Reviews tagging 'Xenophobia'

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

124 reviews

miggyfool's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Physical abuse, Toxic friendship, Ableism, Addiction, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Colonisation, Confinement, Drug abuse, Murder, Police brutality, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic relationship, Medical content, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Dysphoria, Medical trauma, Slavery, and War

maximumhonesty's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Não sei nem por onde começar MUITO BOM. Finalmente um triângulo amoroso que é de fato um triângulo. Personagens complexos, humanos que cativam. Eu terminei o livro completamente apaixonado pelos personagens, e o final quebrou meu coração. Como alguém trans tenho a sensação que o descontentamento da protagonista com sua posição como mulher é mais que apenas insatisfação com o machismo, muitas menções indiretas que podem ser lidas como não binariedade. Também amei o relacionamento bicentrado, mal posso esperar pela continuação.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child abuse, Classism, Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Xenophobia, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, War, Addiction, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

sophmcgraw's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Misogyny, and Grief

Moderate: Xenophobia, Murder, and Sexual violence

audiem's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious sad fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Sexual harassment, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Confinement, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, War, Child abuse, Classism, Death, Ableism, Abandonment, Bullying, Emotional abuse, Gore, Murder, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Sexual violence, and Slavery

Moderate: Colonisation and Xenophobia

Minor: Homophobia

bashsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny tense fast-paced

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

5.0

Such a fascinating and quality take on gender dynamics and physical disability, on top of compelling worldbuilding and satisfying plot-twists. Recommended in the highest order. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Alcoholism, Violence, Misogyny, Torture, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, and War

Moderate: Murder, Body horror, Xenophobia, Ableism, and Medical content

Minor: Sexual violence, Sexual content, and Rape

nekoshka's review against another edition

adventurous dark 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, War, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Addiction, and Violence

Moderate: War, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Torture, Suicidal thoughts, Xenophobia, Colonisation, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Body shaming and Rape

thenymphsvoice's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

Oh my goodness, the panic I went through when I realized that the next book isn’t out until AUGUST and it’s FEBRUARY!!!!!!

The following description will not do this Justice but,
Imagine if Hunger Games, Nausiica, and Enders Game had a baby with Giant fighting Robots.

This was fantastic, more fantasy than sci-fi (like Nausiica) with the same attack on the issues of todays and yesterdays issues like the hunger games.
The romance was not heavy focus but FAR better done than Hunger Games, everything that you thought was missing from the hunger game’s relationships and even from Katniss is exponentially better represented in Iron Widow. Zetian Is EVERYTHING I want in my female heroines! 

I’ll just be over here DYING until Heavenly Tyrant is released. DYING 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Physical abuse, Torture, and Addiction

Moderate: Sexual violence, Slavery, War, Mental illness, Violence, Xenophobia, and Religious bigotry

Most depictions of the trigger warnings above are vague, with the exception of sexism and alcoholism which are consistent and important themes in the book. The depictions of Torture are not gratuitous in their descriptions nor particularly gorey. Relying more on your understanding the horror of that happening then the explicit descriptions of it.

itsame_dio's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

2.5

The story doesn't show any sympathy for other women. The main character is very judgemental of other women and how they aren't loudly standing up to the misogyny but she doesn't take into consideration any of their circumstances like their class status or how their ethnicity.  Other than that, there's no character development, she stays angry ( rightfully so ) throughout the whole book and we only kinda get to know 1 of the love interests.

We get all of Li Shimin's back story but all we know of Yizhi is that he looks pretty and has tattoos and that's all lol. Then they get together ( after Zetian spent 80% of the book HATING Shimin ) and right after Shimin dies smdh the romance felt pretty rushed

However based on the YA that was popular when I was in HS this one note-ness is par for the course tbh. In other books, the MC's one character trait is being so kind and pure that she could heal every emotionally stunted boy's heart in a 50mi radius, in this book Zetian's character trait is being angry as hell

and murder

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Misogyny, Violence, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Xenophobia, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, War, Drug abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Rape

merlionne's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring tense fast-paced

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

4.5

Had a great time reading this. I mean "inspiring" in an angry way, because Zetian's anger is quite cathartic. She's tired of being a girl in a world that treats her like shit and sometimes a ruthless revenge fantasy is exactly what you need. But don't worry, she's not always right about everything. 
I loved the mythological aspects of the world, even though I don't know a lot about the actual people and their stories they're referencing. The only thing that bothered me a bit is that all the secrets that get unveiled are kind of ....eh?  It's not a bad thing, maybe from a modern perspective they're a lot less shocking or it's a lot easier for me to expect something like that to be the case, but ultimately it works within the story and I'll read the next book because I want to see how Zetian blows up some more bastards.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Xenophobia, Blood, Violence, Sexism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Death, Domestic abuse, Murder, and War

Moderate: Grief, Racism, Confinement, Death, Bullying, Colonisation, Classism, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Body shaming

Minor: Body shaming, Sexual assault, Excrement, Rape, Infidelity, Biphobia, Homophobia, Fatphobia, Vomit, Physical abuse, Animal death, and Sexual violence

Even though it gets talked about etc, there are no detailed descriptions of sexual assault or other sexual violence. The book also includes a list of the biggest trigger warnings in the beginning, a lot of what I added here is in there somehow but for the most cases not overly detailed, extensive or dwelled upon.

daenarvelaryon1's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

2.5

I loved the idea of the story and Xiran Jay Zhao's smart marketing certainly sold me on the book. Unfortunately, I feel like the book did not live up to the hype on social media.  

The writing style is a bit sloppy, unrefined and needs to be worked on. The dialogue was occassionally incredibly cringy. The message of the story could have been handled and presented in a better, subtler way. And don't even get me started on the ending (felt like the publisher basically forced the author into writing a sequel). Xiran also needs to start showing things instead of telling. 

If I had to compare the story to an already existing work, it really felt like an average fanfiction from AO3 or Wattpad (I have no doubt that Xiran has experience with writing fanfiction and it shows in the book too). If that works for you, then you will very likely enjoy the story.

I really wanted to like this book because I love Xiran's content. Ultimately, it was a fun ride, but I would not recommend this book for someone looking for a high quality story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Toxic relationship, Slavery, Death, Emotional abuse, War, Alcohol, Drug use, Drug abuse, Torture, Body shaming, Bullying, Murder, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Blood, Classism, and Sexism

Moderate: Sexual harassment, Racism, Xenophobia, and Rape