Iron Widow

I wanted to like this book real bad.

I enjoyed the first half, the setting and mechs were really cool, and the commentary Zetian had on the trappings of patriarchy were the high points of the book for me. Unfortunately, it went downhill from there. I could tell this was a debut novel. The writing was not very good but I could get through it, the dialogue was very teen, the plot points were pretty obvious or done in a contrived fashion so it could create conflict later (eg, mild spoiler, Zetian not telling the two guys about the nudes IMMEDIATELY, it would have made more character sense, and the reveal that Yizhi already knew about it and didn't care would've been cooler ).

I could take all of that, but my real issue is more of the message it had about feminism and change by the end of the book. Yes, the current system for the women in this world was bad, but the way to change it is...only by violence. There's no other option that our main character Zetian can think of taking. There were no other women that could fix this world, or made it better in any way. Zetian killed most of the women that feature heavily in the book herself. I mean, she killed many more nameless men as well, but still. Hard to start the feminist cultural revolution without breaking a few hundred eggs :/ Fellas, is it feminist to kill indiscriminately?

This book just made me downcast and frustrated. It could get better as set up for the future book, but I'm not going to read it so...yeah.