Book Review: The Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

The Iron Widow

by Xiran Jay Zhao (YA Zhao)

 

Let me start off by saying it is hard to do this book justice without a whole podcast. It is by turns a futuristic dystopia, a love triangle, enemies to lovers/friends to lovers and a history-rewritten novel. Zetian is a woman from an impoverished inter-generational, provincial Chinese family who is sold as a concubine to pilot mechas with a male partner. She knows being sold will most likely result in her death, having watched it happen to her perfect older sister, yet she proceeds willingly in an attempt to mete out justice to the pilot who murdered her sister. She discovers she is more powerful than she believed. She finds love but doesn’t need it to be successful. This whole plot is inspired by the story of Wu Zetian, China’s only empress, who lived from 624- 709 AD. The audiobook is especially cool as the narrator pronounces Chinese names and nouns for a non-Chinese speaking audience. #womanboss #femaleempowerment

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Pacific Rim, The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang or Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir.)

 

( publisher’s official Iron Widow web page ) | ( official Xiran Jay Zhao web site – including links to her Twitter, Instagram and YouTube pages )

 

Recommended by Caitlin L.
Bennett Martin Public Library — Public Service

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide Blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewer’s recommendations!