A review by bluejayreads
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

adventurous dark emotional tense
  • 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

I had some reservations about this book going in that had nothing to do with the book itself. The author is a YouTuber that my husband watches (he’s the one who told me about this book), but I haven’t seen any of their videos. I knew nothing about the book besides its back cover. What had me worried is that I put it on hold at my library, which told me that based on the number of people ahead of me it would be about a 17-week wait. Five weeks later, I got a notification that it was ready to borrow. As I told my husband, either it was so good that people were devouring it and finishing it fast or it was so bad that people were giving up quickly. 

Luckily, the former was the case. This book is fantastic. 

It was also very hard to read at many points. Misogyny is something I find it hard to read about, especially when it gets extreme, and everything in the world of Iron Widow is built on misogyny. There is foot-binding in this world. The only use of daughters is selling them off to be wives or die in battle. Chrysalises are the only defense against the invading aliens, and when a man and a woman get into one, only the man will survive. 

Zetian is angry and she has every right to be. Her family only cares about the money she can bring in through either a bride price or a war death payment for dying in a Chrysalis. They are only sad about her older sister’s death because she was murdered outside of a Chrysalis and therefore her family didn’t get the payment. Her father and grandfather are violent and abusive, her mother and grandmother are cowed, and she knows they do not love her. If they want to sell her to her death anyway, the death penalty for killing the male pilot who murdered her sister won’t be anything worse. 

This acceptance of death made her absolutely fearless, and I loved it. The perfect girl is beautiful and silent, moving slowly on her bound feet, obeying every order and taking insults and abuse without complaint. None of the men Zetian encounters have any idea what to do with a girl who has accepted she’s going to die and therefore sees no point in trying to avoid the wrath of men. She is an absolute delight of fury, and I love it when books let girls embrace their rage. 

I don’t know if Xiran intended this, but Zetian’s bound feet were relatable disability feels. I don’t have bound feet, but I do have a chronic pain condition that especially likes to screw up my hips, knees, and other joints required for walking, and I absolutely related to the frustration and anger and feeling of being limited that comes with every step hurting, needing a mobility aid like a cane to walk longer distances, and knowing that it will never be fixed. I have no idea how much of what’s in the book is accurate to actual footbinding practices, but it was definitely relatable to my experience of mobility- and pain-related disability. 

The themes in this book aren’t really subtle, especially the whole thing about a misogynistic society. I absolutely loved the progression of it, though. Zetian knows that there is misogyny in the world and that she and her sister have no worth outside of supporting, serving, and dying for men simply because they’re women. She starts the book blaming individual men, with the goal of murdering the individual man who murdered her sister. But the book takes her along a journey from “individual men are the problem” to “the system is the problem” as she learned more about the individual men and the system. 

And if you’re not here for themes – well, I think you’d be missing out on a lot of what makes this book great, but you do get epic mecha battles, magic with a thin veneer of science used to fight invading aliens, psychic fights in a mental realm, good old-fashioned fisticuffs, powerful prisoners with hearts of gold, underdogs teaming up to give the people in charge a gigantic middle finger, a love triangle that ends in the best way possible, and several amazing twists (only one of which I suspected). 

This review is already getting long, and I haven’t even mentioned the rich and complex world-building, the amazing twists, the rich atmosphere, the fantastic relationships between Zetian and the two love interests in the triangle, the minor themes about women who participate in their own oppression, and all the other wonderful things in this book. It’s fantastic. Everything about is dark and gorgeous and burning with fury and flame. I adore this book. 

I also recommend checking out the author’s website. There’s character profiles, fanart, and even memes (mild spoiler warning for how the love triangle shakes out, though). 
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