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A review by blacksphinx
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
adventurous
dark
emotional
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This is the book that got me back into reading as a hobby; I devoured it in less than 24 hours. It's also the first book I'm reread since diving back into reading, and I was nervous. I've read about 250 other books since then... would this still stand up to my memory of it?
The answer turned out to be mostly yes! It doesn't hurt that I recently bounced off of two other YA-ish-female-rage stories and I could compare and see how much better this one is (even on a sentence level). I love how Zeitan is a wrathful, manipulative thing who is fueled by spite. I also loved how singularly focused she was on women's position in the unjust pilot system. She never lost sight of the constant disregard and loss of female life, and even was able to pull her gaze back further to see that yelling at individual men was ineffective, it's the system that is rotten. And yeah, there's some cheesy bits (a character snaps his fingers and goes yeeeees at some point as the narration says the audience "gags" for a performance, which made me cringe). The blisteringly fast pace is an asset, allowing any humor that doesn't land to be quickly moved on from. The final cascade of revolutions was just as cool as it was the first time.It's also the only book I've read, YA or otherwise, the solves a love triangle with a genuine polyamorous triad, and I can't overlook how much I love that.
And yet, there's things that stood out and bothered me that I didn't think about my first time through. There's some continuity errors. This is supposed to bea "feminist" story, yet every female character attacks, abuses, manipulates, or tries to kill Zeitan. I understand the point Zhao is explicitly making, that the patriarchy is equally upheld by women and we are not all natural allies to each other, but not even a single female friend? She has to rely on men for the entire story? This is also yet another book where torture is portrayed as an effective means of getting information out of someone, when out here in the real world it doesn't work. The extremely high entertainment value I got out of the book outweighed the parts that bothered me.
The answer turned out to be mostly yes! It doesn't hurt that I recently bounced off of two other YA-ish-female-rage stories and I could compare and see how much better this one is (even on a sentence level). I love how Zeitan is a wrathful, manipulative thing who is fueled by spite. I also loved how singularly focused she was on women's position in the unjust pilot system. She never lost sight of the constant disregard and loss of female life, and even was able to pull her gaze back further to see that yelling at individual men was ineffective, it's the system that is rotten. And yeah, there's some cheesy bits (a character snaps his fingers and goes yeeeees at some point as the narration says the audience "gags" for a performance, which made me cringe). The blisteringly fast pace is an asset, allowing any humor that doesn't land to be quickly moved on from. The final cascade of revolutions was just as cool as it was the first time.
And yet, there's things that stood out and bothered me that I didn't think about my first time through. There's some continuity errors. This is supposed to be
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Confinement, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Torture, Violence, Blood, Murder, and War
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body horror, Body shaming, Homophobia, Sexual content, Medical content, and Pandemic/Epidemic