This book was so good! I loved the diverse representation throughout it. The author did wonderfully at painting a vivid image in my mind. I highly recommend!

Iron Widow is one of my top five-star reads of 2021, without question. Iron Widow is a futuristic story where piloting mechas is the key to survival. The mechas require a boy/girl team, but the experience typically kills the girls in the partnership. Determined to get revenge for her big sister who was killed, Zetian agrees to participate. Zetian is revealed to be an Iron Widow- she can sacrifice boys for power to pilot the mechas. As she tries to understand why the system functions in such a misogynistic way, Zetian strives to gain power and prevent more sacrifices before one of the attempts on her life succeeds.

With themes of overthrowing the patriarchy, questioning societal gender norms, and fighting for justice- Iron Widow is a truly compelling and fresh story. I absolutely loved watching Zetian question and destroy ideas about what a woman “should” do. There was also great portrayal and discussion of toxic family dynamics. Iron Widow feels bloody, visceral, and real. Zetian is a fierce and strong character- but she’s also very fun! She is a character who is so unafraid to break the rules and take big risks that it’s impossible to look away. Zetian and the book are inspired by Empress Wu, the only female emperor of China. Iron Widow also contains fantastic LGBTQ+ rep, including a poly relationship. This relationship is one of my favorite aspects of the book! No cliche love triangle here- the relationship is beautifully set up and very well done.

Iron Widow pulls no punches and is incredibly sharp. This is a fast-paced and thrilling adventure. If you enjoy mechas, morally gray characters, strong women who are determined to claw their way to power, and epic battle scenes- then you need to read Iron Widow! I can’t wait to see what happens next! Iron Widow releases on September 21, 2021. Thank you so much to Xiran Jay Zhao, Penguin Teen, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on the publication date and I will publish it on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble etc

★ This combines elements of Chinese history and mecha sci-fi in a way that I haven’t seen done before. The mechanics are still focused around qi and the four elements of life which is so well-crafted that it seems entirely plausible.

★ There were two major twists that I didn’t see coming — the book keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. There is incredible commentary on gender stereotypes, misogyny, and there is also polyamorous representation! I was *screaming* in one scene when Zetian is basically demanded to sleep with her co-pilot and she points out how messed up it is that she is shamed into spending her whole life “pure” and then she’s supposed to flip a switch and be comfortable hyper-sexual. (S/O to anyone else who survived evangelical purity culture).

★ My one critique is that this book does an amazing job hitting on balancing the masculine and feminine in all of us and dismantling gender roles, but I still feel like we got only one side of Zetian. Her rage was delicious in the face of the patriarchy but I hope we see more facets to her as the series goes on!

An ambitious debut from Xiran Jay Zhao! Excited to see where the next book in the series goes and for future works of Zhao as well.

This was just one big powermove of a book. I read most of it in one sitting and it's definitely one of my favourite feminist books now. It's both a fun sci-fi and a really great commentary of misogyny in a very patriarchal society, and Zetian is a main character who takes no hostages, will not be shamed into submission, and will do anything to achieve her goals. This book is also polyamorous, and her love interests are both on her level of morally grey, which makes for really interesting dynamics.

Rating: 4.5 stars.

This was a breath of fresh air. If you're only going to pick up one YA fantasy book this year, it should be Iron Widow.

Iron Widow gave me Hunger Games, Pokemon, and Power Rangers vibes. The world was so creative and fascinating to learn about. There are these alien creatures called the Hunduns who are trying to attack humans. Humans use the corpses of these aliens to build these giant metal warriors to fight them. They are powered by a male-female team but the female member normally dies because she is "weaker". Our main character, Zetian, wants to challenge that and save the many girls who are dying every battle. This does end up being a really dark book (lots of murder with no remorse) so be ready for that if that's touchy for you.

I loved the character of Zetian because of her feminism. I felt like it wasn't too preachy and I kept highlighting these badass feminist quotes from the book. Zetian also kind of has a disability due to a cultural practice of foot wrapping for women to have tiny feet so she needs to walk with a cane. She also is in a wheelchair for part of the book.

I also really appreciated the polyamorous relationship featured in the book. The only other book I've read that had polyamory was Strange Grace by Tessa Gratton so it's great to see more coming out. I don't know much about that type of relationship but the way it was portrayed in this book just made it make sense. (FYI - Any sex scenes were fade-to-black, not on the page.)

My only complaint was that I sometimes struggled reading this either due to the pacing or the writing. But maybe that's just me and my lack of focus due to the pandemic.

Seriously, add this book to your reading list this year. You won't regret it!

Thank you to Penguin Random House Canada and NetGalley for providing me with an excerpt in exchange for an honest review.

I saw everyone on my Goodreads timeline hyping up this book but I didn't want to put up my expectations Too high because it never ends well. I am simply so happy that I have read this because this most definitely will be on my waitlist to read the sequel. If there were a sequel out already as well as this book, I could've easily started the sequel right after finishing this one. The characters were so wonderfully fleshed out, including all of the relationships in the book as well. It was truly so good and great being able to read a book where all the characters are able to be fleshed out 100% including their relationships as well.

The plot as well was so so wonderfully done, it most definitely focuses on misogyny and focuses that onto the characters and why they made certain decisions. As the book has been pitched as "Pacific Rim" I would say without a doubt that it has that aspect as much as the misogyny aspect is in this, it is discussed. Like I said, with character's decisions and actions, a lot of them misogyny (whether they are a part of it or have dealt with it) deals with it heavily and is truly, a very refreshing read. Also fleshing in Chinese history into the story along with one of the characters as well was also very refreshing. Refreshing to be able to know there was history that had inspired the author to make this. I really just cannot praise the plot and characters enough honestly.

I feel like I haven't said much but I really like...can't say much about this book without saying just "GO READ IT!". It's such a fantastic book and I really just could not stop myself from continuing. My words may be short and sweet but I really do promise that there is a very, very, very high chance you would love this book and will be itching for the sequel.

This is the queer historical fantasy "retelling" that we all needed. I loved each and everyone of the characters with all my heart, and I cannot wait until it gets to meet the world.

The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, robots that can battle the creatures that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn't matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.

When Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, its not to become another nameless death, it's to kill the male pilot responsible for her sister's death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected, when she kills him through the mental link that forms between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unharmed. She's called Iron Widow, a feared and silenced female pilot who can sacrifice boys instead.​

To tame her invaluable mental strength, she is paired up the Iron Demon, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia​. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower as easily as they had hoped. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed, even if it means she must be the one who stops it.

Overall this book was amazing, and one of the best that I've read this year. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in advance in exchange for an honest review.

Unfortunately, this book didn't work for me. The pacing was uneven; the narrator showed some scenes and told us what happened in between those scenes, though I believed the in-between events were worth showing and were important to the story. Some events were told to us as if to connect scenes together.

One of the major game-changing revelations in the end (in the prologue), for instance, was revealed in a couple lines of dialogue. We didn't see how the character discovered a major truth about the characters' world. We didn't get to see the setting where and how he uncovered this revelation. We didn't see his reaction.

We also didn't see a lot of what the world looked like. I didn't get a full picture of how the different chrysalis powers worked. What made them different and what were their special powers that made them different from the others? As far as I could tell, the powers, earth, fire, metal, water, wood, had corresponding colors. Some worked better on certain terrains and enemies than others, but the narrator rushed through the explanation and didn't explain the logic behind it.

I liked how the narrator described the pilots' telepathic connection, how Zetian and her male pilot counterpart battled in their minds to control their vehicles. Those scenes were well-crafted, emotional, and drew me in. The romance did not feel to me as revolutionary as the narrator told me it was. The romance felt extraordinary and larger than life during the action scenes, when their lives and their relationship were on the line.

I get that this is supposed to be a feminist narrative. But I couldn't get behind the narrator's choices. She felt very much like a rebellious teenager who solved obstacles by basically killing or subduing everyone who got in her way. She also felt that torturing a person by simulating waterboarding, then killing that person and hiding his body was a good way to resolve a situation. She also didn't seem to mind if civilians or innocent people were killed when she destroyed some facilities.

In the end, she resembled a tyrant like Season 8 Dany in Game of Thrones, dragon and all. Both believed they were saving the world, changing the world, breaking chains, in this case the enslavement and subjugation of women. Both believed they were revolutionaries and the best way to change things was to seize total power and control of the world. The only explanation I can think of for Zetian's actions in this novel is her long history of trauma and abuse and ongoing PTSD. Maybe, there's only so much she could take as a human being, so she snapped, the way Dany did in the GoT series finale.

I also found the scene problematic where an older man coerced Zetian into doing something she initially found abhorrent. Yet, she rationalized that by doing what he wanted, by changing her perception of the act, she was taking control of her sexuality and owning it. This kind of thinking in my opinion is one step to saying it's not that bad. I think that if she was really using her sexuality to have power over this man, she would have seduced him instead.

If this book was supposed to be a cross between Pacific Rim and Handmaid's Tale, I felt it was more like the action movie than the dystopia fiction. Many of the characters were one-dimensional, and the world and magic system weren't well-developed. The love triangle not being a love triangle was one of the biggest selling points of this book, but we didn't see how the boys fell in love, we just knew they did.

I wish I could have better things to say about this book. I finished reading it because I wanted to know what happened in the end, but I'm sorry to say the ending was dissatisfying and didn't leave me wanting to find out what happens next in the series.

*ARC received from NetGalley

This has strong Pacific Rim vibes in a post apocalyptic world. I loved the idea behind this book and was drawn to read this by the synopsis. It unfortunately didn't live up to my expectations. It was an enjoyable read but I didn't love how it was written.

An adrenaline-packed, fierce, angry and blistering sci-fi adventure, reminiscent of The Hunger Games and Pacific Rim.

Iron widow by Xiran Jay Zhao is one crazy ride. I’d describe it as gundam/pacific rim meets hunger games meets Ender Games or Nausicaa.
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The premise is that our main character, a girl being subjected to a society that reeks of patriarchy and classism.

Basically she #angry and #burnthepatriarchy. She is a act first reflect later kind of person. So it took me a bit to get used to how harsh she is. It makes sense why but it is a rough character to get main perspective from.
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The plot was good that it kept me going and the author did some interesting things in terms of relationships. I do think that some plot parts could have been stretched out more and others condensed. Feels like they could have done two books out of this, but it is part of a sequel so we shall see.
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That ending. I need people to read and tell me what they think. I was torn on the ending.
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Thanks NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for the ARC. I’m definitely intrigued on where this goes. This book comes out Sept 21. Find it where books are sold.

What a refreshing read! I have been in a reading slump and this book knocked me right out of it. Action. Adventure. A love triangle to die for! Can’t wait to read more from this author.

I need more YA books like this, more books that critique the patriarchy, more books that embrace polyamory because the amount of YA novels with love triangles and the heroine having to pick between them is astronomical. It’s futuristic but also has historical vibes if that makes sense and I personally adore that kind of sci fi. Zetian is an amazing heroine and one of the best, most dynamic characters I’ve read in a while and one I think people will either love or hate. The writing is stellar and I can’t wait to see what else this author comes up with because her writing is just so impressive! I know I’m rambling but trust me when I says read this book it is a banger!

This was a thrilling read but not for the faint of heart. It was raw, traumatic, emotional and abrasive but oh so good. 4.5 stars.

I had a hard time trying to sum up this book in just a sentence and in the end I think the tag line form Zhao’s website really does it best: “A Pacific Rim x The Handmaid’s Tale reimagining of China’s only female emperor”

Okay let’s do this by way of the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good:
Yes, burn down the Patriarchy!!

Yes, let’s have a polly relationship in a YA book -which really felt like a NA book (what’s an NA? it’s “New Adult” and it’s just the BEST genre title that seems to have gotten lost along the way and replaced with “Crossover” – but frankly that’s just confusing, sorry I’m getting sidetracked).

Yes, let’s remind everyone, not just women, but anyone who’s been marginalized and beat down, emotionally and/or physically that they matter, no matter who they are.

Yes, let’s fight monsters with larger than life robots!

The writing style was brash and jerky, and a few times it feels like you’ve been slapped in the face but I think it really set the tone for Zetian’s character. Also, once the ball get’s rolling in this story it doesn’t really stop till the final paragraph. Yes, it ends on a cliffhanger as it’s the first book in a duology.

The Bad:
I wanted to give this book 5 brightly qi light stars but there were a few things that stopped me.

I wish the romance was developed a bit more and that there was more depth, more description and more attention. Zhao goes into painful detail about so many other parts of their lives. Mostly the horrible and soul crushing aspects but spends very little time on the love and tenderness that blossoms between the three of them. I don’t know if this was reined in because this is one of the few books that has punched through that glass ceiling on YA romance tropes to break free from the classic love triangle to include polyamory but I really needed more. I needed it just as much as the characters did.

Also, there were a few plot holes that I wish Zhao had explained a bit more, for example at the end where did she get all this energy, when did she re-charge?

The Ugly:
There are some dark, dark elements in both Zetian and Shimin’s story. They include, abuse, torture, alcoholism, mutilation, death and excessive violence.

Zhao didn’t pull any punches when describing Zetian’s feet binding, it was graphic and unsettling. Her bound feet served as a lens upon how she saw the world, herself and everyone around her. They deeply affected her psyche and were a constant reminder of how society viewed women and the way they mutilated each other into servitude.

Then we come to the “Iron Demon” Shimin’s story and I just want to weep thinking about the injustice he faced over and over again. I loved this character so much and I wished we got more from him and how he opened up to both Zetian and Yizhi.

I would have loved to get a few chapters in Shimin and Yizhi’s perspective and I hope the next book will give is more insight to Yizhi.

Like I said before this was a wonderfully emotionally heavy ride that I can’t wait to do again in the finale book. Also quick shout out to the “true north” super happy to be supporting an up and coming Canadian author. I will defiantly be buying this in hardcopy and recommending it.

Tigger Warning: abuse, torture, alcoholism, mutilation, death, excessive violence

Special thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Teen for sharing this digital copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.
#netgalley #ironwidow #canadianauthor #canadianYA

An exciting sci-fi that blends history with over-the-top mecha anime inspiration. The true-love-triangle throuple was refreshing polyamorous representation, and the heroine's outlook highlighted strong parallels between archaic sexism and modern day. Fun and fast-paced, with compelling and thought-provoking themes.

This book is so different then others- it has features of an old world kingdom but set in a technologically advanced society (compared to others) with a fierce modern protagonist. It keeps me reading to figure out what comes next

3.5 stars rounded up to 4. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me this ARC!

I ran hot and cold on "Iron Widow" the entire time I was reading it. On paper, it was everything I could possibly want: Pacific Rim-type mech action that examined misogyny in a reimagined fantasy China? Yes please! We'll start with:

The Not Good:

Unfortunately, I didn't mesh well with the style of writing; it felt very underbaked and on the young side of YA - the first-person POV featured an overload of rhetorical questions (Why was this happening? Who is he? What is he going to do to me? What's happening?) etc that weighed down the action rather than raise tension. Zetian also uttered many stray exclamations of "ugh", "wow" and "duh" etc that seemed like placeholders for more clever dialogue that never got changed. Zetian was sometimes amazing - I was cheering her on, excited to see what ballsy thing she'd do next - and then sometimes too Hot Topic edgy "I'm not like the other girls; I murder people". Yeah, we get it. The book got a little info dumpy halfway in, and could have benefited from pulling in the lore earlier; the reader was in the dark a while as to how the mechs were supposed to function and how the system was set up.

The Good

There were a lot of undertones of "The Hunger Games" in this, particularly in "Iron Widow"'s examination of the fickle qualities of an audience, and the media's ability to grant temporary power to otherwise victimized pilots. Honestly, I felt "Iron Widow" did this BETTER than The Hunger Games, having a protagonist willing to temporarily sell out in order to plot something diabolical later.

I was FULLY INVESTED in the poly throuple - I wanted so much more of them and what I got was amazing! I thought Zetian was at her best when she was balanced by these two other strong personalities, and I enjoyed seeing the dynamic set up over the course of the novel. I feel like plot with the three personalities has been set up pretty well for future installments as well.

The action sequences with the mechs were exactly what I was hoping for - exciting, surprising, and genuinely fun. I'm very much looking forward to more mech battles as the series progresses!

The ending was a slam dunk - I did a lot of gasping and going "oh no!"

So all in all, while I have some reservations about this book, I'm really excited to see where this is going plotwise - the world is such an interesting, unique one, and I got a kick out of several "twists' that took place in the final few chapters. I recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun, quick read that's got lots of action.

But can I give this more than five stars?

WOW. This is by far one of my favourite books read this year. It makes Top Three, and that's knowing the year still has five more months left in it. *Strong* female lead. Total badass, HBIC, and someone who isn't quite the hero, nor the villain. I adore (yes, adore) what the author did with the second and third main characters, and the relationships/chemistry said three have.

The theme and messages coursing havoc through the novel are legit and worth supporting. The description of "This is Pacific Rim meets Handmaid's Tale" plus historical fiction is pretty dang accurate; the concept and the world are just cool as hell, and the way in which Zhao choreographs language is utterly stunning. I highlighted so many passages, because they just left me drunk. And I didn't even realize who the author was until I went on a pronouns search, at which point, I literally yelled at my husband "OH. MY. GODS. Do know who wrote that book I just read??" We saw their YouTube videos and instantly took a liking, so knowing they're behind this g-dang gem only propels my exultation of it. I further trust the material, given the depth and detail put into their previous work.

You can guarantee that I'll be buying this series and screaming its praises. As if that gorgeous cover art by Ashley Mackenzie isn't reason alone.

First off, I actually finished this book a couple of weeks ago; I had to take this much time to process everything it made me feel and figure out how to turn all my internal screeching and screaming into actual words.

I loved EVERYTHING about this book! What I love most, however, is how Zhao turns nearly every trope and expected unfolding of events/characterization on its head. The lead female character: not apologetic in the slightest about the horrible things she does and says (because why should she be in a world that doesn't even really see her as anything but a commodity?). The lead male characters: one is presented as little more than a mindless beast but is actually the soft boi, and the previous soft boi is actually a badass. All of them face their own weaknesses and demons, and they do it all while holding the literal weight of the world on their shoulders.

From the get-go, Zhao said that this story would indeed involve a love triangle, but it wouldn't be the typical "girl must choose between two, usually equally awful, boys", and I ADORED that! I never did quite understand the whole big deal in YA (and other genres, too, tbf) of the girl having to choose. Why should she pick one? Why not both? And why can't the boys pick each other, too? Let them all be happy together, dammit! And what really makes this "triangle" work is that it's not where "the power of love softens their edges and makes them better people". No, they're still awful people. And that's GREAT! Because while Zetian and her boys aren't nice people, they're great characters who are fit in perfectly with the world around them, and rather than trying to make slow changes, they decide "yep, we'll just burn it all down and start again".

Zetian is especially wonderful as a character. She'd been put through hell by her own family (look up "footbinding" and be horrified at what parents did to their own daughters) and decided she wasn't going to go out like that. She was going to fight and kill and manipulate and *force* the world to be better, and she'd do it all with a great big smile on her face.

Now, as epic as the book was, you're almost certainly not prepared for that twist at the end! I can't even say what I compare it to because it might ruin the surprise. GO PRE-ORDER THIS NOW!!!

*Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for a free arc in exchange for an honest review.*