Reviews with content warning for Fatphobia - Iron Widow

Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

43 reviews

thebetterstory's review against another edition

adventurous funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This is a fun YA book, just don't expect too much from it!

The story touches on the concepts of sexism, racism and homophobia, but it doesn't really have much new to add to the conversation. (A friend I talked to about it said that it felt almost like it was name-dropping social justice concepts rather than tackling any in-depth, and I agree.)

There are some cool touches, and I particularly like that its main character is allowed to be genuinely power-hungry and violent to the point of cruelty in a few places, as that really is rare in a female lead. The sheer level of vitriol she has toward societal sexism is also pretty great. (In particular, I loved the part where she strangles the fake "child" version of her abusive copilot in retaliation for what he's done to other women.
I was also really disappointed that it's a book literally about sexism, yet Wu Zetian doesn't form a meaningful relationship or even have much of a conversation with any other women. It ironically contrubutes to the sense that the dead or distressed girls who show up to motivate Wu Zetian are just story props.

The pacing moves so fast that there really isn't much time to get attached to anyone or anything. The relationship that builds up between Wu Zetian, Li Shimin and Yizhi is definitely sweet, but we don't really get a lot of downtime or quiet moments with them to give us a chance to get attached. It felt like the novel speedran their relationship progression into a throuple, which wasn't at all necessary when there's a sequel coming out and they could have used that time to stretch the romantic tension out longer. But I am ecstatic to see poly in a YA book at all. I hope others follow suit.

Happily the plot always has enough going on to keep things interesting, and the leads are just likeable enough to keep you invested in what happens to them. There are twists and turns aplenty, some of which I guessed and some which still surprised me. The setting is also obviously incredibly cool, what with the fusion of Chinese history, mecha and sci-fi, and the prose is serviceable and easy to read. The book is also helped along by not taking itself too painfully seriously, even though it dips into dark territory sometimes.

Overall, Iron Widow's not the best YA I've read this year, by a long shot. But it is conceptually awesome, easy to read and a lot of fun. Just check your expectations before starting and you won't be disappointed.

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recycled_personalities's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad 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? It's complicated

5.0

It’s genuinely become one of my favourite books and I cannot wait for the sequel. It takes us into a world of torturous misogyny and gives us the one girl who will fuck shit up with no regrets. And, even though it’s not the main focus of the book, the romance in it is quite literally the best I have ever read and I fear that I will never read something as good as it again. If I could give this more stars, I would.

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cakeylu's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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kimberlyb's review

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adventurous emotional reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I felt the FL's anger. The people in metal suits was an interesting concept. The promotion for this book made it seem like it had a lot of lgb+ representation. It didn't. I don't like how must of the story was in the FL 's head. I don't like that the cultural practice of foot binding was added to this book. Especially since it's taken place in the future. You don't really get a sense of whoe the other characters are since the story is all from the FL's head.

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sofia_rivera30's review against another edition

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funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I was so disappointed by this book. I was going to give it 3 stars just to be nice but after reading the other reviews, I can't. this book had so much potential but in the end... it was just bad. the main character was so annoying. the author took the "not like other girls" trope to a whole new level. i just don't even know how to describe it, but its bad. the writing was also very young looking and the author was trying to got for a feminist, life changing story about breaking the gender norms but it just wasn't it. I was literally so excited to read this. )))`:

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aardwyrm's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

Lived up to the hype. And that's a lot of hype. Excellent worldbuilding, tension, and character work, tight pacing, evocative prose throughout, all the while invoking a half dozen genres and histories and inverting them all. And it even remained a YA book proper throughout, which does mean, yes, the plot beats themselves were fairly predictable and the characters sketched for their audience, but a great deal of skill goes into understanding the assignment to that degree.

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nytephoenyx's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-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

4.25

This book was so exciting and I loved it. I loved a lot of different things about it, and there were only two very limited things I did not like. There was so much action and so much research (and I would expect nothing less from Xiran Jay Zhou) and such interesting characters and !!! I am so glad I stumbled across this one. Thank you, Xiran Jay Zhou, for writing a thread about historical inaccuracies in Mulan which blew up on Twitter and led to me finding your book announcement. You are very good at social media and I like your writing.

Rather than let this review go paragraphs long, I’m going to take this bullet-point style. So! Things I liked:

Content warnings were at the beginning of the book.
A non-historical disclosure was at the beginning of the book (Zetian is inspired by Empress Wu).
Our protagonists are not heroes in any sense of the word.
Love triangle that actually works (polyamorous rep!)
Tian’s anger through the book never subsides.
There is an actual, in-story reason why Tian and Shimin reconcile so quickly and it makes sense.
When Xiran Jay Zhou writes about unpleasant things, they do not hold back.
The characters never feel the need to explain themselves and I kind of loved that.
The physically intimate scenes were tasteful and non-intrusive. Way too much YA lets romance overthrow the plot, but not this book!
The writing balances description, dialogue, and action really well. It’s a debut, but doesn’t feel like your traditional “they’re still learning” debut. This book is polished and ready to go.
The chapters are short so it’s easier to find a place to take a break, assuming you’re not so sucked in that you binge read the whole thing, which would be very possible.
I appreciated the world and setting – it’s an Asian-inspired fantasy/sci-fi/action book and it feels both extremely original and yet somewhat familiar. Anime fans should love it. And for the rest of us, it’s a refreshingly different read.
There were multiple twists at the end I definitely didn’t see coming.

Those are a few of the reasons Iron Widow is such a compelling novel and why I enjoyed it utterly. I really liked Tian, Shimin, and Yishi. Even Sima Yi, who had his own growth arc, was interesting to watch. I’m struggling to pull together eloquent, comprehensive thoughts about Iron Widow because I genuinely liked it so much. I liked how there was dark revenge and murders early in the book – an author not afraid to make things messy is my favorite kind of author. While I didn’t like the interactions between Tian and so many of the other male characters, I can appreciate their necessity in painting a picture of exactly how misogynistic this society is (answer: very, very, very).

And I genuinely, genuinely liked the romantic relationship in Iron Widow. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with polyamorous rep before, and I am not polyamorous myself so I can’t speak to its accuracy, but I felt it was respectfully executed. To get a real feel for the success of both the polyamorous and Asian rep, please seek out reviews from those communities!

I do have a couple small criticisms, but they are quite small. Every once in a while I’d come across a paragraph while reading that seemed so out of place, almost like it was written by a different person. The voice was slightly different, or modern-sounding dialogue would pop up, and it would briefly shatter the illusion. It really didn’t happen often – twice specifically I recall shaking my head like “wait, what happened to the voice?” – but I did happen.

My second criticism would be the speed at which things changed regarding Shimin. Not his relationship with Tian – that made since as they were in one another’s heads and that breeds empathy. Rather, most of his struggle to overcome his addiction as well as the love story between Shimin and Yishi felt rushed. The pace at the end of the book in general picked up quite a lot, and I’ll credit this to be part of the problem. As a reader, I’d have liked to see more gradual development for Li Shimin, but it was not so fast that it made his character unenjoyable.

My friends, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Iron Widow and giving it a try. Xiran Jay Zhou will transport you to another world, then they will ruthless batter your heart. It’s delightful.

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