Reviews with content warning for Gore - Viúva de Ferro

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Reviews tagging 'Gore'

Viúva de Ferro by Xiran Jay Zhao

158 reviews

andromeda_1998's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-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? Yes

4.5

Iron widow is one of those books that I followed on TikTok while it wasn’t released yet and my anticipations were HIGH, for the record they records they were so ridiculously high that I waited months to read it. And while the book hasn’t let me down there are still some points about this that I wish where different.

Characters
Zutain is a very strong woman, who challenges the ideals of her whole society. She is strong minded, brazen and dangerous. It’s amazing! She is really morally grey and we all know that I love those kind of characters. The only thing I liked less was the relationship…. I wanted more, more moments of tenderness. One of the relationships was already a thing when the book started and the other was a complete 180 from the way she viewed this character when they met. We get some growth into there relationship but I would have liked to see more bounding moments.

Worldbuilding
This world is very Mecha, which is exactly how it is advertised, but with a lot of story outside of the Mecha. The strong feminist take on these kinds of storylines makes it refreshing. I would have loved more detailed worldbuilding. It feels like I only know the basics at this point, which is fine if book two dives deeper into it.

Story
The story of a girl who wants to break the world and reshape it to her ideals. She wants a life where her value isn’t measured by her looks and her worth as a wife. Which is understandable and valued in every way. As a reader we also read a lot about her bound feet and the values she learned as a child. This is also a story about polyamory and that was one of the aspects that made we want to read this book. I don’t know if the representation is done well but I hope it was.

I hope you will read it to. I especially recommend this book to lovers of the Mecha genre and anime lovers.

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storykath's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

2.5

In a futuristic war, male pilots operate gigantic mechas with energy provided by female concubines, often resulting in the concubines' deaths. When Wu Zetian becomes a concubine with the intent of avenging her sister's death, her power and tenacity take the army by storm.

I'm still so conflicted about what I think of this book. The idea of it, and many of the tropes, are fascinating and engaging. I wanted to love the hints of Zetian's corruption arc, the challenging of a long-held system, the magical elements of qi and Chrysalises and Hunduns.

But I just didn't love them. The execution of the plot and character arcs did not strike a chord with me. I felt like I barely understood the magic/qi system, with the five elements and spirit armor and such, and everything that happened felt pretty unbelievable, except I had no basis to refute it thanks to not having a solid grasp of the world itself. This book tried to fit so much into it, and my impression is that the quality of the story and its themes is degraded as a result.

This is a very #girlpower book, which is not a problem in and of itself, but it got to the point where I was rolling my eyes at Zetian's stilted words of empowerment. I find it hard to believe that an uneducated teenage girl in a violently patriarchal society would be able to so effortlessly analyze the roots of misogyny and discrimination, no matter how outspoken and clever she is. She always seems to figure out everything right away and always make the best possible decision.

Along the same lines, the characters are all very black or white. While the 'good guys' do some morally questionable things, it's all for the 'greater good' and is justified without anyone feeling conflicted about it. The 'bad guys' are wholly unlikeable, with no motivations beyond selfishness and greed. If the 'good guys' appear to have any flaws to begin with, they're later waved away through exposition of their trauma, or the revelation that they actually had good intentions. I was annoyed by the protagonists' moral untouchability, and I was desperate for them to have any actual flaws that wouldn't be explained away or that would have actual consequences for them. The only exceptions to the black-and-white characterization might be some of the pilots and their partners, like Qieluo, but with the rapid pace and jam-packed storytelling, we hardly get to focus on them.

To be fair, I made it about halfway through the book before all of these problems really started to wear on me - I had hope in the first half that the plot would pick up and that I'd get to know the characters and the world better. My hopes were disappointed, but I was far enough in that I forced myself to finish it. The conclusion and epilogue did hook me, so I might try the next book in the series at some point, but I don't expect to be blown away.

Also, like, triple check the content warnings on this one, because it does get pretty dark and gruesome.

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ranjanireviewsreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark 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? No

4.0

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gattolinos_nerdy_nook's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? No

5.0

I AM SCREAMING. This book was, no IS, so amazing. It is the first book that made me not want to read the ending because then there would be no more. Spoiler I read the ending and love this book. I was screaming through out the ending, especially in part 4.

The plot, characters, the twists and turns, and everything in between is just so well done that I can't even begin to describe it. This book is not for the faint of heart or those who do not like morally grey characters. It covers some heavy topics and themes in ways that can seem extreme at times.
As main characters go we have Zetian who is unapologetically anger with the world she is in and the part she has to play as a women. She uses that anger to get vengeance and demand change. I related to her a lot with the anger and injustice as a women working in STEM. I face those issues daily in my workplace and have to shout and screaming to be heard and not talked over.
Some might say we are following an antagonistic, but I think we are just following a normal person who has been pushed to the edge thanks to injustice in their world. I think a lot of people can relate to that.

The plot was also not where or what I was expecting it to be when I started reading, and I'm so happy it wasn't as this is so much more. As it is a fast paced book it feels like things are happening all the time and a lot happens within these 400 pages, but not of it feels out of place, forced, or not giving enough attention.

From Zetian killing Yang Guang in part 1, which had me screaming and cheering especially at that "welcome to your nightmare" line. Gold. Pure fucking gold. The beautiful relationship and development between Zetian, Sima Yi, and Yizhi was so well written and felt so natural, and then the ending of part 3 and all of part 4. I just couldn't at Sima Yi's "death" and then the resurrection of Emperor Qin Zheng and really just all of part 4 had me screaming as I was reading. Pretty sure my neighbours think I've been murdered about four times now.

This book deserves all the praise and hype it is given and so much more. I will never hesitate to recommend people to read this book. If you are on the fence about it this is your message to read it. You will not regret it.

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lolajh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-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

Women going lowkey mad and killing men > zetian I love you fr

Honestly the best development I’ve seen of a heroine becoming an anti heroine. Zetian, a morally grey Chinese disabled woman rebels against her patriarchal society, having to prove her power throughly due to being a woman and doing it FLAWLESSLY whilst criticising the patriarchal and misogynistic society that also exists in the real world. Zetian proves to be so much more powerful than any man, as

is every woman in this universe. Women in this story are so much stronger than men that they have to be used as a “battery” of chi to fuel men and make them stronger due to them being so much weaker naturally, which ends up killing the women, something that further fuels Zetian’s revenge of killing men due to her sister being one of the targets of this and being killed.

Zetian’s power is soon recognised as a major threat, so is paired up with the strongest pilot to fight together in the war that is going on. Whilst Zetian is on her rampage,

she ends up falling for the pilot she is paired with whilst still having feelings for her childhood friend back home. This love triangle is sorted out in best way by making them all polyamory

The book also describes Zetian’s challenging of the roles and expectations of women, through how she wants to present herself and also her body not being the perfect, skinny figure that is idealised. All this challenges Zetian’s connection to her own womanhood. Just about everything good is in this book. Will definitely have to reread while waiting for the next in the series to come out.

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smileyblue's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

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

2.0

I wanted to be obsessed with this book, but I found it just wasn't for me and I don't think I'll pick up the sequel. For me, the most enjoyable aspects were the relatively diverse characters and relationship dynamics. The negatives, meanwhile, were:

Narrative style. First person tends to annoy me a lot especially in YA because I often find it to be artificially self-aware and on the nose, and unfortunately I felt there was was no exception here
I kinda struggled to have a lot of rooting interest for Zeitan. It was wonderful to see the representation she brings, but her moral stance again felt kinda artificial, especially given the context. Some of the situations she found herself in seemed to me to be almost self-insert moments that, for me, had far too obvious. In fiction, I like my moral takeaways to be a little more unstated than they were here.
At no point was I significantly surprised by any of the dramatic twists. Sometimes a predictable plot can feel satisfying. In this case, though, it felt like there was a great deal of untapped potential.
The "twist ending."
This was a deus ex machina moment in a way that, for me, didn't succeed in getting me invested in the sequel. There was some foreshadowing throughout, but it was between too weak and also too on-the-nose. After Shimin's death, the story just becomes a sequence of convenient events. Since the twist happened right on the final few pages in the epilogue, it felt rushed, disjointed, and like it was thrown in there just to toy with the reader's emotions (but did not succeed in doing so for me). The only aspect of the ending that I found surprising was that it set up the next book for an anti-colonization bent. For a while I honestly thought it was going to be a sort of Hunger Games result, and I feel that might have been a more interesting outcome.
Themes. On top of the rest of the book's efforts to explicitly tackle feminism, gender theory, consent, polyamory, and ableism, I felt that throwing
anti-colonization
into the mix converted the whole book into a space where every single one of the author's opinions can be justified. It's not that I think these topics are too much for one book. There are definitely ways to successfully address these issues in an integrated way. The way they were treated in Iron Widow felt, for me, a little unfocused and perhaps even preachy.

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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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soundlysmitten's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious 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

4.5

While Iron Widow is inspired by the history of China and its only female emperor, it actually takes place in a different world. One in which more than the patriarchy is set to topple. The official blurb gives away too much and I can’t figure out how to sum things up without revealing key plot points either. So here is an amusing summary posted by the author which you may or may not understand:

“Under siege by monsters beyond the Great Wall like that shitty Matt Damon movie (except the monsters are Cybertronian-like sentient machines) a society that has the fashion, social customs, and beliefs of Ancient China but futuristic tech fights back by pulling a Neon Genesis Evangelion and rebuilding their very invaders into giant mecha. A boy-girl pair in their teens, because of course they have to be teens, pilot the mecha Darling in the Franxx style, except in a much more sensible position (he hugs her from behind). Under command of human pilots, these mecha take on forms inspired by East Asian myth creatures and transform like Transformers through Digimon-esque evolution lines that get more humanoid as you go on. The pilots physically embody them, so it's more Attack on Titan than Gundam. Oh, and they blast qi attacks, so the battles honestly read like a bunch of furries engaged in a Dragon Ball Z fight, and that’s no one’s fault but mine.”

I heard NGE, Digimon & Dragon Ball, lol. Suffice it to say, Iron Widow is a trip 😹 In a good way, though. I don’t usually follow sci-fi well, but all the fast paced action in this book is surprisingly easy to visualize. The pages are rife with brutality, but there’s a good amount of well-timed humor as well. The morally grey cast is complete with a cinnamon roll character. There’s a love triangle that doesn’t follow the usual set up where everyone gets hurt and you can guess early on who ends up alone. And, another brilliant twist.

However, some people don’t like that the book is marketed as feminist because the main character, Zetian, is all about violence and bloodshed. In my opinion… some people need to recall that this story is set in a world where survival is rooted in violence and the government has been systematically sacrificing women for generations. It’s not like Zetian can change anything by say, running for office or writing to representatives. And we are capable of thinking critically, so should we really require her to be the ultimate feminist icon at all times just because the book has feminist themes? Zetian's life is constantly on the line. She isn't given many options, so while her actions might not always reflect an ideal picture of humanity, I think she operates in a realistic way considering all she's been through and all she's up against. In the beginning, it’s obvious that she is desperately done with life. Consumed by grief and rage, she is ready to sacrifice her awful family along with herself. Moreover, she contemplates possibly damning the human race for the sake of revenge. I would’ve liked more content on Zetian’s bond with Big Sister in order to make better sense of her death as Zetian’s initial driving force, but all the same… as circumstances shift, she comes to realize she has a bit of power to leverage and hope begins to spark in her chest. Her goals get bigger, less selfish. It’s still very clear, though, that if things don’t change, she doesn’t want to be around. Taking her past trauma, the conditions she's being forced to endure, and her mental/emotional/spiritual state into account, how can readers expect her to be this golden heroine who always does the right thing? Even the very concept of ‘the right thing’ becomes convoluted as the story progresses. Right or wrong, Zetian is the type of person who’s willing to make heartless decisions in order to tear down the toxic system she was born into. But she’s also prone to lashing out in fits of anguish. And I do wonder how the aftermath of her actions will settle, how she will process it all…

If Zetian ends up having to pull her efforts back, will she feel like she killed her family for nothing? What about the woman who got blackmailed into attacking her? Will she come to regret later murdering that woman?

Another reason people have argued the book shouldn't be labeled feminist is that Zetian goes about attaining victory the way men are often portrayed doing so. I agree that women don't need to emulate men in order to be strong and I so appreciate stories about women who are strong by their own feminine standards. But Zetian is a girl whose qi manifests the way society might expect a guy’s to, and it's great. It doesn't change the fact that the narrative centers on the liberation of women, so I don't see it as a reason to denounce the story's feminist themes.

My question isn’t how did Zetian get such ‘radical’ ideas, but why does she appear to be the only one seeing clearly enough to get big mad?

As someone pointed out to me, there have been others before Zetian. The general population just isn't aware of them, and that seems to further illustrate the fact that the average woman is in no position to push back. But...

I wonder why all these other female characters seem to believe the lie that it's a woman's privilege to almost certainly die. True, they've been exposed to propaganda their whole lives. But is there really only one woman in a generation with thoughts to the contrary, or has the author just delayed introducing us to others/kept them in hiding for the time being?

I think it would've been cool to have the other female pilots in a Balanced Match work with Zetian in some capacity, rather than be hostile and antagonistic or secretly work against her. Though I suppose their actions make a point on the reality of women tearing down other women. And I'm glad we get to see at least a little loyalty towards the end. I do anticipate greater solidarity as the story progresses and hope it coming through gradually will serve to make the narrative even stronger.

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laurajeangrace's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

5.0

Content Warnings

eirigh_stewart's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring 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

Content Warnings

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