By Samantha Pak
Northwest Asian Weekly
Iron Widow
By Xiran Jay Zhao
Penguin Teen, 2021
As war rages on along the Great Wall in Huaxia, boys dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots, to battle the mecha aliens threatening their people. And while the boys are treated as celebrities, the girls—who often die from the mental strain—are disposable.
So when 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s not to serve the army. It’s to assassinate the male pilot who killed her sister. But revenge happens faster than expected, leaving her unscathed and with the label of Iron Widow—a rare and much-feared and much-silenced type of female who can sacrifice boys to power up the Chrysalises (even though the opposite is, in fact, expected). As a result, Zetian is paired with Li Shimin, the strongest, most controversial male pilot in the army. But Zetian’s not about to give up her power so easily and she’s determined to figure out why the pilot system is so misogynistic and stop more girls from being sacrificed.
I love Zetian. In such a patriarchal society, she has the audacity to question everything. The fact that her gender is seemingly valued so little frees her. She has nothing to lose, so she might as well speak her mind—with empowering as well as humorous results. While Zetian may come off as unhinged to some other characters (though not all, and not the ones who truly matter), I couldn’t get enough of her give-no-effs attitude. Her anger and rage are the stuff of dreams for any woman who’s ever been made to feel less than because of her gender.
And as with many a young adult novel, there’s a potential love triangle. Admittedly, this is not my favorite trope, but I really appreciated Zhao’s approach. Their take on love and relationships was refreshing and will definitely have readers thinking about things differently.
Girls of Paper and Fire
By Natasha Ngan
Hodder & Stoughton, 2018
Every year, eight girls are chosen from throughout the kingdom of Ikhara as Paper Girls to serve the king. It’s supposed to be an honor, but in reality, they’re the king’s concubines and it’s demeaning. This year, a ninth girl has been selected.
Like the rest of the girls, Lei comes from the full-human Paper caste, the lowest caste in a society where demons and mixed human-demons are at the top. After hearing rumors of the girl with the golden eyes, royal guards show up in her remote village to take Lei to the king—10 years after her mother was also taken by the guards. As she grudgingly trains to be one of the king’s consorts, Lei ends up falling in love. On top of that, she soon finds herself enmeshed in a plot for justice and revenge that could change everything.
I’ll admit, “Girls” wasn’t always easy to read. The way Lei and the rest of the Paper Girls are treated is terrible—and content warning, there are scenes of sexual assault—but I also know these types of situations have existed and still exist now. So it’s important to have stories showing this and giving a voice to those who historically haven’t always been able to speak up. It was also great to see Lei fight back against the system in any way she could and interesting to see how the other females in the story viewed the society.
As a longtime lover of the genre, I have read a lot of fantasy and adventure stories. And there are always varying levels of how much the fantasy elements play a role in a story. In “Girls,” the magic is relatively low, so we’re left with a story focused on the plot and characters, which are important in any book, regardless of the genre. Ngan does a great job of giving readers characters to love and hate, as well as characters who we’re unsure about or change our minds about—and keeping us turning the pages to see what will happen to Lei next.
Build your House Around My Body
By Violet Kupersmith
Random House, 2021
In Vietnam, two young women go missing. In 1986, the teenage daughter of a Vietnamese family gets lost in a rubber plantation while fleeing her angry father, and things are never the same. In 2011, a young Vietnamese American woman disappears from her new home in Saigon, without a trace.
While they disappear decades apart, they are both linked—by past generations, ghosts, and ancestors, and a history of possessed bodies and possessed lands. And they will both get their revenge.
“Build Your House” is one of those books in which the story is told from multiple points of views, a lot of things happen seemingly separate from each other, and it’s hard to initially tell how anything is connected. After all, what does a mixed-race boy attending a boarding school for the children of French expats, Frenchmen trying to start a business, or employees of one Saigon Spirit Eradication Co. have to do with two young women disappearing? But Kupersmith does a great job of weaving all of their stories together. The characters are complex, multifaceted, and usually have more to them than initially meets the eye. As a reader, it’s always fun to guess how the characters and their paths are connected and exciting when we’re correct—though it’s also always fun to be surprised when the outcome is unexpected.
Kupersmith’s story spans more than 50 years of Vietnamese history—including its final days as a French colony, and just as it was on the brink of the Vietnam War. As someone who didn’t learn much about the history of other countries (or this country, honestly), it was nice to read about life during different points in time in Vietnam, outside of the war (one of the few things I knew about the country, but again, didn’t really learn about).
Samantha can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.