sammi_pru_reads's reviews
44 reviews

This was book two of the Iron Widow trilogy. Itwas one of my most anticipated books at the end of 2024. I listened to the audiobook but so have the physical book. Let’s get to this!

**Page count/Audiobook length (at regular speed):** 521 pages/21 hours, 4 minutes 

**Spice scale:** 🌶️🌶️

**Age range:** New Adult, published under Young Adult

**Genres:** Romance, Sci-fi, dystopian 

**Trigger Warnings:** Listed in the book

**What I Liked:** So! The book continues to be in Zetian’s POV. Something I really enjoyed was the recap of Iron Widow told through the first few chapters while also introducing the concepts of Heavenly Tyrant. There is a wonderful cast of side characters, and we have a return of Yizhi and Sima Yi, though in very different roles than the first book. 

Zetian is an unreliable narrator which I tend to enjoy. 

I liked learning about Qin Zheng a lot through the book. The prologue and epilogue are both in his POV. The way the book ended makes me think book 3 will have Dual POV. Though the writing would have to change (Zetian is in first person, Qin Zheng is in third). Honestly, I think I would have preferred more of Qin Zheng’s POV to help me understand his insane epilogue. 

The book doesn’t exactly on a cliff hanger, but it leaves some questions I hope are addressed and built on in Book 3. 

**What I Didn’t Like:** While I loved Zetian in the first book, I spent the first half of Heavenly Tyrant disliking her and her brand of feminism. It read as a “I hate all men” more than a “women need to have their voices heard and be seen as equals”. Although she was hating on men in the first book, we came into the book knowing she was on a war path.

About midway through the book, I felt she was growing and I was waiting for the triumphant ending. What I got left a sour taste in my mouth. All that buildup that looked like growth spoiled and thrown aside.

This book lost points for a pregnancy/fake pregnancy trope. I almost DNFd it for that. The note about “reproductive coercion” in the beginning of the book did not give an accurate representation of what happened in the book. But this fake pregnancy seems to have led to the insanity of the epilogue so… We’ll see what Book 3 brings?

**Overall Opinion:** The only thing that saved this book from being a 3.5 star read was that I thoroughly enjoyed the side characters and I didn’t see all the various betrayals and plot devices coming. I’m building some theories for Book 3. I know Xiran Jay Zhao has posted on their socials that they wish this wasn’t published in YA. I think some stylizing in the book keeps it bordering YA, but even I would say New Adult/Adult versus YA would be more fitting for this book. But there are publishing politics to get behind

I do want to say, read the acknowledgements at the end of the book, don’t skip them. With the heavy playing of politics and revolution, especially in this charged climate we’re in, the note does a good job of explaining where they were coming from and why they chose the conflict types they did. They do acknowledge how problematic the politics and revolution in the book can be when trying to overlay it to our world and society. So definitely read that. 

I’m looking forward to Book 3, and hoping for a Dual POV because I just didn’t like Zetian in this book