A review by spacerkip
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Did not finish book. Stopped at 43%.

The writing style felt very juvenile and clashed too much with the gravity of the subject matter. I didn't find that the historical Chinese influence melded well with the sci-fi setting. It could have! But it needed more work for the two to actually feel cohesive. Most glaringly, this supposed to be a feminist work, but the actual feminism that's presented lacks any kind of nuance. It reads like the Spooky Scary Bad Feminism my conservative household talked about growing up, rather than anything thoughtful or conversation-starting. Made it just shy of halfway before realizing I wasn't enjoying myself.