Reviews with content warning for Violence - Iron Widow

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

1013 reviews

deshibornbideshi's review against another edition

dark hopeful inspiring reflective tense medium-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

5.0

Themes/Topics/Attributes: dismantling the heteropatriarchy in an ultra-heteropatriarchal world, dystopian industrial future, class commentary, trauma-informed character development, exploited/prisoner labor

Have patience with our protagonist who is young, highly traumatized, and has every right to be as indignant

and vengeful

as she wants to be when she has had no community at her back for so long, under conditions that most of us reading this book could only ever imagine but that many of us can certainly at least begin to relate to. Zetian is scrappy and clever and cunning, and she deserves to survive. She deserves to thrive in a world that she has been told cannot exist. I see that world for her and her companions, and they've begun to see it too.

They have a difficult and still traumatic jouney ahead of them. I hope they emerge victorious in each other's arms.

This is a story of navigating trauma, power, and injustice. This is a story of daring to have hope and begin the messy work of making it a reality.

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rim_eh's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

3.25

This book started off quite fast paced and I was instantly sucked in to the story of the main character.

In a world run by money and propaganda, where women are viewed as disposable and less than, the heroine is pissed off and determined to be recognised as equal. Her mental fortitude and pragmatism is almost too strong to be believable considering her upbringing.

The romance is closed door, if anyone was wondering.

The last part of the book felt more superficial or detached than the beginning and I had trouble getting in to it.

I also discovered I’m not a huge fan of mecha (mega transformer machines fighting a war), but despite all that it was an entertaining enough story.

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rolugomi's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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scripturient's review

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dark reflective 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
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

That was one hell of a ride. It is unapologetic female rage, which I really enjoyed, it is inspired by Imperial China's only female Emperor, which is also super cool, and

it has a love triangle that resolves into a throuple which was AWESOME

. I don't ever want to read that in any other way.
I felt the ending was a bit rushed, almost as if there was no real resolution at hand, so we had to go for more broad angry violence, which felt a bit empty. But overall a great read!

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rlpdean's review against another edition

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challenging 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? No

5.0

https://rlpdean.wordpress.com/2025/01/19/iron-widow/

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fitchersbird's review against another edition

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adventurous 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? Yes

3.5

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melniksuzuki's review against another edition

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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

4.0

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blacksphinx's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

This is the book that got me back into reading as a hobby; I devoured it in less than 24 hours. It's also the first book I'm reread since diving back into reading, and I was nervous. I've read about 250 other books since then... would this still stand up to my memory of it?

The answer turned out to be mostly yes! It doesn't hurt that I recently bounced off of two other YA-ish-female-rage stories and I could compare and see how much better this one is (even on a sentence level). I love how Zeitan is a wrathful, manipulative thing who is fueled by spite. I also loved how singularly focused she was on women's position in the unjust pilot system. She never lost sight of the constant disregard and loss of female life, and even was able to pull her gaze back further to see that yelling at individual men was ineffective, it's the system that is rotten. And yeah, there's some cheesy bits (a character snaps his fingers and goes yeeeees at some point as the narration says the audience "gags" for a performance, which made me cringe). The blisteringly fast pace is an asset, allowing any humor that doesn't land to be quickly moved on from. The final cascade of revolutions was just as cool as it was the first time.

It's also the only book I've read, YA or otherwise, the solves a love triangle with a genuine polyamorous triad, and I can't overlook how much I love that.

And yet, there's things that stood out and bothered me that I didn't think about my first time through. There's some continuity errors. This is supposed to be

a "feminist" story, yet every female character attacks, abuses, manipulates, or tries to kill Zeitan. I understand the point Zhao is explicitly making, that the patriarchy is equally upheld by women and we are not all natural allies to each other, but not even a single female friend? She has to rely on men for the entire story?

This is also yet another book where

torture is portrayed as an effective means of getting information out of someone, when out here in the real world it doesn't work.

The extremely high entertainment value I got out of the book outweighed the parts that bothered me.

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jacmuffler's review against another edition

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adventurous dark 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

4.75

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inirac's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark tense fast-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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