A review by tbd24
Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

adventurous dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

shockingly bad. this book was so bad. terrible pacing, cheesy metaphors, i can’t count how many times the phrase “a scream suffocated in my throat” was said. like, what? only redeeming quality was the
love triangle into poly couple
and even that is so clunky. literally every time there was a “plot twist” my first thought was “hmmm was i supposed to think this was an impossible task??? i just learned about its existence soooo???”. also maybe if the author wanted to write about sexism/misogyny they should have done a little research into the actual systems of oppression and power and the way they function in society instead of just making a laughably evil world where women are murdered wholesale for ostensibly no good reason and with no repercussions. idk it just kinda delegitimizes  the whole argument, i felt like this was a book written by a trad fem to satirize feminism, especially when it got to the weirdly gendered relationship roles the main character happily puts herself into. anyway I wasn’t planning on dunking on this book for that long but seriously this was so bad. also i still can’t get over
when the main characters waterboarded and murdered that guy and felt literally nothing about it lmaoooo like i’m all for morally grey characters but that shit was kinda hilariously evil
. anywayyyy i wish i never read this book, though it did give me something fun to complain about with my friends 
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