Early Review – Iron Widow (Iron Widow, Book 1) by Xiran Jay Zhao (4.5/5 stars)
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy/Science Fiction
Length: 400 pages
Publisher: Penguin Teen
Release Date: September 21, 2021
ASIN : B08RHFDDD5
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in the Iron Widow series
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
“The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain.
When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead.
To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy 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.”
Series Info/Source: This is the first book in the Iron Widow series. I got an eGalley of this book to review through NetGalley.
Thoughts: Welcome to an amazing science fiction world of giant robots and the men who are honored to pilot them. The twist is that the men must have a woman co-pilot to pull energy from in order to control these giants; the women have no choice in this and are often sacrificed as their life force is sucked away. This is a fast-paced, crazy world, with amazing characters. All the characters in here are vicious and a bit grey moral-wise…and I loved them all for it.
I waffled a bit between 4 and 5 stars for this one. The reason I hesitate to give this 5 stars is that the writing and dialogue feel really awkward at times. The characters don’t sound natural speaking to each other and sometimes descriptions are a bit jarring as well.
The other small quibble I have is that I think this would have made a better adult book. It is fine as a young adult read but I feel like a lot of the viciousness here was tamped down. The author does comment at the end that a lot of the “darkness” in this book was tempered to make it an appropriate YA novel. I wish that she hadn’t done that and just went full-out with the viciousness and darkness to make this an amazing adult sci-fi read. The way things were neutered is incredibly noticeable.
Those complaints aside, this was an amazing read that was hard to put down. I can’t wait to see where the story goes next. I love these characters; they embrace their more evil and vicious natures to do good, save people, and destroy a corrupt system. The tone to this story is amazing and I really enjoyed it a ton
My Summary (4.5/5): Overall this was an amazing idea, had amazing world-building, was incredibly fast-paced, and featured a fantastic cast of characters. My main complaint is at times that dialogue between characters feels very jarring and awkward. Some of the descriptions are also awkward and hard to follow. Despite those quibbles I really did love this and am definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series.
