Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Iron Widow

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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alexisgarcia's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-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

3.5

this was a good and somewhat educational read. however, i struggled with the worldbuilding and the "magic" system. i found myself lost at some points.

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squidface's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced

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

2.0

First, I'd like to justify my choices above. Then I'll deep dive into my full review of this book. There will be general spoilers in this review, and I will hide major spoilers.
So, I can't realistically say either way that the book was plot or character driven. It was probably a mix, but both were weak.
The character development was probably there for... I'd say at least one character, at a push two or three.
Personally I didn't mesh / particularly like or root for any of the characters (more below).
Diverse characters?

If you count having two bisexual male protagonists as diverse, then yes. But other than that, I wouldn't say the cast of characters is particularly diverse

Character flaws? Oh boy, I can't. I can't even. What this author thinks are character flaws don't actually hinder the characters at all.

So, let's start with the positives. I was stoked to read a mecha book, being a huge mecha fan. I really liked that the book was influenced by Chinese culture, folklore, and history - honestly that aspect of the book earned it a full point from me. Using things like qi and meridians and animals that are sacred/part of Chinese legend, absolutely chef kiss from me on that. If this book goes any way towards getting people more engaged with and interested in Eastern cultures, that's a wonderful thing. I also liked the mech system in general, and the fact that the qi was basically a good way of explaining something of a "magic system" that was inherent to the plot, towards the end. I think perhaps it could have had a little more explanation, but only to round it off a bit. Other than that this was one of the stronger elements of the whole book and felt like the most polished aspect.

Other than that... let's focus on the other puzzle pieces we have here.

I felt the prose in general made this book stand out as a debut novel. I have no idea whether the author is a seasoned writer or not, but their prose is at times clunky and awkward. They're using verbs in a "quirky" way, not necessarily a "creative" way, but for some reason the editor and publishers haven't streamlined much of this at all. The descriptions aren't usually the ones I wanted - the book focuses a lot on battle scenes, I can think that there's at least 4-5 battle scenes during the book. Granted, the majority of the events take place on the front lines of a war, but it seemed to me as I got halfway through that the author used "the invasion alarms sounding" as a get-out clause to avoid many character development scenes or relationship building scenes. I also wasn't a fan of the endless adjectives, and also the tendency for the author to use 10 words where 2 would do, just to seemingly write around a cliche or a standard way of writing something. Didn't work for me.

The MC somehow knows what a "glitch" is (somewhere towards the end of the book she describes the landscape as looking all the same - as if they were running through a glitch). I have no idea how a peasant girl who doesn't have access to a tablet/technology for the first 19 years of her life understands what a glitch is or what one looks like. Unless it's one of those things just everyone kinda knows about - implied scifi knowledge? IDK, it stood out like a sore thumb to me. So while the MC did have a voice of her own, she was also pretty damn well lyrical with her explanations of things, in a way that sometimes took away from the rash and angry nature of the character.

The themes in the book were also clunky, awkward, and glaringly obvious. Nothing subtle here about the feminist overtones. In no way am I saying that inclusion of feminism is a bad thing - but the approach here was amateur and I'm not really sure what sort of feminism we had. The war-mongering, man-hating kind I guess. Our protagonist has absolutely no precedence for the types of feminist thought she has, other than "my mother and grandmother and sister and generations of women before me have had to endure this gruelling, toxic world where we are subservient to men". Ok, fine. It fits with the world and maybe it'll make more sense when the sequel comes out.

It's implied that the women, who usually have higher spirit pressures, are culled/controlled, because this means there are less balanced matches in the world. It's not unusual to have an army following orders that actually screen what's truly going on, but the fact we got the plot twist in the second to last chapter felt cheap.

Slavery/subservience/breaking free of thy chains/deception/trusting/trauma/alcoholism/ and to a certain extent capitalism are all touched on, but to me they seemed more like the cherry on top of everything (or what people like to call an afterthought) than actual deep themes the author was keen to explore. Sure you can taste the cherry and enjoy it, but without it the dish is more or less the same, and it's added more for aesthetic and appeal than anything with more depth.

The pacing was.... something.

Look, I have no doubt that this book is popular, and certainly has some positives - I know everyone is excited that it has bi representation and also polyam representation. I do sort of wish we could have representation of polyam without the people within that relationship dynamic having to already be outcasts of the world/going against the grain.

I wonder how much this book honestly looks like it's original manuscript, and how much was stripped out, because by all accounts the author does say that they intended for there to be "more domestic scenes" which probably would have helped a lot towards character development. The only character who really shone at all for me was Shimin, because he's obviously a product of his trauma. But I felt the characters were messy and sometimes the justifications for what they were doing were so instantaneous or badly explained that I barely had time to register what was going on. The author didn't really let the protagonist feel much aside from constant anger or pain. Also, giving your protagonist a physical disability is not inherently a good character flaw. She can't walk, yet the solution to this is usually that she's scooped up and carried by a strong man. Zetian isn't that introspective to be honest, and she operates a bit like a one-woman army. Her motivations remain more or less strong and she does stick by her convictions, but by the time the polyam sparks start flying she's forgotten 50 pages ago that she's annoyed at herself for being so pretty and headstrong that all the men around her want her. She's described as being chunky twice, but it's sort of a throwaway comment both times (also how the eff would a peasant girl become softer-figured?) and struck me as the author just wanting to have an "unconventionally attractive" female protagonist, while still making her very beautiful.

MC is a mary sue, and the only other flaw I see in her is that she is willing to sacrifice to achieve her goals. I don't know where that is going to get her when she has nothing left to sacrifice.

But does all of this really matter, when it's blatant commercial fiction? Idk, I guess I just prefer my asian-influenced scifi robot mecha futuristic fiction to be a little more clever and well-written.

P.S. Not sure what initially labelled this as "too dark to be YA" in the eyes of the publishers, or what makes anyone think that it's similar to The Handmaid's Tale (other than women being a subservient class?). There is for sure some imagery later in the book that could be disturbing, but you have teens reading The Road; you tell me which one is more mentally disturbing?

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mothman19's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
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

4.5

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fatherprozac's review against another edition

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adventurous 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

Pretty much scratched every itch for female rage and vengeance I've ever had. I felt the urge to scream my soul out along with Zetian at every turn and was always left satisfied.

I loved the inclusion of a polyamorous triangle. I've never read a book with one before. Honestly, I also really loved that Zetian crushed her family (literally) in the end. I was so disappointed by the initial "be the bigger person" turn but it was SO perfect how it was really just used as a weapon against her. Sometimes the rotten family really does just have to pay for their behavior and/or passiveness.

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kshertz's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

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

4.0

I really love that the YA genre has embraced very different narratives than it has in the past. This is such an interesting dystopian future that still has some of the same strong holds of misogyny and tradition. I love that the iron widow is such a strong character and I love her character development. I do love the romance involved but I think it was not fully explored or developed in the way that I typically love. The ending was also meant to inspire me to read the rest but I feel like I’m satisfied with just reading the one book. I definitely think it’s an amazing book to read and I couldn’t put it down once I started reading it which is always going to get a four at least for me!!

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purplelake's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional 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

4.5

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idiomie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

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