The Vegetarian

 Book Title: The Vegetarian

Author: Han Kang

Translator: Deborah Smith

Date Started: December 17th 2021

Date Completed: December 28th 2021

Genres: Contemporary, Magical Realism

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

The Vegetarian is perhaps the most well-known novel to come out of South Korea in recent years, at the top of many reading lists and recommended relentlessly - as it should be. But, oof, it's a heavy one.

I'd read a short story by Han Kang before, and while I remember enjoying it I couldn't say I could recall it very well. What I do remember was her writing style (translated by Deborah Smith), and the imagery of this novel brought it back to me as being both beautiful and shocking.

I thought that the parts of the book were perhaps separate stories for a bit due to the lack of names until I realised they're of course the same family unit. This is in some way deliberate though; even those connected have absolutely unique experiences and perspectives. The difference in gendered experiences is obviously the biggest gap here.

I actually find this book hard to talk about because it hit me on a very personal level, and yet some parts of it remain frustratingly elusive. It is one of those books that throws you into a void for a little bit after finishing, and perhaps that's a good thing.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess

 Book Title: Daughter of the Moon Goddess

Author: Sue Lynn Tan

Series: The Celestial Kingdom Duology #1

Date Started: December 10th 2021

Date Completed: December 17th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Adventure

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Ultimately, Daughter of the Moon Goddess wasn't for me, and the cutesy romance was not enough to keep me around. I made it 19% of the way through and had been considering giving up from very early on. I wanted to give it a chance and see how the early story developed, but more and more I realised most of my problems were with the writing style and general storytelling decisions which weren't going to change. I don't think it's a bad book, but its style is not something I want to invest more time into.

This book reads like middle grade, probably aspiring to jump into teen themes a little later in the series. There's so much inner monologuing (with a protagonist who collects information pretty slowly) and little actual drama in the outside world. Xingjin really didn't seem that bothered by anything happening to her, including what you'd imagine are some pretty traumatic experiences.

I'm also slightly sad that the worldbuilding is a little sparse. We get some little tidbits of what I believe to be Chinese myth (apologies if I'm a little off), but considering this is literally set on the moon there's very little description or aesthetic inclination to help us build what I imagine must be a fantastical empire on a celestial body - a really cool and unique thing to this story.

The reason I gave up where I did was the lack of direction in the actual story. Xingyin is supposed to get somewhere to escape the events at the beginning of the book, but she isn't very rushed to do so. I sort of forget she had that goal. Every obstacle she faces on the way to that goal is also very easily tied up without much input from the protagonist herself.

As I say, I don't think Daughter of the Moon Goddess isn't worth reading, it just isn't for me. I was expecting something aimed at a higher age range, whereas this reads very middle grade to me - nothing wrong with that, it just wasn't what I was expecting and lends itself to a few of my pet peeves that just makes reading it not as enjoyable an experience.

Warcross

 Book Title: Warcross

Author: Marie Lu

Series: Warcross #1

Date Started: November 27th 2021

Date Completed: December 10th 2021

Genres: Sci-Fi, Romance, Action, Mystery

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I knew going in that Warcross was unlikely to be my favourite thing ever but I was hoping it would be entertaining. This was exactly what I got, so I shouldn't really complain - ultimately I just wasn't super convinced by anything or anyone in this book so while it was perfectly fine while reading it's certainly not going to stay in my memory for long. Its setup is quite familiar, the tropes are well-trodden, and its twists are predictable from the start (yet still dissatisfying when we got there).

Overall, my feelings are just that the book was... wishy-washy? The relationships are given a lot of importance towards the end with very little actual build-up throughout the book itself. The whole thing felt a little vague in general, with the timeline skipping chunks of events to progress the story faster, but leaving the development of side characters in the dust in the meanwhile.

The rules of the game was a little confusing and ended up inconsistent (each player has a 'role' in their team; for example, our protagonist Emika is an architect who is supposed to manipulate the level they're in to favour her team - yet all the actual rounds just end up as a race to collect power-ups? And then the black market is selling illegal power-ups that give people that ability to manipulate the level they're in?? What???). These action-heavy sections were then quite hard to follow though, honestly, the competition felt obsolete anyway, being used just as a framing device. We only properly see two rounds, with others skipped over and summarised, and the drama happening outside of them.

Warcross is a perfectly entertaining read if you don't mind not having a super fleshed-out world and story. I will say that, while you don't have to go into specifics of worldbuilding all the time, in a technologically-advanced worldwide game championship with rules that are being broken by the antagonist, it's sort of important that the system holds up so the reader can follow what's happening.

Hamnet

Book Title: Hamnet

Author: Maggie O'Farrell

Date Started: November 20th 2021

Date Completed: November 27th 2021

Genres: Historical

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

Hamnet is a magical, visceral, enchanting gem of a book. It's about a handful of people and their lives at a time in history we know a lot about in grand terms, but rarely think about in terms of day-to-day life. While parts of it are undoubtedly fictionalised, O'Farrell weaves a wonderful reimagining of the best storyteller perhaps ever to put pen to paper and, more importantly, the people around him.

I knew a little about Shakespeare's life, mostly from school, but O'Farrell makes the history accessible to those who may know nothing. And what a wonderful way to break the canon of male biographies by putting his wife truly at the centre as the protagonist. This isn't to say that the book doesn't celebrate his skills - it absolutely does, despite the fact that the name William Shakespeare isn't mentioned once within these pages.

I'm not going to comment on how accurate it is because I don't know and I don't think it wholly matters. O'Farrell has created one of the most otherworldly and yet insanely cathartic stories around very real people that we know precious little about. As she says at the end of the book, the overachiever William may have been in script didn't translate directly to records; he has an ironic lack of a paper trail. Even more so for the people at a lesser status; his wife, his mother, sister, daughters, even Hamnet himself who is only recorded in his birth and death records. What O'Farrell does is fill in the gaps with gold.

It's not rare knowledge to know that the play Hamlet, a personal favourite for myself and I'm sure millions of others, shared its name with Shakespeare's son who died young. What O'Farrell offers us is a reimagining of why this is so, found at the end of an epic and yet charmingly insular story about a husband and wife who had always tried to escape the world they lived in. It's simply magical to read and fall in love with Agnes, Eliza, Judith, Bartholomew, Susanna, the baker's wife, Edmond, Mary, (not such much Joan and John) - and, of course, Hamnet.

Sistersong

Book Title: Sistersong

Author: Lucy Holland

Date Started: November 13th 2021

Date Completed: November 20th 2021

Genres: Historical, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Two Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

I read halfway through Sistersong before I decided to call it a day. Ultimately, it was very slow and when events would eventually happen I had predicted them from twenty pages before. Perhaps my biggest issue was not being able to connect with the three protagonists; they may have been characterised differently, but their internal monologues were all the same combination of YA-reminiscent complaining and confusion with very little actual effort to do anything.

I wanted to give up every time I started a new chapter. There was nothing obviously wrong, I was just bored and the story felt like it was taking its sweet time to go anywhere. It's a tough one because not all stories need to establish a 'goal' that you're working towards, but I do think there needs to be a sense of working towards something. This book didn't have that, and I could probably call the final events even now.

I suppose what was even more frustrating about Sistersong was that the titular sisters did nothing at all; things just happened to them. They were ultimately really passive in the events of the story as far as halfway into the book (where I finally did give up). Yes, the cultural and societal positions they were existing within limited them in a lot of ways but even in their internal narratives they were never the ones actually challenging or questioning anything. They were merely reacting to other people's action. For feminist retellings especially (of folklore and fairytales no less), the passivity or activity of the characters really should be a priority to get right.

And look, just because it's got a corrupt priest and mentions the words 'magic' does not make it comparable to The Bear and the Nightingale. Looking through the reviews, it seems a lot of people were sold is as like Circe as well. I'm sure I see that other than it's a feminist retelling. Just ticking the boxes of oppressed women and loose folklore inspiration does not mean they're the same fairytale style or achieve the some feeling of vibrancy and wonder - nor do they necessarily intend to. Sistersong didn't need to be set up like that honestly as its telling a story from a different point in time (medieval?) where folklore meant something different to the people we follow, and their relationship to Christianity had its own battles. As much as I'm a sucker for comparisons to these books, I really don't think marketing them as such when it's simply inaccurate helps either the reader or the book.

The Silver Tracks

 Book Title: The Silver Tracks

Author: Cornelia Funke

Series: Reckless #4

Date Started: November 7th 2021

Date Completed: November 13th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance, Mystery

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

There's something truly magical about childhood favourites following you into your adult years and maturing alongside you. Okay, I was maybe a teenager when Reckless first came out, but having grown up with Inkheart, Dragon Rider, The Thief Lord, Igraine the Brave, to find the same magic and wonder in Funke's newer works as an adult is really precious.

Funke's Mirrorworld, with its fairytale versions of our world, teeming with mythical creatures and folkloric dangers, will always be so dearly beloved to me. Funke (amongst others like Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Holly Black & Tony Diterlizzi) is no small part of the reason I grew up to make fairytales myself (albeit onscreen), and the Reckless series might just be the one that best explains why. The treasures that Jacob and Fox hunt for aren't just shiny; they grant desires and access over obstacles. Trinkets that freeze a perfect moment forever, that let you know where your loved ones are at all times, that allow you to transform into something that lets you freely run around in the night. These books distil why fairytales are so alluring to us, and why they are made to begin with; to allow us to access things the real world won't let us. The books are in no way meta about this, but reading them reminds me why fairytales are such a fabulous form of escapism and storytelling - and that's the best way to be pay homage to an inspiration or source text.

The Silver Tracks really puts the angle of Jacob and Fox's journey in a new direction, and starts to give shape to what I imagine will be the finale of the series. That being said, I love that Funke balances the more mature developments in their lives with the excitement of treasure hunting and adventure. We still explore the Mirrorworld and get to see plenty of trouble, which I feel like sometimes peters out in a lot of Young Adult literature when two protagonists become a couple. Funke knows there's is far more exciting and important things for them to overcome than angsty squabbles.

As this series has developed, it's been so cool that we've kept in contact with all these characters from across the books, not just as references but as pivotal characters. All these intersecting lives add to the vibrancy and realness of the story; I definitely wasn't expecting Clara to keep showing up after the first book, and the network of spies and treasure hunters Jacob and Fox have at their disposal comes in very useful. On top of that, we also get to meet new people as well - and I'm just saying that so that I can mention how fast Hideo become one of my absolute favourite characters.

The Reckless/Mirrorworld series is so vivid and lush and imaginative and wonderful. If Inkheart was a love letter to fairytales, then this series is the epic poem it deserves (did you spot the Inkheart reference in the book?). The fact that The Silver Tracks developed the Jacob and Fox's story as adults, gave us more wonder and beauty, and even let us see the Mirrorworld equivalents of Korea and Japan just had gushing the whole time. I desperately hope it doesn't take another six years for the next one, but if it means a story like this I'll wait two decades.

The Bone Shard Emperor

 Book Title: The Bone Shard Emperor

Author: Andrew Stewart

Series: The Drowning Empire #2

Date Started: October 18th 2021

Date Completed: November 7th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, Romance

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

The Drowning Empire (love that new series title) has quickly become one of my favourite ever series thanks to its rich world-building, complex mysteries, tricky politics, compelling characters and stunning prose. It's one of those books that makes you desperately excited to devour, but then welcomes you into its universe so well that you slow down completely unconsciously just to be immersed in every moment.

I loved that The Bone Shard Emperor mixed up the structure from the first book a little bit. If you didn't know they were written by the same person you would definitely be able to tell with Stewart's distinctive ability to play on character and place, but there's a new way of exploring these characters and their vices in this novel. Each plot line intersects a lot more than in the first book as well, but each person very much remains the protagonist in their perspective which is so cleverly done.

Once again, the mysteries are found out slowly by picking up clues that the reader gathers alongside the characters, and yet more are laid out for the next (last?) instalment. I loved that The Bone Shard Emperor followed the shock waves of the first book's events but introduced new politics and doom for Lin to handle. While absolutely telling its own story arc in one book, the plot reaches across into the past and future as well, creating a sense that the story we are reading is a sprawling epic that still has plenty to surprise us with.

As mentioned in my review of The Bone Shard Daughter, these books are wonderful, varied, complex casts of characters. From emperors to smugglers, gutter orphans to rebels; I adore having a protagonist who is a magical scholar and (unwillingly) a politician, as well as side-characters who are mothers, warriors and conquerers. There is no tokenism and no gratuitous titles: these are who these characters are and strongly influence the way they impact the world. It's amazing how steadfast Stewart is able to keep them in their characterisation, never flinching from making things difficult for our beloved cast because, let's face it, that's exactly what the person would do.

I wish Andrea Stewart all the best in writing the next one because I am desperate for it. I'm so grateful to have been given both The Bone Shard Daughter and The Bone Shard Emperor for review, although I'm now aware I'm going to have to wait even longer for the third instalment in the series and I don't know if I can take it.

Girls of Paper and Fire

Book Title: Girls of Paper and Fire

Author: Natasha Ngan

Series: Girls of Paper and Fire #1

Date Started: September 26th 2021

Date Completed: October 18th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Romance

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Two Star

Final Rating: Two Stars

Review:

I didn't finish Girls of Paper and Fire, despite the rave reviews I've come across from other people, and in spite of attempting to persevere for nearly a month. Ultimately, I just wasn't getting anything out of reading it, and life's too short to read books you aren't enjoying.

It's violent and dark and really grim honestly, but then the characters are so YA and insubstantial about it all. I'm all for making these issues accessible but this book tackles so many challenging topics and Lei's just standing there like 'ah, I can't wait for the year to be over so I can visit my dad.' It just feels like it bounces from drowning you in how horrific these girls' experiences is to trivialising it into a teenage romance. Yes, I see Lei is supposed to be naïve (I mean, I also question how naïve she would be growing up in the circumstances she did), but I read halfway through this book and she was still being plain old dumb when I gave up.

I appreciate slow burning plots, but halfway through and the book has mainly consisted of Lei being terribly persecuted a couple of times, and then Mean Girls. I can't even comment on the LGBT+ aspect because Lei had only just noticed she thinks one of the other girls is pretty - which is fine, but when added to the fact nothing else has happened and I just don't have the investment to carry on.

At the end of the day, when the themes are actually dealt with I think they're dealt with well. The detail and world building is interesting, but Lei ruined it for me in imitating a 2013 copy-and-pasted YA heroine. Accessibility and expanding themes tackled for younger audiences is important, but making it feel trivial in comparison to the 'fun' plot isn't the best way to do it. (Disclaimer: I know lots of people really love this book and if it was a cathartic and/or enjoyable experience for you that's awesome. I just unfortunately didn't have that experience.)

Jade Fire Gold

 Book Title: Jade Fire Gold

Author: June C.L. Tan

Date Started: August 31st 2021

Date Completed: September 25th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance

Quality Rating: Three Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Three Star

Final Rating: Three Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

I have to say, I was actually really disappointed with Jade Fire Gold. It felt samey in its plot and was rather limited in its exploration of the mythical background. I didn't really feel the chemistry between any of the characters and felt like there was a lot of unused potential by the end.

The story starts off well enough (samey, like I said) but this pivotal quest for the sword only takes place right at the end and is over pretty quickly. At the centre of it, our protagonist (co-protagonist?) Ahn is actually really passive, and everything happens so easily for her. The book is a lot of talking about how important doing something is, and then the group immediately succeed in doing it, with Ahn taking very little part in the actual realisation of the goal.

Our other co-protagonist, Altan, begins as the typical brooding warrior but becomes a complete soppy mess once he falls for Ahn. I felt he, in general, wasn't very consistent, including at the end when he's suddenly mischievous and friendly because he gets what he wants - I just couldn't really buy into it.

I was umming and ahhing as to whether to include this in my review because it's probably on me for misunderstanding, but it's quite amusing - I was convinced for ages that Ahn was the lost sister Altan kept going on about. I mean, they made a really big deal about Altan's sister being dead, to the point it was obvious she wasn't, and that she'd disappeared in the desert - exactly where Ahn remembers emerging from. It made everything that come afterwards between them really quite awkward and just sort of disappeared from the narrative until I got (thankfully) proven wrong at the end. It may have a big part in why I wasn't totally involved with the narrative.

Jade Fire Gold is a perfectly readable, reasonably enjoyable book, but I've read other very similar stories that pull it off better - I always feel mean when that's my main criticism of a book, but I do think it's valid.

Medusa

 Book Title: Medusa

Author: Jessie Burton

Date Started: August 29th 2021

Date Completed: August 31st 2021

Genres: Historical, Fantasy

Quality Rating: Five Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Jessie Burton has written some fantastic stories, and she's back with a very nice reimagining of the story of Medusa, retelling the myth and its contexts as well as rewriting its story for contemporary audiences. And the book is all the more moving for its utterly stunning illustrations by Olivia Lomenech Gill.

At first, I found the language to be a little too flowery, to the point of me not totally understanding what was being said, but this eases after the initial passages and Burton leaps into a story reminiscent of a fairy tale book, but spinning in the Greek tragedy and a whole host of exploration into misogyny, toxic masculinity and rape culture.

It's such a moving story, it's strange that Medusa's full tale isn't retold more. Though that is largely due to the fact that Medusa's story seems pretty definitive in the collective canon everyone grows up with; she is a monster Perseus is sent to kill. Simple as that. But Medusa is a name, not a creature species, and she was once a normal girl pursued by a god (which sums up maybe half of classical female characters). It's very rich source material and Burton gets really creative with it, repainting the picture to before Perseus was even a hero, and letting Medusa reclaim it herself.

The book is rather short, but the perfect length to tell this story. It is also perfectly suited to its artwork, and I can't help but feel it's the mature storybook retelling a timeless piece of folklore/mythology I would've loved to add to my collection as a child - and still do as an adult. I'm looking forward to buying myself the physical copy when it releases, and I hope the illustrations are available as prints too.

Muse of Nightmares

 Book Title: Muse of Nightmares

Author: Laini Taylor

Series: Strange the Dreamer #2

Date Started: August 8th 2021

Date Completed: August 28th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

I was unsatisfied with Strange the Dreamer a couple of years ago, with its stunningly told tale that suddenly stopped short at its cliffhanger (which only came across to me as unfinished) ending. I avoided reading this book for a while, scared I wouldn't fall in love with it like I had so many times with Laini Taylor's books in the past. Ultimately, I had similar problems with Muse of Nightmares, where the story being told changed about four-time, but I did also love reading it regardless.

The first half is pretty slow, taking off immediately after the last book and staying on that track of a while until it decides to twist and change the game. Once that happens, even though it threw me as a reader right out of the story for a moment, things start to speed up and Taylor finds her stride once again. The last 40% is amazing, while things finally falling into place, and I didn't want to put the book down.

Where Strange the Dreamer was about Lazlo and his story, Muse of Nightmares (as the title would suggest) is Sarai's. Perhaps the biggest shame for me was the fact that Lazlo and Sarai kind of mushed into soppy lovers and lost their own glares. Characters often so change when they become part of a couple, but it felt like these two weren't really present in the scenes the other person wasn't also in, which was absolutely not the case in the first book. I really like these two, and I liked the ide of them together, it just... didn't quite work as well as I was hoping.

While this review has a lot of my reservations about the book, I did still give it four stars. That's because Laini Taylor is such a clever, meticulous, confident writer. The thematic arcs and scene transitions, the imagery and symbols, the imagination, even the smallest details carried through half a book before becoming key to the story are all fragments of a storyteller in their prime. She's one of the best writers out there. The structure has been shaky for in this duology but seriously, I am repeatedly overwhelmed with wonder when reading her books.

Mexican Gothic

 Book Title: Mexican Gothic

Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Date Started: July 28th 2021

Date Completed: August 7th 2021

Genres: Mystery, Horror, Historical

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

Mexican Gothic was a lot of fun. Overflowing with Del Toro vibes (Crimson Peak, Pan's Labyrinth, even a little The Devil's Backbone), it's tense and atmospheric, clearly a love letter to classical gothic tales. But Moreno-Garcia adds a brilliant twist of setting the story in 1950s Mexico and spinning the genre on its head for a more modern audience.

As its namesake suggests, this book is a perfect gothic tale at the start, though it becomes more horror towards the end. The tone, that we may have been pretty familiar with, turns slightly weird as it spins on the classic genre into slightly more modern sensibilities for its reveal and resolution. While this wasn't unsatisfying, I can't help but feel some tonal notes could've been adapted from the gothic horror and incorporated as well. For example, I wish we'd got a bit more ghosty action. Most of the plot is Noemí arguing with the family her cousin has been swept away to and whom she is trying to her rescue from. The ghost bits are fantastic, but few and far between in the end.

That being said, the story instead focuses on Noemí herself more than necessarily the mystery. And Noemí rises to the challenge; she's the perfect balance of fierce, glamorous and smart. The rest of the characters are sometimes fitted a little too conveniently around her to create tension for her temperament, but it's still enjoyable to watch a female character as fashionable and fascinating stand up to bullies.

I think where this book falls short is the fact we just don't get to sink our teeth into the mystery as much as I (and others, from what I've read) would've liked. It's a fascinating and compelling idea and the moments of surrealism and ghosty terror as great, but they're crowded in amongst arguments and wandering around and dialogue upon dialogue. All of it is soundly structured and realised, I just wanted more.

Piranesi

 Book Title: Piranesi

Author: Susanne Clarke

Date Started: July 27th 2021

Date Completed: July 29th 2021

Genres: Mystery, Thriller

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

Piranesi was a lot of fun, and a way quicker read than I had expected. Full of intrigue, wonder and a lot of good characterisation, while it isn't quite the masterpiece some sell it is, it's a very well-crafted piece of fiction.

Overall, the book is well-paced and planned. Clarke puts a lot of thought into building tone and atmosphere, without overdoing the description. A great deal of this story relies on picturing the House and the things Piranesi comes across, and Clarke pulls it off with very succinct prose. Piranesi himself is a bit of an idiot but he's balanced well with his kind-heartedness. And who doesn't love a book that can pull off mysterious puzzles where the audience are invited along to solve what's happening themselves.

The best way to go into this is without knowing much about the story, but the tone is definitely more towards The Secret History meets Circe meets The Maze Runner (I seemed to have it in my head that it was a classical retelling, perhaps from the cover and marketing).

Iron Widow

 Book Title: Iron Widow

Author: Xiran Jay Zhao

Series: Iron Widow #1

Date Started: July 17th 2021

Date Completed: July 25th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Historical, Action

Quality Rating: Four Stars

Enjoyment Rating: Four Star

Final Rating: Four Stars

Review:

◆ Thanks to NetGalley for this eBook copy for review ◆

Iron Widow was so, so much fun. It's marketed as Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid's Tale (I would say more Hunger Games), but honestly just the summary is enough to instantly sell it: a reimagining of the only Empress of China where massive metal creatures shaped as mythological beasts are piloted to fight invading hoards of aliens. But the corruption behind the scenes is more of a threat than the doom that approaches them from outside their walls.

I will admit that there are times when the book falls into cheesiness and might be slightly overdone, but it's such a cool way to explore Chinese cultural and mythological elements in both a historical and modern way that any little things that don't land perfectly are irrelevant. I love how and how rich the cultural influences were and how well the Chinese elements that might not be as well-known in the West were explained without info-dumping.

I also need to write about Zeitan herself, who is an utterly fantastic heroine. I'm going to parallel it to The Poppy War for the sole purpose of citing complex, questionable women who are humanised and that we are able to have empathy for. Also, shout out to the polyamorous relationship; I've never really seen it used before and quite honestly I'm not that familiar with it, but it was great.

It's so hard to articulate the modern contradictions for identifying as something and recognising (and accepting) the negative background and aspects of it, but Zhao does it. There are historically negative associations with being a woman; it doesn't mean femininity is bad. There are parts of Chinese culture that have hurt its people (one example criticised in this book is traditional foot-binding); that doesn't mean there aren't aspects that should be celebrated. Zhao fluently communicates that paradox, and it's genuinely moving and liberating.

Even aside from the politics, Iron Widow is just fun and exciting and engaging. If you also haven't seen Zhao's videos on Asian cultural influences in popular culture including Mulan, Avatar: The Last Airbender and Kung Fu Panda, then I highly recommend them. Her skill at picking up apart existing storytelling works is just as strong - if not rivalled - by her skill at creating her own.