A review by mersymerci
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective 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

Top read of the year ! I haven’t been this ecstatic of the direction of a plot or a novels characters in a long time! Every chapter had me jumping in joy, rooting for Wu ZeTian! I think daughters should be allowed to kill people and seek revenge, just once or twice? Or as much as they want. As a treat!

I love the message of Wu ZeTian finding rage, vengeance, and insanity in her trauma yet choosing to live and making it the worlds problem. This is the world that shaped her, that was merciless in its torment, she is simply returning the favor. I love that her pursuit of revenge is never looked down on or shunned narratively. No “I am no better if I do this” None of those “this isn’t what i was expecting” moments. Instead she proves over and over she is so much worse and loves it. She is allowed to thrive in her story and never once falter in what makes her great. Never once has to apologize or change. She is fulfilled in all her conniving manipulative actions, in all her revenge and I cannot express how much I love it. I also really loved how she was allowed to still experience a wide array of emotions. That her anger did not bleed her of the rest of her humanness— it does the opposite in fact. Her anger propels her towards it. It opens her up to love, to possibility, to freedom, to complexity, her strength, her confidence, and tenderness. She would not have gotten anywhere if not for her anger. So many stories lean into the perceived thievery of anger and not the freedom of it, and I’m glad this story did not do the same. 

Wu XeTian is still able to discover that love is infinite and cannot be hoarded or controlled. That she is deserving of it and her love is also a gift. I love how in everything, even in her mercy (which is rarely given) she is fierce and demanding and never bends to the will of others for the sake of ease or peace. She looks at the horrors of the world, the horrors done to her, and she screams back at them that she is so much worse. I don’t read her as evil, even though she’s sexy for branding herself as such, she is more of a balancing scale, the rage of thousand generations in a body. That is what makes her terrifying. I understand the power of her language though. The power of becoming the worst people see in you because that it all they deserve because that is all they’ll believe. But as a reader it doesn’t seem fitting to treat her as a villain. What’s villainous about revolting, retaliation? About killing powerful men that use people as pawns, men that is the system that harms, kills, rapes and torture women? Men that make up the imperialist structures of their society? What’s evil about killing someone’s that killed your soulmate for the whims of said men? Who is deciding how we define violence and evil? 

I think this book offers insightful commentary on gender based violence and the many nuances held within it. For instance, even though men —-with or without power— cause harm disproportionately and on much larger scales, women are not always powerless— and how they decide to wield the relational and shifting power they hold can also be impactful or dangerous. Her mother, her grandmother, the pilot that betrayed her. All shining examples of when marginalized people turning their hatred towards each other, often times the more marginalized among us (ie. queer, disabled, poor, ethnic women) instead of dismantling the oppressive powers at hand and the consequences of doing so. 

It’s so fun seeing Wu Xetian lean into the negative imagery people paint of her because she’s a woman and knowing that she is only those things because they believe that of her but also because they made her this way. She is as cruel and exacting and conniving as the world is around her and to her. Yet she is not simply just the product of her environment she shapes herself into so much more off of her will. And the lives lost of innocent women. The moments where she is ready to give up to let them win and she thinks of the life she lives through and the lives other women have suffered— those moments where she finds her rage and her purpose in a bright spark of flames— have got to be some of my favorites. The narrative power of anger being the emotion that loves you is always so moving to me. 

I also love how the male love interests never expect her to be different or shrink herself or change her to be docile. They accept her, encourage her, lean into her insanity and apologize for ever trying to change her. 

When she says, “This body of mine is not big enough to contain the scale of emotion coursing through me. How could I feel a rage like this, and not be able to tear the sky open and scorch the earth?” When she says, “Redemption story, they said? There will be no redemption. It is not me who is wrong. It's everyone else.” And she says, “An earthquake could shake the ground, and I wouldn't teeter. I am the force that quakes the earth.” When he says “"When you cherish someone for how amazing they are, you don't pluck them from their roots just to watch them wither in your hands. You help them bloom into the incredible thing they're really meant to be.” 

And "You're my polar star. I'll go wherever you guide me.” 

This author has a delightful way of bringing about the most intense aspects of their characters. The ways they speak to one another and hold on another in their eyes, whether it is in love or rage is all very poetic. 
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