Book Review: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao

Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

THIS BOOK...Even though it is the second book of the series and it's the "What now?" book before the next book, I still enjoyed it, even though it was painful, gave me emotional damage, and made my voice go up each time I said 'I'm fine!' like Ross from FRIENDS in that one episode. This book made me scream, close to crying, gasping out loud that one time, and my mama asking me if I was alright, and that ending that made me go 'EXCUSE ME?!" almost loud.

Wu Zeitan got her revenge and took down the government, and she awoke a 2,010-year-old Emperor to pilot The Yellow Dragon. Who would've thought that the Emperor who awoke in this world changed everything Wu Zeitan wanted? But then, all those changes came with a price. Some people didn't like the way the world was being ruled by this Emperor who had been asleep for this long and was now listening to Wu Zeitan, who had become the Emperess and was trying to come up with so many ways to get him to change Huxia from the old ways to the new ways. The more Zeitan tries to make changes--making a new group of piolets called The Iron Widows, making a group called the Phoenix Ladies or something like that, and also making sure binding feet is not done anymore to women--everything seems to go to hell.

For example, the new revolutionaries called the White Lotus, led by Zhuge Liang, try to get people back to the old ways, decry the Emperor, and ask him to return to the old ways, calling Zu Weitan a wicked woman. Yizhi--we'll get to him later--betraying our trust over and over again by taking an egg out of Zeitan and combining it with the Emperor's sperm so they can have a surrogate and let them have a child, pretending to be on the Emperor's side but in reality he was doing stuff for the Heavenly Court who warned Zeitan that they would do what they did, to betraying them both in the end and running away to the Heavenly Court, where he was hiding and was actually in a relationship with one of the gods.

The end battle scene was so good. I hung on to every word to see how it would end, and I wasn't expecting that ending to happen, or the fact that the emperor is gonna do what I THINK he's gonna do. I hope he doesn't, because then I would honestly fight him. But the ENDING with that 'Mei-Niang? in Shinmin's real voice?

Ow. Just...OW.

I truly enjoyed this series and I loved this book. Is this my favorite book out of the series? Not really but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.

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Book Review: Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book right here…OMG. I felt like I just got done reading a two season anime and I want the third one. This book was so good that I almost cried because of how good it was. Even though this book is a retelling and reimaging of the life of Wu Zeitan, this was very well done. Polyamory relationship between Zeitan, Shimin and Yizhi? Beautiful. The most beautiful thing I”ve ever read in my life. Because I need more of this book, and if its a series, I’m going to buy the second book and read it immediately because holy shit this book was SO GOOD.

Like I said in the beginning, this book is the reimagined life of Wu Zeitan, the Chinese Empress that lived in the seventh century of China, but with mechas. Zeitan wants revenge on the pilot of the Nine-Tailed Fox, Yang Guang, who had murdered her sister, and she does, thanks to her family who practically sold her to be a concubine-pilot to the pilot of the Chryaslises they had. First night from being alone with Yang Guang, she went into the Nine-Tailed Fox and helped him fight the Hunduns. Once she got into the cockpit and went inside his mind jungle, she saw Yang Guang do horrible things to females and decided to turn around and kill him, thus taking over the Nine Tailed Fox and finished off the Hunduns. When the cockpit opened, she stepped out and yelled into the crowd, Welcome to your Nightmare!

Soon, Zeitan is in chains and is brought in front of Sima Yi and Zhuge Liang, and was also given the name Iron Widow. She is partnered up with the pilot of the Vermillion Bird, Li Shimin, also known as the Iron Demon, and found out that this so called “Iron Demon” was nothing more than a nineteen year old boy who was getting alcohol abused by the army so they don’t have to deal with his emotions, a boy who went to school and wrote beautiful calligraphy and had studied while he was fighting, thus fucking up his eyesight. And he’s a tall-ass teddy bear, thus my nickname for him ‘Iron Teddy Bear’, and he felt so much guilt for killing his concubine-pilot, Wende and the girls. Then Yizhi got into the mix, and everything felt so much better…

UNTIL THE ENDING.

XIRAN, IF YOUR READING THIS, I WANT TO DUEL YOU FOR SHIMIN’S SOUL (and then lose because I haven’t played Yu-Gi-Oh! In a long-ass time). That ending with stick with me for a long time, because yes, finally, Zeitan is showing the world that girls can control the Chrysalis and beat the Hunduns, and that the yin and yang didn’t matter which seat the boy and the girl was in. BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO MY SHIMIN…I WANTED TO PROTECT HIM AS MUCH AS I CAN. But noooo, he just turned around and is now the Metal Emperor (I think…because I’m trying to figure it out if its really him or not) and now I’m worried. I don’t want nothing happening to Shimin and I hope Zeitan and Yizhi figure out how to save him…

Along I don’t care about the bloody Tortoise anymore. I did for a minute, then they did that to the bird and I hated them.

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