ninareadss 's review for:

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

3.5

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I thought this book was really interesting. I’m honestly surprised this was a YA novel and not new adult. The themes throughout the book and the general premise of the book is pretty brutal. I probably would’ve rated the book higher, but there were some things that had issues with. I was a bit lost on the world politics within the book. I had a vague understanding of the workings, but the book didn’t really go that much in depth. I respect the author for making the love triangle as a true love triangle. It’s a polyamorous relationship- everybody involved was interested in each other. However, there were some of the pairings that I didn’t understand where the sudden romantic feelings came from. There was no real build up or little scenes amongst them that would explain it. Also, some of the characters felt a bit flat to me. I love an unapologetic character when it’s done right, but this felt wish-washy to me. Zetian was judging certain people’s actions and then would turn around and do the same thing. Or maybe that’s the point and it went over me 😭 to be fair, I haven’t really read that many books with morally gray characters. I think my biggest issue was that there was a lot of showing and not telling in this book. 
I feel like I rambled about a lot of issues, but I did find the book interesting. I can see myself picking up the second one in the series after I work through the other books I have currently checked out.