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lbrunner.net · @lbrunner.net@bridge.neodb.net

Rated Iron Widow 6/10

As I don't usually read YA, so I will compare this a lot to [b:The Girl Who Dared to Think|35609598|The Girl Who Dared to Think (The Girl Who Dared, #1)|Bella Forrest|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1499318336l/35609598._SY75_.jpg|57049481] which I read recently. I got very into it fairly quickly and overall enjoyed it despise some slight issues.



Zetian is always angry and while she has every reason to do so, it starts losing a lot of impact after the first 20% of the book, especially as she gets paired with Shimin. The pilot system is unfair, their society is unfair, the female beauty standards are atrocious and that gets communicated fairly well early on. However it keeps being repeated over and over again (ugh the feet stuff, every chapter!) and she seems like the only one who seems to care about it? I get that the main character has to stand out (and honestly, she isn't a massive Mary Sue or anything) but she wants to destroy everything and kill every one early on and by the end... well it's still the same? And while I love the queer themes which are touched upon (mainly polyamory and bisexuality), gender is not being addressed much outside of "girls are as good as boys" (which is true!). All of that despite Zetian's comments in the first chapter about how she never felt like a girl, discussing biological gender vs gender expression and intersexuality. Maybe she meant that she identified more as a boy, which would make sense in light of the <spoiler>seat switching/gender reversal with Qin Zheng during the final battle</spoiler>, but I guess I expected a bit more non-binaryness after that plot point with the butterfly.



I enjoyed the world-building, it's not hard-scifi but it's as deep as the Tower's in TGWDTT. There is plenty of foreshadowing (e.g. the denial of her request to see Chrysalis schematics early on, which might also be a slight on China's Great Firewall?) and while a lot of exposition gets dumped on you, it didn't feel like too much. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I knew a bit more about the history from which this story is inspired, as it probably would have been easier to fill some of the gaps (like with Arsène Lupin when reading Jean Le Flambeur). I actually found the ending pretty satisfying as I expected that we wouldn't learn anything about <spoiler>the true nature of the Hunduns or who are the gods</spoiler> before the sequel, so that was nice. I did struggle a bit around the amount of discrepancy between the frontier parts and more developed parts of Huaxia: with a population of 60 millions it seems like it would be possible for everyone to have actual beds or electricity given that they have the means to have Internet and flying cars?



Finally for the romance, <spoiler>Zetian and Yizhi (not sure how I am supposed to pronounce it but I did think it sort of sounds like Yeezy which is... "funny"?) is nicely handled IMO, it's been building for a while, etc. The transition to a polyamorous relationship was very "seamless" for sure but didn't feel unnatural (Shimin definitely didn't seem to need much convincing). And while Yizhi's and Shimin's relationship is touched upon (I mean one blush at the view of the other, one sleep with their head against the other and then they kiss, that's it), it's definitely the shallowest. In a way I found Zetian's openness about it pretty on brand with her general self-absorption (not that she shouldn't focus on herself after what she has been through!).</spoiler>



In the end, it read pretty similar to TGWDTT just with more queer themes, more misogyny (instead of police state) and an angry protagonist (instead of a depressed one). I think the cliffhanger is fairly enticing and I would be interested to see how Zetian handles it (maybe with some more emotional growth?).

#book

Published 2021-05-12 22:16 UTC · bridged from Atmosphere