GUYS!! This book is amazing and you need to read it if you haven’t yet. I recently read Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao and it slapped!
Synopsis: 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.
This book was AMAZING! I had so much fun following along with this morally grey main character. And giant mecha bots battling metal space aliens….UM HELL YES. It honestly reminded me of the end of Power Rangers episodes when they would all come together to form a big battle robot to fight the enemy.
The amount of times that I snorted or burst out laughing because the main character did or said something unexpected were too many to count. Zetian had my heart from the first couple pages and I was rooting for her. She reminded me a lot of Harley Quinn.
There is LGBTQ+ rep in this book and I was happy to see that as well. It was done in a way I haven’t seen before and it was pretty cool.
I am so excited to continue this series and will definitely be picking up the next one when it comes out.
Book Rating: 5/5
You can buy this book on Amazon and find it on Goodreads.
Disclaimer: I was sent an eARC of this book by Penguin Teen through NetGalley to read and give an honest review.
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It’s spooky season!!! Here is my October TBR of all the books I will be reading in October. I tried to go for a spooky/thriller theme for the books I chose and am excited to be creeped out this month! Let me know in the comments what spooky books you are reading in October!
Check out the video below:
