Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Iron Widow

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

queenpebbles's review

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adventurous dark emotional fast-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

4.0

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justmys's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

I enjoyed the world the story took place in. The premise and intrigue but I wish there had been more of it.
Everything happens so fast and so easily (???) that it just felt...like watching a movie adaptation of a novel?
I didn't like the main character. I wanted to.

But every time she opened her mouth I cringed at her. She was not the cold genius she I thought she was. She was manipulated and easily played and only accomplished what she did because of the men around her. She never did anything herself.

If there's another book set in the same world I'll read it. It's an easy read and a decent idea for a story. I just hope we get to delve further in and read a novel instead of watching the YA movie version.

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ender24's review

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challenging dark funny informative inspiring mysterious 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? Yes

5.0

DAMN.

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icy_queen's review

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adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious 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

4.5

Do not expect any of the characters to be "nice" or "good people" and be prepared for many horrible things to happen (definitely check trigger warnings)! If you're ok with that or even enjoy reading it, I highly recommend this book.

The main character is absolutely, wonderfully unhinged and hellbent on revenge for her sister, herself, and all the other girls that were sacrificed, mutilated and/or killed by their society. She doesn't stop at killing her sister's murderer, but strives to destroy the whole system with the help of her soft "rich boy" bestfriend and her dangerous, bad boy, involuntary co-pilot (the three of them form an actual love triangle).

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fromthefoxhole's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious 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

5.0

oh my god, my brain is the meltiest it's been in a long time!!

In Huaxia, women hope for one of two fates - marriage or to be a concubine-pilot for one of the male Chrysalis (think Pacific Rim style mech suit) pilots. After losing her Big Sister to the hands of one such pilot, Zetian has concocted a plan to avenge her sister's death by infiltrating the pilot system and killing the man responsible. Generally, women are expected to die from the mental strain of the co-piloting, but Zetian refuses to give up quite easily. Instead, she winds up utilizing their co-pilot neural link to murder him, becoming the Iron Widow.
Rather than freeing her, this feat results in her being paired with Shimin, the strongest Chrysalis pilot in Huaxia - who also murdered his father and brothers. As they begrudgingly work together, they uncover each other's past and develop a partnership. Alongside their friendship, though, they find more corruption than Zetian could have ever imagined.

I won't lie, the first chapter really didn't grab me. I didn't understand a lot of the world-specific language, but oh my god, it's so worth it to work past that. Iron Widow is a masterclass in continuous world building, slowly unfurling the history of Huaxia and Zetian like the first blossoms of spring. I've had other 5 star reads this month, and reading this makes me want to retroactively downgrade them, or petition Amazon for a higher option.
Zetian is DELIGHTFUL, so full of righteous fury and grief, and she's stunningly clever. She's brash and unrefined, and I'm obsessed with her. Her desperation to fix the misogyny and mistreatment of young girls in her society is so admirable. Honestly, even though she's ending the book kind of unhinged, I would probably trust her anyway.
The romance element is refreshing, avoiding the traditional YA love triangle in favor of a thoughtful portrayal of polyamory.
The writing is captivating, straddling the line between Chinese history and its futuristic setting. Zhao is incredibly effective at touching all of the reader's senses, so I really felt like I could see the entire book come to life around me.

TL; DR - YES, it really is that good.

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ramreadsagain's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

3.0

I've tried to squeeze as much good out of this book as I can, but there is too much that frustrated me about this book for me to rate it any higher.

Non-spoiler section:

- At first I thought the heavy-handedness was just a feature of the YA genre (which I don't read much of as, yeah, it's not often very subtle) but as the story developed I realised that this is definitely a 'this book' problem. There is a lot of info-dumping, and while it never feels like a slog, it has a telling rather than showing approach to the world-building.

- However, the concept itself? Fantasticly original and captivating. The overarching plot is certainly entertaining, and this was an enjoyable read. It's also got some great rep, such as Zetian being disabled due to the practise of feet-binding. The romance plots were also nice overall (but total insta-love). The author clearly feels a lot of rage and this comes through very well, and I'm mostly here for it.

Spoiler/complaints section:

- All characterisation felt quite... cartoonish? The bad guys are one-dimensional 'evil men', we have softboi love interests, and all the dialogue is quite cringe. A lot of the language felt out of place in this SFF book, with frequent use of words such as "ugh", "dork" and "um".

- The plot twists I saw coming before I even opened the book. Obviously it's rigged against women and obviously the aliens aren't actually the mindless invaders we're told they are.

- I found Zetian's lack of consistent morals very frustrating. I am not expecting a perfect main character but I believe her approach to fixing the issue of concubine deaths was very flawed. She only experiences character growth once: at first she is happy to have her family condemned to death, but around 2/3rds into the book decides to 'rescue' them and bring them into the city. She regrets this after her family is used against her and actually kills the woman who convinced her to change her mind about her family. So any character growth there is erased. In addition, the whole plot revolves around her rage at concubines dying, but happily killed the above woman, a concubine, after the woman betrayed Zetian (due to blackmail). She also delights in killing overall, murdering many people throughout the book. I understand this as a manifestation of female rage but fighting violence with violence does not align with my idea of feminism and I believe it solves nothing.

- This does bring me round to the feminism in the novel overall. As I mentioned earlier, the book is very heavy-handed in its approach, with Zetian just having "great instagram-quoteworthy feminist realisations" about 50 times with no real build up or development. It felt very faux-progressive fanservicey tbh? And don't expect any other strong female characters apart from Zetian: all women are portrayed as mindless, jealous, or stupid, apart from one woman who is the above woman who ends up betraying her anyway. Zetian only knows how to fight violence with more violence and her goal is to just become the new ruler and enact vengeance, which is not the solution the book seems to think it is.

- Zetian overall is very 'not like the other girls'; I would have loved some explanation for why she is the 'chosen one' who sees through the patriarchal brainwashing, but instead she just seems to spring onto the first page already with fully formed ideas and anger about her society. She seems to consider other women to either be mindless and deserving of their fate for not fighting back, or as innocent girls who must be saved.

Overall though, I did enjoy it in a "turn my brain off, #girlboss" way. Delving a bit deeper brought up the above issues but to be honest this was still an entertaining and super fastpaced read. Not sure I'll reach for the sequel though? I actually really think this should have been an adult novel instead of YA (and Xiran themself says it was originally much darker). I usually love a good 'unhinged female rage' book but I think perhaps the choice for this to be YA made it feel very out of place.

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ging090803's review

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

4.0

I love a “everyone has to die” type of book and this one didn’t disappoint.
Even though, the middle was kinda long with all the blabla politic and all, I really loved it anyway.
The end was amazing. The mains are badass and I really liked how the throuple didn’t feel forced. Everything was “too” natural, it just happened.
I loved the end

I love the god complex and her being unbothered by her mass murdering.

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