Iron Widow

Author: Xiran Jay Zhao

Publisher: Tundra Books, NY

Platform: Paperback (purchased from bookshop.org)

Length: 416 pages

Completed on: 2/28/24

Banned? Marked as ineligible for the Hugo Awards 2023

Recommendation: This book would have transformed my brain chemistry had I read it as an impressionable tween.

Baked into every passage of this book is autonomy and what it means to a woman in a male-dominated society. Every page is a struggle to gain autonomy through cleverness and strength, maintain autonomy by reframing the situation, or purposefully lose autonomy in a bid for power. It's exhausting to read. It's also very real. So many people have to make these decisions every waking moment of their life, weighing pros and cons to each choice.

I think more than anything this book made me tired. There were beautiful moments of victory, but the build-up is long and arduous. The world of Iron Widow is not kind to women, and none of the victories as presented would matter if it was. That is what's tiring: quiet knowledge that any gain comes with so much loss, physical or emotional or otherwise.

I loved reading this book. It's gripping and full of life and anger and love. The beats are predictable, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. The ending is fun and left me feeling empty. It was so refreshing to have a protagonist acknowledge morality and still make decisions in cold blood.

And yet, as I sit here and think about what to say, the only thing I can settle on is this: what a terrible world to live in. What a terrible thought to know that despite its differences, it's so very similar to our own.