Zetian early on and differentiates her from other “strong female characters” in the YA dystopia genre. When she’s ultimately successful in her task, her violent anger so complete that all she can do is laugh into the cameras, I get chills. I want Zetian to succeed. I want her family, her country, every man who’s ever wronged her to suffer. This opener promises a novel full of righteous fury, of taking what belongs to her and all the women and girls of Huaxia, of vengeance.
This is a promise that the remaining three parts breaks.
I don’t know what happened here. It’s only speculation, but it seems to me like the author ran up against a deadline before they finished editing. It doesn’t read like a first draft, but it doesn’t read like a final one, either. In contrast with “Way of the Fox,” the rest of the book is disjointed, unsubtle, agonizingly dull at times, inconsistent. The “plot twists” come out of nowhere, and then they’re overexplained; because the foreshadowing is so weak, they require severe, barely-believable retconning.
Everything that follows “The Way of the Fox” in terms of plot makes little sense. Zetian had accomplished her goal - that makes sense. As punishment, she gets paired with Li Shimin, the Iron Demon, a huge, frightening boy who killed his family, with an incredibly high spirit pressure - yeah, okay. Then... they become really invested in the war and do everything they can to convince the army to stage a counterattack against the Hunduns ? I feel like I must have missed something. Neither Zetian or Shimin was ever portrayed as taking an interest in the war; in fact, they both are very clear about wanting the violence (against the girl pilots) to stop. It’s not even clear what Huaxia thinks the Hunduns have done. They, what? Took over a province? Yeah, okay, I can see Huaxia being mad about it, but it’s common knowledge in Huaxia that the Hunduns never even attempt to breach the Great Wall - this is stated explicitly. There’s no clear reason why a counterattack is a good idea, or even why Zetian, Shimin, and Yizhi want it to happen. And even after Zetian survives piloting with Shimin, there’s no obvious reason why the army would want someone as dangerous as her to survive. Why did they not try to stage an assassination beyond Xing Tian’s rogue attempt, which wasn’t even state-sponsored ? And her plan to just say out loud to all of Huaxia that girls are sacrificed on purpose? The author should know that that never would have worked, even in fiction. The whole “war” angle is uncompelling.
Speaking of... Zetian is so furious about girl pilots being sacrificed that she doesn’t mind sacrificing herself and her family to stop it. But she doesn’t mind literally committing genocide against the “mindless” Hunduns. She doesn’t mind squashing Xiuying and Zhu Yuanzhang, or crushing the army vehicles . Zetian does have feelings and a moral code, so it’s inconsistent for her character to just kill indiscriminately (unless the target is a young girl). At the end, when something in Zetian snaps, it makes sense for only the young girls to give her pause. But it doesn’t make sense what actually convinces her to try to take over the whole of Huaxia. It’s so... bizarre.
Iron Widow claims itself as a feminist work, but it’s not. Beyond “The Way of the Fox,” most of the “feminism” reads like it’s been copied and pasted from a Tumblr post. People don’t talk like that in real life. At the very beginning, the author takes great pains for describe Zetian as kind of ugly - the first scene is of her getting her monobrow plucked. She’s tall and chubby, despite her family telling her that she needs to lose the weight to be pretty. But then, later on, she talks about how hot she is. It’s not necessarily un-feminist for a female character to be either ugly or hot. But, uh, how is she both? Just wondering. She’s supposed to be independent, but she gets saved multiple times by men out of nowhere. I thought she could defend herself - so why can’t she? It’s not just Zetian, either; the other female characters are shockingly one-dimensional. Xiuying is a mother character; Qieluo is a bully. Even Zetian’s Big Sister is only described as the obedient, pretty, dead daughter. Here’s a quote that I wrote down because it was so insane: “My pain is solely due to being born a girl [...] But for [Shimin], it’s complicated.” (p. 314). You’re telling me you’re a feminist, and you write this bullshit? Come on!
I think there are some things that Iron Widow does well. The scenes related to sexual assault / harassment are accurate without being unnecessarily descriptive. Zetian’s response to being alone with Shimin - and even having sex for the first time - are an accurate portrayal of PTSD. All three main characters are bisexual and kind of in a polycule with each other, which is one of the departures from a love triangle you can choose. (But I think that the author has no idea of the communication required to maintain a polycule because these three cannot communicate well.) I think that the planet not being their native planet is a good concept in general, because you kind of forget the sci-fi elements of the book by that point.
To summarize: I’m bummed that Iron Widow couldn’t maintain itself. I am not inclined to continue the series, and I don’t think I would recommend it to anyone else. In an alternate timeline, the author had enough time to finish editing, and Iron Widow is the next Hunger Games. Alas, we are not in this timeline.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and War
Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Murder, and Alcohol
Minor: Genocide, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, and Injury/Injury detail
mermaidadjacent's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
One of my favorite books I have ever read. I'm obsessed with the characters, the story, the world, the dialogue, everything. I will be re-reading this and I cannot wait to read the sequel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Misogyny, Racism, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and War
Minor: Child abuse
kathi_90's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Torture, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Sexual violence and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Body shaming and Fatphobia
pastelhxrmony's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Picked this up because I watch Xiran Ray Zhao on YouTube. It took me a little bit to get through this. I don’t think this book is very bad but it’s not the best either
Things I liked
Things I liked
- Loved the concept and story
- Female rage
- Insane ending with a great plot twist
- I don’t know if I’ve read anything that made me feel so many emotions so strongly at once
- Second half
Things I didn’t like
- Poor writing; the writing is a big reason it took me so long to get through this book. The writing felt a bit childish at times and a little odd
- I can tell the themes the author wanted to convey but again, because of poor writing, the execution didn’t quite make the landing
- First half was kinda difficult to get through but things picked up in the second half
Most of my gripes stem from poor writing choices so I won’t list off everything. It’s also hard to remember some of the early parts because it had been a few months since I had started reading. I will most likely read Heavenly Tyrant when it comes out and I hope improvements can be made
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, and War
Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, and Grief
nickysbookcorner's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
inspiring
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book embodies female rage. This is a great sci-fi book with robot mechas and their evolutions (!!). The world building and the storytelling was really great. Xiran did a great job helping me visualize the magnitude of the mechas. The book didn’t feel too rushed and had a good balance between storylines and the progressions. I read through this book rather quickly. The romantic relationships in this book surpassed my expectations and made me really giddy besides the fact that there was a war happening.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Misogyny, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, War, and Classism
Foot binding is still ongoing culturally in the setting of the book.findleydunn's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Biphobia and Homophobia
ytzel_vr24's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
This book is actually the wildest thing I’ve ever read in my life. It has a really interesting combination of characters who are right but also completely merciless and borderline villainous. Super fast paced, engaging, and thrilling, but occasionally the dialogue falls flat which is why it’s a 4.5 for me. Mostly a style preference. Otherwise, an excellent book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, and Sexism
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Rape
hellavaral's review against another edition
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, and Violence
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence
lapraslassie's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, and Torture
Moderate: Rape
Minor: Body shaming, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, and War
simsplayer30's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture
Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Suicide attempt, Murder, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Classism