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Gods Beyond the Skies #1
Penguin To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (Gods Beyond the Skies).
She has power over death. He has power over her. When two enemies strike a dangerous bargain, will they end a war . . . or ignite one?
Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.
Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.
Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?
Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.
Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.
When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.
Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?
346 pages, Hardcover
First published April 16, 2024
459 people are currently reading
57681 people want to read
About the author
Molly X. Chang
8 books972 followersBorn in Harbin, China, Molly X. Chang was raised on folklore told by the grandparents who taught her to take pride in the heritages and cultures that shaped her life, and the harrowing history of the ancestors who'd come before her.
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April 30, 2024tired: arguing about whether this book is a colonizer romance
wired: getting high while reading, rolling with the main girly's bad decisions, and leaving voice memos in the author's inbox about the "love interest" being that white guy who's always showing off how he knows one (1) asian language
i respectfully disagree with reviews that say this book is a colonizer romance. IMO it doesn't feel like a romance at all? it felt more so about a character who has to decide between upholding morals VS survival and protecting her family. i think any "romanticization" of a certain colonizer is more so reading from an unreliable narrator who's being manipulated by a white savior. but the majority of the story wasn't really about him; it's about girly making bad decisions because she's desperate, and that's the path she chooses in the face of colonization.
i think POC authors should be allowed to explore difficult themes and their cultural histories without being dragged if they don't do it perfectly in the readers' eyes. we should want writers to take risks, whether a reader ends up liking the end result or not! we should encourage stories to incite discourse and different interpretations without having the writer's personhood and morals be questioned.
wired: getting high while reading, rolling with the main girly's bad decisions, and leaving voice memos in the author's inbox about the "love interest" being that white guy who's always showing off how he knows one (1) asian language
i respectfully disagree with reviews that say this book is a colonizer romance. IMO it doesn't feel like a romance at all? it felt more so about a character who has to decide between upholding morals VS survival and protecting her family. i think any "romanticization" of a certain colonizer is more so reading from an unreliable narrator who's being manipulated by a white savior. but the majority of the story wasn't really about him; it's about girly making bad decisions because she's desperate, and that's the path she chooses in the face of colonization.
i think POC authors should be allowed to explore difficult themes and their cultural histories without being dragged if they don't do it perfectly in the readers' eyes. we should want writers to take risks, whether a reader ends up liking the end result or not! we should encourage stories to incite discourse and different interpretations without having the writer's personhood and morals be questioned.
July 29, 2025
read & reviewed during its arc days, back when they were marketing the romance between the mc and the prince
OPPRESS · [əˈprɛs] · verb
oppressor, noun
1. keep (someone) in subjection and hardship, especially by the unjust exercise of authority:
antony, love interest from 'to gaze upon wicked gods'
not only did i find it repetitive and poorly handled, but writing a romance between the colonized and the colonizer, the oppressed and the oppressor, is not the enemies to lovers u think it is, alright? don't romanticize it, like whatever that was, please NEVER AGAIN!!! he tortured, blackmailed her, he have this remote-controlled bracelet that electrocutes her, he committed unit 731 (one of the most horrible war crimes in history) on her own people, etc. and what? i'm expected to sit here and say, "aw i hope they end up together"? is this some sort of joke? i did not come here to read and sympathize for a colonizer, be serious with me.. it was not swoon worthy nor was it romantic. i abhor it.
OPPRESS · [əˈprɛs] · verb
oppressor, noun
1. keep (someone) in subjection and hardship, especially by the unjust exercise of authority:
antony, love interest from 'to gaze upon wicked gods'
not only did i find it repetitive and poorly handled, but writing a romance between the colonized and the colonizer, the oppressed and the oppressor, is not the enemies to lovers u think it is, alright? don't romanticize it, like whatever that was, please NEVER AGAIN!!! he tortured, blackmailed her, he have this remote-controlled bracelet that electrocutes her, he committed unit 731 (one of the most horrible war crimes in history) on her own people, etc. and what? i'm expected to sit here and say, "aw i hope they end up together"? is this some sort of joke? i did not come here to read and sympathize for a colonizer, be serious with me.. it was not swoon worthy nor was it romantic. i abhor it.
February 18, 2025
Overview:
😍 Enemies to lovers
😍 Extremely slow burn
😍 Villain love interest
🆗 Based on colonized Manchuria
🫶 Heavily inspired by Chinese myth, culture, and storytelling
🆗 Love triangle
👄 Corruption arc
4.5. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was one of my most anticipated books this year, and it did not disappoint.
Ruying is a common woman blessed with the power of death in a world where many are blessed with unique magic. She has lived a quiet life under the colonial rule of a futuristic Roman empire. When a Roman prince sees her performing hr gifts, she is given a choice. She must work as the prince's assassin or face the wrath of the empire.
This will be a book for a particular kind of person who really means it when they say they want the main character to fall in love with a villain. Many folks will morally struggle with it, and I am happy to say that To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods really begs the question "what if the boy the girl falls in love with is truly a horrible piece of shit". Interesting, engaging, dark, mysterious, and uniquely written yes, but absolute garbage.
Focusing first on characters, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a book that goes all in with its two leads. I will address the side characters in a moment.
Ruying is a messy and complex girl willing to do anything to protect her family, but she is also complacent. She has learned to live under the thumb of Rome and does not feel motivated to take to resistance like some of those around her. As she is drawn into the Roman royalty's world, she finds herself finding ways to justify assisting in their cruelty. If you liked Nezha from The Poppy War, expect a similar arc but with a female main character. Her corruption and devolution into a more complicated character is extremely unique in the world of Young Adult fantasy and handled with a tremendous amount of care.
Antony is the second prince of Rome, and our secondary lead. He is a dark brooding green eyed monster, both literally and figuratively. While he comes off as the "less bad" of his family, he has his eyes on the throne- it can be challenging to read his motivations. He is a masterclass in manipulative behavior and he is the "gaslight" in Gaslight, Girlboss, Gatekeep. Antony never really becomes your quintessential cool Rhysand YA boyfriend. Hes not a particularly pleasant person, but hes big sad boy energy has both Ruying and me in a chokehold.
The side characters are all quite well written, though at times I found myself a little disappointed with where their journeys ended up. This includes Ruying's childhood friend who has a crush on her and now works for the enemy, her sister who is ravaged by addiction, her wise grandmother, and the twisted eldest prince. Chang also does a wonderful job painting a tapestry of off screen characters- primarily from the Roman side. I assume we will meet some of these characters in the next book and I am very much looking forward to it. None of these characters exist to advance the romance in the book, they all have their own thing going on and you can watch their journeys unfold through Ruying's POV.
The romance in the book is top tier if you are an enemies to lovers junkie, though I am worried there is actually a chance Change may pivot the romance to another character (Miss Chang I am begging you not to do this) This is easily one of the slowest burn young adult romances I've ever read and will be satisfying to anyone who needs a cleanse from romantic speedruns.
Antony and Ruying have a hard-to-define bond based on trauma, duty, and broken power dynamics. Antony has near complete control over her to the point where you could argue her affection resembles Stockholm syndrome. He is why she is forced to kill countless of her countrymen, though he is always there to comfort her when she starts to feel overwhelmed by what she is made to do to protect her family and herself. It's extremely hard to make a clear case for Antony's motives right down to the last pages of the book. Molly Chang does a great job writing Antony from Ruying's perspective, making it hard for you as the reader to trust him while your heart stirs at his most genuine moments.
The pair also regularly discuss the nature of power and explore their desire and fear of it together. Ruying is seduced by Antony's vision for peace, however flawed. This creates some fascinating character moments that extend far beyond attraction, as these two characters truly end up influencing each other's visceral core. My love for this pairing started with "slow burn enemies to lovers good" and evolved into something more watching their romance become a philosophical and psychological reflection on war, power, and domination. I would not recommend this book to folks who are uncomfortable with relationships with destructive dynamics, particularly emotional abuse and manipulation. I however, fucking ATE.
The pacing starts off a little infodumpy but quickly starts to naturally expand on the world to the point where its extremely well fleshed out and easy to follow the conflict. Chang introduces us to a complex and messy world of clear-cut heroes and villains but does not shy away from asking you to reflect on the motivations of those villains. Rome is an interesting case in this regard, as they are a hyper-advanced society that holds many secrets while still sucking the soul out of Pangu.
My main criticism of the book is that while Chang builds an extremely interesting world, a lot of flavor on colonizers is borrowed from The Poppy War, The Unbroken, Children of Blood and Bone, etc, and looks a lot like new titles coming out as well (Jasad Heir, Hurricane Wars) Pangu is a magical society brimming with joy and life, while Rome is a soulless science obsessed war machine society where everything is superficial. These two character traits, especially magic vs science, are pretty played out in this type of fantasy. That said, this is my only gripe, and it is small.
My experience reading this book was just total engagement. I finished it in 2 days, and I was camping at the time. I was staying up late to read, desperately hi-lighting quotes like someone was paying me. Any flaws this book has are made up for tendfold by the richness of the characterwork and character relationships. I can not wait for the next installment.
Check out more of my opinions on Enemies to Lovers books AND read some quotes from this book on my blog Enemies To Lovers Source
🖤🖤 Follow me On Bluesky for more book ranting 🖤🖤
EDIT: already see people coming after this book for being a “colonizer romance” and this is just a reminder that this type of story has been a style of romance for a long time and WOMEN OF COLOR ARE ENTITLED TO TELL ANY DANN STORY THEY WANT ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS INSPIRED BY THEIR OWN OPPRESSION
😍 Enemies to lovers
😍 Extremely slow burn
😍 Villain love interest
🆗 Based on colonized Manchuria
🫶 Heavily inspired by Chinese myth, culture, and storytelling
🆗 Love triangle
👄 Corruption arc
4.5. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was one of my most anticipated books this year, and it did not disappoint.
Ruying is a common woman blessed with the power of death in a world where many are blessed with unique magic. She has lived a quiet life under the colonial rule of a futuristic Roman empire. When a Roman prince sees her performing hr gifts, she is given a choice. She must work as the prince's assassin or face the wrath of the empire.
This will be a book for a particular kind of person who really means it when they say they want the main character to fall in love with a villain. Many folks will morally struggle with it, and I am happy to say that To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods really begs the question "what if the boy the girl falls in love with is truly a horrible piece of shit". Interesting, engaging, dark, mysterious, and uniquely written yes, but absolute garbage.
Focusing first on characters, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a book that goes all in with its two leads. I will address the side characters in a moment.
Ruying is a messy and complex girl willing to do anything to protect her family, but she is also complacent. She has learned to live under the thumb of Rome and does not feel motivated to take to resistance like some of those around her. As she is drawn into the Roman royalty's world, she finds herself finding ways to justify assisting in their cruelty. If you liked Nezha from The Poppy War, expect a similar arc but with a female main character. Her corruption and devolution into a more complicated character is extremely unique in the world of Young Adult fantasy and handled with a tremendous amount of care.
Antony is the second prince of Rome, and our secondary lead. He is a dark brooding green eyed monster, both literally and figuratively. While he comes off as the "less bad" of his family, he has his eyes on the throne- it can be challenging to read his motivations. He is a masterclass in manipulative behavior and he is the "gaslight" in Gaslight, Girlboss, Gatekeep. Antony never really becomes your quintessential cool Rhysand YA boyfriend. Hes not a particularly pleasant person, but hes big sad boy energy has both Ruying and me in a chokehold.
The side characters are all quite well written, though at times I found myself a little disappointed with where their journeys ended up. This includes Ruying's childhood friend who has a crush on her and now works for the enemy, her sister who is ravaged by addiction, her wise grandmother, and the twisted eldest prince. Chang also does a wonderful job painting a tapestry of off screen characters- primarily from the Roman side. I assume we will meet some of these characters in the next book and I am very much looking forward to it. None of these characters exist to advance the romance in the book, they all have their own thing going on and you can watch their journeys unfold through Ruying's POV.
The romance in the book is top tier if you are an enemies to lovers junkie, though I am worried there is actually a chance Change may pivot the romance to another character (Miss Chang I am begging you not to do this) This is easily one of the slowest burn young adult romances I've ever read and will be satisfying to anyone who needs a cleanse from romantic speedruns.
Antony and Ruying have a hard-to-define bond based on trauma, duty, and broken power dynamics. Antony has near complete control over her to the point where you could argue her affection resembles Stockholm syndrome. He is why she is forced to kill countless of her countrymen, though he is always there to comfort her when she starts to feel overwhelmed by what she is made to do to protect her family and herself. It's extremely hard to make a clear case for Antony's motives right down to the last pages of the book. Molly Chang does a great job writing Antony from Ruying's perspective, making it hard for you as the reader to trust him while your heart stirs at his most genuine moments.
The pair also regularly discuss the nature of power and explore their desire and fear of it together. Ruying is seduced by Antony's vision for peace, however flawed. This creates some fascinating character moments that extend far beyond attraction, as these two characters truly end up influencing each other's visceral core. My love for this pairing started with "slow burn enemies to lovers good" and evolved into something more watching their romance become a philosophical and psychological reflection on war, power, and domination. I would not recommend this book to folks who are uncomfortable with relationships with destructive dynamics, particularly emotional abuse and manipulation. I however, fucking ATE.
The pacing starts off a little infodumpy but quickly starts to naturally expand on the world to the point where its extremely well fleshed out and easy to follow the conflict. Chang introduces us to a complex and messy world of clear-cut heroes and villains but does not shy away from asking you to reflect on the motivations of those villains. Rome is an interesting case in this regard, as they are a hyper-advanced society that holds many secrets while still sucking the soul out of Pangu.
My main criticism of the book is that while Chang builds an extremely interesting world, a lot of flavor on colonizers is borrowed from The Poppy War, The Unbroken, Children of Blood and Bone, etc, and looks a lot like new titles coming out as well (Jasad Heir, Hurricane Wars) Pangu is a magical society brimming with joy and life, while Rome is a soulless science obsessed war machine society where everything is superficial. These two character traits, especially magic vs science, are pretty played out in this type of fantasy. That said, this is my only gripe, and it is small.
My experience reading this book was just total engagement. I finished it in 2 days, and I was camping at the time. I was staying up late to read, desperately hi-lighting quotes like someone was paying me. Any flaws this book has are made up for tendfold by the richness of the characterwork and character relationships. I can not wait for the next installment.
Check out more of my opinions on Enemies to Lovers books AND read some quotes from this book on my blog Enemies To Lovers Source
🖤🖤 Follow me On Bluesky for more book ranting 🖤🖤
EDIT: already see people coming after this book for being a “colonizer romance” and this is just a reminder that this type of story has been a style of romance for a long time and WOMEN OF COLOR ARE ENTITLED TO TELL ANY DANN STORY THEY WANT ESPECIALLY WHEN ITS INSPIRED BY THEIR OWN OPPRESSION
November 30, 2024
I believe congratulations are in order for Ms. Chang; she did a splendid job with her debut novel. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is going to be one of the masterpieces that 2024 is bringing.
As soon as you read the dedication and the author's inspiration behind this magical world, you realize that this story is going to be an epic adventure. It is filled with moments that will tug at your heartstrings but also fulfill your guilty pleasures. The dedication is just the first awesome thing that sets the tone for what's to come.
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods tells the story of Ruying, whose life was marred by tragedy from the very beginning. Her mother passed away while giving birth to Ruying and her twin sister; after this, her dad became addicted to drugs that slowly killed him but not before he ruined the family's reputation and subjected his daughters to years of mistreatment. But Ruying's fate was sealed even before she was born. Her world was invaded by demons that descended from the skies, not from the ground. This cataclysmic event forever changed the course of her life and everyone in her world.
What makes Ruying's world so unique is the magical abilities that every generation inherits from the Gods. That same magic also makes the people of Ruying's world vulnerable to the advanced technologies of the demons from the other side of the sky. What makes our main character so special is a rare magical ability that allows her to pull life right out of mortal bodies. Ruying's people fear her because of her exceptional abilities, but the demons desire her on their side to win the war. To save her family from the cruel times they are living in, Ruying is capable of anything, including becoming a traitor.
The sentiments that accompany the reader at the beginning of the book are carried through until the very end. I don't know how many times I found myself clenching my teeth or tearing up because the descriptions felt too heavy to keep going. Ms. Chang has done an excellent job of blending historical events with her fantasy world. However, it's worth noting that the book is based on one of the most tragic events in human history - World War II. Some parts are difficult to read without imagining the struggles faced by those who lived through those times. It's heartbreaking to think about the sacrifices made by those individuals just to survive another day or to protect their loved ones.
In this story, there are bad guys like in every other. Nevertheless, the author makes it difficult to harvest any hateful emotions toward those characters. Not only are they morally ambiguous instead of being completely evil, but the author wants the reader to fall deeply in love with them to be able to hate with the same intensity; at least that's how it felt for me when I reached the last page of the book.
Overall, 2025 can't come soon enough. I need the sequel now.
Free ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
"Death only blesses a mortal when the world is at the verge of chaos, and his protégé will either save the world, or destroy it."
As soon as you read the dedication and the author's inspiration behind this magical world, you realize that this story is going to be an epic adventure. It is filled with moments that will tug at your heartstrings but also fulfill your guilty pleasures. The dedication is just the first awesome thing that sets the tone for what's to come.
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods tells the story of Ruying, whose life was marred by tragedy from the very beginning. Her mother passed away while giving birth to Ruying and her twin sister; after this, her dad became addicted to drugs that slowly killed him but not before he ruined the family's reputation and subjected his daughters to years of mistreatment. But Ruying's fate was sealed even before she was born. Her world was invaded by demons that descended from the skies, not from the ground. This cataclysmic event forever changed the course of her life and everyone in her world.
What makes Ruying's world so unique is the magical abilities that every generation inherits from the Gods. That same magic also makes the people of Ruying's world vulnerable to the advanced technologies of the demons from the other side of the sky. What makes our main character so special is a rare magical ability that allows her to pull life right out of mortal bodies. Ruying's people fear her because of her exceptional abilities, but the demons desire her on their side to win the war. To save her family from the cruel times they are living in, Ruying is capable of anything, including becoming a traitor.
The sentiments that accompany the reader at the beginning of the book are carried through until the very end. I don't know how many times I found myself clenching my teeth or tearing up because the descriptions felt too heavy to keep going. Ms. Chang has done an excellent job of blending historical events with her fantasy world. However, it's worth noting that the book is based on one of the most tragic events in human history - World War II. Some parts are difficult to read without imagining the struggles faced by those who lived through those times. It's heartbreaking to think about the sacrifices made by those individuals just to survive another day or to protect their loved ones.
In this story, there are bad guys like in every other. Nevertheless, the author makes it difficult to harvest any hateful emotions toward those characters. Not only are they morally ambiguous instead of being completely evil, but the author wants the reader to fall deeply in love with them to be able to hate with the same intensity; at least that's how it felt for me when I reached the last page of the book.
Overall, 2025 can't come soon enough. I need the sequel now.
Free ARC provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 31, 2023
5 stars!!! ⭐️
rep: asian cast and world, queer sc (mentioned in passing and could be lesbian or aroace)
omg i got an arc of this book in a book event and OMFG ????? IM OBSESSED I CANT BELIEVE I HAVE TO WAIT THIS LONG FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO READ IT, LET ALONE FOR THE SEQUEL 😭😭😭 if you loved shatter me, this book takes everything from that and makes it PERFECTION. if you liked the idea of shatter me but hated the execution, then AGAIN THIS ONE IS FOR YOU BC OMG DID THIS DELIVER!!! and the love interest? SO AARON WARNER CODED I WAS SCREAMING, RUNNING LAPS AROUND MY ROOM!!!!
the mc and the li are both so morally grey but like in SUCH a great way, i LOVED them ahhh!! both individually and together like ajfksnfkdb
the lore in this book, the magic system, the world building, the writing… UGH IT WAS ALL LITERALLY AMAZING IM LITERALLY SO OBSESSED ?!!!
i feel the next book could have a love triangle and if it does i’m jumping off a CLIFF 😭 anyway EVERYONE ADD THIS AND READ IT PLS AND THX
MOLLY YOU WILL BE HEARING FROM MY THERAPIST.
rep: asian cast and world, queer sc (mentioned in passing and could be lesbian or aroace)
omg i got an arc of this book in a book event and OMFG ????? IM OBSESSED I CANT BELIEVE I HAVE TO WAIT THIS LONG FOR OTHER PEOPLE TO READ IT, LET ALONE FOR THE SEQUEL 😭😭😭 if you loved shatter me, this book takes everything from that and makes it PERFECTION. if you liked the idea of shatter me but hated the execution, then AGAIN THIS ONE IS FOR YOU BC OMG DID THIS DELIVER!!! and the love interest? SO AARON WARNER CODED I WAS SCREAMING, RUNNING LAPS AROUND MY ROOM!!!!
the mc and the li are both so morally grey but like in SUCH a great way, i LOVED them ahhh!! both individually and together like ajfksnfkdb
the lore in this book, the magic system, the world building, the writing… UGH IT WAS ALL LITERALLY AMAZING IM LITERALLY SO OBSESSED ?!!!
i feel the next book could have a love triangle and if it does i’m jumping off a CLIFF 😭 anyway EVERYONE ADD THIS AND READ IT PLS AND THX
MOLLY YOU WILL BE HEARING FROM MY THERAPIST.
September 20, 2023
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House publishing group Ballantine, for the early ARC of this book. All reviews and thoughts are my own.
I thought this book was a beautiful historical fantasy. I loved the magic system in this book. The main character Ruying I grew to love the relationship with her and Antony Augustus as I thought it was daring and fun to the storyline . A very different take in a different world and timeline but also a lot of similarities to our history. The ending definitely calls for a second book and I can’t wait to read it and find out the rest of Ruying’s path and journey.
I thought this book was a beautiful historical fantasy. I loved the magic system in this book. The main character Ruying I grew to love the relationship with her and Antony Augustus as I thought it was daring and fun to the storyline . A very different take in a different world and timeline but also a lot of similarities to our history. The ending definitely calls for a second book and I can’t wait to read it and find out the rest of Ruying’s path and journey.
September 3, 2023
This book was very intense but so good! The authors note in the beginning is unlike anything I've read before in a YA fantasy and sets a heavy but important tone for the story. This story is unlike anything I've read and I can't wait to see how it continues and how the main character continues to grow. Thank you netgalley for the ARC!
August 23, 2023
Got to read an early copy and I need the 2nd book like now! It has definitely got me back into fantasy and made me not want to put it down
December 15, 2023
I received this book as an ARC!
Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars
Content Warnings: Mentions of drug use, war, violence
This was an absolutely gorgeous book. The metaphors and imagery used were phenomenal and the plot itself was refreshing.
I absolutely couldn’t put this book down. It was refreshing to see different cultures represented in a fantasy novel, and it was nice to learn more about them — even if it was just a little.
Seeing the Chinese characters in tandem with their translations was also beautiful in and of itself. I adore language as a whole and I find it beautiful how we communicate as humans in so many different ways.
The worlds of science and magic collide, which is something I feel like I haven’t really seen in fantasy. I loved this book and I’m excited to read the next story in the series.
Overall Rating: 5/5 Stars
Content Warnings: Mentions of drug use, war, violence
This was an absolutely gorgeous book. The metaphors and imagery used were phenomenal and the plot itself was refreshing.
I absolutely couldn’t put this book down. It was refreshing to see different cultures represented in a fantasy novel, and it was nice to learn more about them — even if it was just a little.
Seeing the Chinese characters in tandem with their translations was also beautiful in and of itself. I adore language as a whole and I find it beautiful how we communicate as humans in so many different ways.
The worlds of science and magic collide, which is something I feel like I haven’t really seen in fantasy. I loved this book and I’m excited to read the next story in the series.
September 4, 2023
Thank you to Random House - Ballantine and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang is a fantasy debut based on Chinese history and the author's grandfather's stories of war from Manchuria. The story revolves around Ruying, who lives in a China-inspired world that has been conquered by the Romans. What people don't know is that Ruying has powers that can steal the qi or life-force from anyone. When a Roman prince discovers her powers, she is forced to make a deal. Will she be able to handle being a personal assassin for the enemy?
Here is a gripping excerpt from Chapter 1:
"With deliberate steps, I passed the Fence that carved my city into halves, guarded by Roman soldiers and their white-knuckled grips on the guns that haunted my people's nightmares, ready to shoot me down over perceived slights.
I hated these men. Hated their stern, foreign faces and foreign attires from beyond the shimmering portal high in the indigo sky that now joined our two realms...
To inflict unimaginable pain and suffering, as the Romans had for over two decades now."
Overall, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang's Poppy War trilogy or the Netflix adaption of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone. Although this book is categorized as adult fantasy, I feel like it can fit in and appeal to YA fantasy readers as well. One highlight of this book is that it is #ownvoices by an author of Chinese descent. I loved reading the author's note where she talks about her grandfather's war stories from Manchuria and about the colonization of China by Russia and Japan.
Another highlight of this book is Ruying's very cool death powers. Although they are a burden to her, I enjoyed reading about the descriptions and explanations of the death-magic. It was a cool concept that I haven't read about before. If I had to complain about 1 thing, I would say that there is a lot of telling, not showing, especially in the beginning of the book. But it gets very exciting afterward, and I tore through the rest of the book. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of fantasy books in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in April!
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang is a fantasy debut based on Chinese history and the author's grandfather's stories of war from Manchuria. The story revolves around Ruying, who lives in a China-inspired world that has been conquered by the Romans. What people don't know is that Ruying has powers that can steal the qi or life-force from anyone. When a Roman prince discovers her powers, she is forced to make a deal. Will she be able to handle being a personal assassin for the enemy?
Here is a gripping excerpt from Chapter 1:
"With deliberate steps, I passed the Fence that carved my city into halves, guarded by Roman soldiers and their white-knuckled grips on the guns that haunted my people's nightmares, ready to shoot me down over perceived slights.
I hated these men. Hated their stern, foreign faces and foreign attires from beyond the shimmering portal high in the indigo sky that now joined our two realms...
To inflict unimaginable pain and suffering, as the Romans had for over two decades now."
Overall, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a fantasy novel that will appeal to fans of R. F. Kuang's Poppy War trilogy or the Netflix adaption of Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone. Although this book is categorized as adult fantasy, I feel like it can fit in and appeal to YA fantasy readers as well. One highlight of this book is that it is #ownvoices by an author of Chinese descent. I loved reading the author's note where she talks about her grandfather's war stories from Manchuria and about the colonization of China by Russia and Japan.
Another highlight of this book is Ruying's very cool death powers. Although they are a burden to her, I enjoyed reading about the descriptions and explanations of the death-magic. It was a cool concept that I haven't read about before. If I had to complain about 1 thing, I would say that there is a lot of telling, not showing, especially in the beginning of the book. But it gets very exciting afterward, and I tore through the rest of the book. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of fantasy books in general, I highly recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in April!
June 11, 2025
UPDATE 3/11/24
Some white reviewers have called out and attacked several BIPOC reviews in various spaces, including this one, and Twitter/X, which I am not a part of. Link to our signed Instagram post here.
Review bombing is leaving one or five star reviews without having read the book. We all received ARCs of this book last year, read the book, and reviewed it earnestly. To excuse the author to write whatever she wants, just because she is BIPOC, is wrong. Authors can write whatever they like. But, to call BIPOC reviewers anti-colonial, racist, and attempting to minimize our own traumas in regard to our own triggers is wrong.
--
Young adult fantasy is more miss than hit with me nowadays. I like to give the genre more leeway when it’s Asian inspired and written by Asian authors. I am loathe to compare this book with TOG, because while I have consumed SJM’s books in the past, I do not condone Zionism. However, as a popular series with an assassin, I feel the comparison must be made. Ruying only seems to be an assassin after the fact, and most of her kills happen off page.
The worldbuilding is sparse. I didn’t realize for quite some time that the Romans (used in place of Japan for whatever reason) come from “our” world, and that they have colonized the world of Pangu (China). Rome has colonized Pangu. That is a fact. And Antony and Ruying have the beginnings of a romance. That is another fact. Whether or not the future books of this series change the love interest (the marketing has noticeably changed ever since our ARC reviews came out), book one is a colonizer romance. As someone with heritage from an Asian country that was colonized, this content is triggering to me, and I like to label it as such for young, impressionable readers.
Falling for your colonizer aside, there are other reasons I did not enjoy this book. Some edits need to be made pre-publication: more worldbuilding, less info dumping, less repetitiveness. I could do without hearing about Antony’s jade green eyes every few paragraphs.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey
Some white reviewers have called out and attacked several BIPOC reviews in various spaces, including this one, and Twitter/X, which I am not a part of. Link to our signed Instagram post here.
Review bombing is leaving one or five star reviews without having read the book. We all received ARCs of this book last year, read the book, and reviewed it earnestly. To excuse the author to write whatever she wants, just because she is BIPOC, is wrong. Authors can write whatever they like. But, to call BIPOC reviewers anti-colonial, racist, and attempting to minimize our own traumas in regard to our own triggers is wrong.
--
Young adult fantasy is more miss than hit with me nowadays. I like to give the genre more leeway when it’s Asian inspired and written by Asian authors. I am loathe to compare this book with TOG, because while I have consumed SJM’s books in the past, I do not condone Zionism. However, as a popular series with an assassin, I feel the comparison must be made. Ruying only seems to be an assassin after the fact, and most of her kills happen off page.
The worldbuilding is sparse. I didn’t realize for quite some time that the Romans (used in place of Japan for whatever reason) come from “our” world, and that they have colonized the world of Pangu (China). Rome has colonized Pangu. That is a fact. And Antony and Ruying have the beginnings of a romance. That is another fact. Whether or not the future books of this series change the love interest (the marketing has noticeably changed ever since our ARC reviews came out), book one is a colonizer romance. As someone with heritage from an Asian country that was colonized, this content is triggering to me, and I like to label it as such for young, impressionable readers.
Falling for your colonizer aside, there are other reasons I did not enjoy this book. Some edits need to be made pre-publication: more worldbuilding, less info dumping, less repetitiveness. I could do without hearing about Antony’s jade green eyes every few paragraphs.
📱 Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey
October 11, 2023
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods I was able to get an ARC thanks to Netgallery and Random House Publishing Group. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.
This is the author's debut novel and she nailed it. First off I absolutely love this cover; it's so pretty. This book takes place in a magical China(Pangu) where Colonizers from Rome come to take over. I assume the Colonizers seem to come from a different world with them having to use portals to get to Pangu? To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is about a girl named Ruying who has death magic and she tries so hard to keep it a secret because if the wrong people find out about her she will be used as a weapon. Ruying does all she can to protect and take care of her friends and family even agreeing to become an assassin. Antony the other main character in this book is the second prince of Rome and he meets Ruying when she ends up stealing from him. Ruying is eventually captured and brought to be in front of the princes and is ultimately under Antony mercy. Antony strikes up a deal with Ruying where as long as she kills for him he will keep her family safe. This book was so good I could barely put it down and it's a slow burn, enemies to lovers. The book kind of starts off a little slow but quickly picks up. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book with characters that are morally gray because both of the main characters are. I can not wait to read book 2 absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to see what happens next.
This is the author's debut novel and she nailed it. First off I absolutely love this cover; it's so pretty. This book takes place in a magical China(Pangu) where Colonizers from Rome come to take over. I assume the Colonizers seem to come from a different world with them having to use portals to get to Pangu? To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is about a girl named Ruying who has death magic and she tries so hard to keep it a secret because if the wrong people find out about her she will be used as a weapon. Ruying does all she can to protect and take care of her friends and family even agreeing to become an assassin. Antony the other main character in this book is the second prince of Rome and he meets Ruying when she ends up stealing from him. Ruying is eventually captured and brought to be in front of the princes and is ultimately under Antony mercy. Antony strikes up a deal with Ruying where as long as she kills for him he will keep her family safe. This book was so good I could barely put it down and it's a slow burn, enemies to lovers. The book kind of starts off a little slow but quickly picks up. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a book with characters that are morally gray because both of the main characters are. I can not wait to read book 2 absolutely loved this book and can’t wait to see what happens next.
September 5, 2023
5 Stars. READ THIS BOOK! This is a debut novel!? Molly Chang, you delivered.
Reading the author's note is what really pulled me into the book, and made me want to learn about what her ancestors had to endure in China.
This is how you inform people about historical events, through a stunningly written story about a strong female MC and her determination to protect her family and culture. I loved the magic versus science aspect of the story, the worldbuilding, the traitorous characters, I loved it all.
Thank you NetGalley, Publisher, and Author for the ARC. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO RUYING'S STORY!
Reading the author's note is what really pulled me into the book, and made me want to learn about what her ancestors had to endure in China.
This is how you inform people about historical events, through a stunningly written story about a strong female MC and her determination to protect her family and culture. I loved the magic versus science aspect of the story, the worldbuilding, the traitorous characters, I loved it all.
Thank you NetGalley, Publisher, and Author for the ARC. I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO RUYING'S STORY!
September 10, 2023
4.5 stars. This is an amazing ARC. The writing is excellent. I could kind of tell where it was going but I also was on the edge of my seat and definitely questioning whether or not my guesses were correct or not.
The writing style is reminiscent to me of R.F. Kuang and early Sarah J. Maas. I will read anything Molly X. Chang writes.
The writing style is reminiscent to me of R.F. Kuang and early Sarah J. Maas. I will read anything Molly X. Chang writes.
November 16, 2023
There are so many good things I want to gush about this book, but the themes of imperialism and colonialism, morality and heritage, loyalty and sacrifice, they all make me want to scream at how in depth the author went into exploring these.
This book explores what would have happened in the Roman Empire survived and continued to colonize the planet, including the magic-influenced (representation of China's?) Er-Lang. We get to see how Roman uses science against Er-Lang's myths and magic, and how this world's abuse of drugs allowed their own destruction. It was fascinating to see a world parallel to our own.
The romance was a true enemies-to-lovers (but maybe back to enemies) because not only could you feel the tension between knowing that falling for the person who has a hand in destroying your culture, this was put up against our main character's love for her family. There was so much angst between wanting her to choose the villain, and knowing that she's turning her back on her morals. I also struggled with the fact that as an Asian based fantasy, the societal whitewashed part of me had many thoughts on the love interest/villain being white. I had no idea where this relationship would go at the end of the book, but I am very pleased with the current direction.
In all, loved it. I need the sequel immediately.
This book explores what would have happened in the Roman Empire survived and continued to colonize the planet, including the magic-influenced (representation of China's?) Er-Lang. We get to see how Roman uses science against Er-Lang's myths and magic, and how this world's abuse of drugs allowed their own destruction. It was fascinating to see a world parallel to our own.
The romance was a true enemies-to-lovers (but maybe back to enemies) because not only could you feel the tension between knowing that falling for the person who has a hand in destroying your culture, this was put up against our main character's love for her family. There was so much angst between wanting her to choose the villain, and knowing that she's turning her back on her morals. I also struggled with the fact that as an Asian based fantasy, the societal whitewashed part of me had many thoughts on the love interest/villain being white. I had no idea where this relationship would go at the end of the book, but I am very pleased with the current direction.
In all, loved it. I need the sequel immediately.
August 29, 2023
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review.
Potential trigger warnings: drug addiction, death of a family member, violence, death, gore
This book caught me off guard in the best way possible. Ruying is a girl who just wants to survive and protect her family, but she's cursed/blessed (depends on who you ask) with the power to take away someone's lifeforce without even touching them--making her a valuable asset to people. Two people try to recruit her and her power, but she only accepts one (reluctantly to protect her sister and grandmother).
The author does a great job exploring the themes of sacrifice, power, loyalty, science versus magic, and being morally gray. Ruying is not the hero that readers typically see. She is a person who wants to do good things but has to do bad things in order for those good things to happen. Same goes for the person who Ruying becomes allies with. What is the line between right and wrong? Between wanting to protect your people versus yourself? You can really see Ruying grapple with these ideas and coming to a realization that there is no right answer; anything she does is a bad choice. She's constantly stuck between a hard place and a boulder.
If you're someone who like fantasy but struggles with high fantasy, I would say this one is for you. The author's writing style is very lyrical and beautiful, and the world isn't too difficult to understand. Could the science part of the story been explored a little more? Yes, but the magic and mythological parts were done very well. Also, I will say though, at times, it felt like the author did more telling than showing, but that personally didn't bother me too much.
Would I recommend this book? Yes!
Potential trigger warnings: drug addiction, death of a family member, violence, death, gore
This book caught me off guard in the best way possible. Ruying is a girl who just wants to survive and protect her family, but she's cursed/blessed (depends on who you ask) with the power to take away someone's lifeforce without even touching them--making her a valuable asset to people. Two people try to recruit her and her power, but she only accepts one (reluctantly to protect her sister and grandmother).
The author does a great job exploring the themes of sacrifice, power, loyalty, science versus magic, and being morally gray. Ruying is not the hero that readers typically see. She is a person who wants to do good things but has to do bad things in order for those good things to happen. Same goes for the person who Ruying becomes allies with. What is the line between right and wrong? Between wanting to protect your people versus yourself? You can really see Ruying grapple with these ideas and coming to a realization that there is no right answer; anything she does is a bad choice. She's constantly stuck between a hard place and a boulder.
If you're someone who like fantasy but struggles with high fantasy, I would say this one is for you. The author's writing style is very lyrical and beautiful, and the world isn't too difficult to understand. Could the science part of the story been explored a little more? Yes, but the magic and mythological parts were done very well. Also, I will say though, at times, it felt like the author did more telling than showing, but that personally didn't bother me too much.
Would I recommend this book? Yes!
September 28, 2023
4.5 Rounded to 5
Where do I begin? Maybe by saying that I will be preordering this book ASAP.
What I loved:
A deeply complex and believable FMC
One of the best “Villains” I’ve read in a long time
Forbidden Romance
Lush World building
Full review to come on release dat, as per publisher’s guidelines. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!
Where do I begin? Maybe by saying that I will be preordering this book ASAP.
What I loved:
A deeply complex and believable FMC
One of the best “Villains” I’ve read in a long time
Forbidden Romance
Lush World building
Full review to come on release dat, as per publisher’s guidelines. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC!
November 28, 2023
Thank you, Netgaly for this trial read. It is an amazing opening act to a larger story.
I really love the world building; I would claim two worlds were build at once. The world of Pungo and its magic system and the world of Rome. I look forward to finding out more about all of it. Molly X Chane did an amazing job, introducing us one step at a time to the world of Pangu and expanding the world even peppering in some myths about the gods that I’m sure she will expand on in the next installments.
Besides the amazing world building, I love the characters. We follow an unwilling hero, who just wants to survive the atrocities of her world. When she’s forced to pick a side, she chooses to close her eyes and hope; she does what every unwilling hero does, and chooses the easy way. I can’t wait to see what Ruying does next.
I also really like the supporting characters like Baihu and Anthony. I really like Baihus introduction and his further appearances in the book don’t disappoint.. I just know he will play a bigger role as the story progresses.
It’s beautiful to discover the many layers of the Antagonist.
I can’t wait for the next installment. This is definitely a worthy read.
I really love the world building; I would claim two worlds were build at once. The world of Pungo and its magic system and the world of Rome. I look forward to finding out more about all of it. Molly X Chane did an amazing job, introducing us one step at a time to the world of Pangu and expanding the world even peppering in some myths about the gods that I’m sure she will expand on in the next installments.
Besides the amazing world building, I love the characters. We follow an unwilling hero, who just wants to survive the atrocities of her world. When she’s forced to pick a side, she chooses to close her eyes and hope; she does what every unwilling hero does, and chooses the easy way. I can’t wait to see what Ruying does next.
I also really like the supporting characters like Baihu and Anthony. I really like Baihus introduction and his further appearances in the book don’t disappoint.. I just know he will play a bigger role as the story progresses.
It’s beautiful to discover the many layers of the Antagonist.
I can’t wait for the next installment. This is definitely a worthy read.
May 16, 2024
May 16, 2024 ETA:
If you click through the likes for the popular 5 star reviews, you can see that they're artificially inflated by fake profiles (private accounts, no profile pics most of the time, and zero friends).
Mar. 9, 2024 ETA:
In defense of those of us calling this a colonizer romance (and to clear things up), the marketing definitely changed after our early reviews from last year.
This year, the marketing is focused on the childhood love interest. But last year, when the arc was released, all I saw were reels and TikToks about the prince love interest.
Watching this switch has definitely been an interesting journey in the cause and effect of early arc reviews.
Feb. 20, 2024 ETA:
Please, please, please check out BIPOC reviews on this book.
And side note, us BIPOC aren't confused about who the love interest is. This is a very low blow. The author's socials clearly say that this is enemies-to-lovers, and does point out that the prince is the love interest.
Unless she deletes it in the future, in the author's TikTok from February 13th, 2024, she writes, "When the trope is star-crossed enemies on opposite sides of a wär(sic)
(She's the daughter of a conquered land and he's the dangerous enemy prince with a point to prove and a throne to win and he blackmails her to use her rare death magic to eliminate his political rivals)"
This is pretty obvious, no?
Jan. 18, 2024 ETA:
Check out nahid's review for everything I wanted to say, but didn't feel like wasting more words on a 1 star read.
I also deleted a line in my original review saying that this felt more like a romantasy.
This is definitely not a romantasy. It's more dark romance than anything. It's pretty much all psychological/emotional abuse (gaslighting, manipulation, physical threats to the MC and her family, exploiting the MC's powers, etc.).
On a personal level, I wouldn't have any issues with this if it was marketed correctly. Instead, this is being promoted as an enemies to lovers romantasy. Which is... a choice.
Jan. 14, 2024 ETA:
So my GR friend, Sarah, mentioned the lifted Taylor Swift lyrics in this book. I'm not a Swiftie so idk anything about that but it's fucking hilarious.
But I am a huge Marvel nerd, and around the 54% mark, the author pulls this shit from Spiderman and I absolutely CANNOT:
"'Then my sister shook her head. “Do you remember what Grandma told us when we were young and had just discovered our powers?”
I did. “Power means responsibility.”'
FOH!!! lmfao
4 months after reading the arc, I'm still thinking about this, the Taylor Swift lyrics, and overall how this was one of my worst reads in 2023.
Nov. 12, 2023 ETA:
Changing my rating to 1 star because two months later I can't stop thinking about how this was the absolute worst colonizer romance I've read this year (and I've read at least 5 too many).
Review/Rant:
My first buddy read with Mai!! As part of the AAPI community, we're always down to support Asian authors but...
This turned out to be a HUGE disappointment.
Although I did like the last 15-20%. If the entire book had those urgent, life or death vibes scattered throughout, then it'd elevate my rating to at least 1.5 stars.
Instead, this arc is mostly just the FMC moping and talking about how she's so attracted to an extremely toxic guy who's totally chill with experimenting on her people.
Since this arc was released way early before the official publication date (April 9, 2024), I'm hoping it goes through another round of edits because oh boy, strap in for a wild review.
First of all, on the PRH website, this novel is listed as "Epic Fantasy." There's nothing seriously epic fantasy about this, so if you're looking for something along the lines of The Poppy War series or hell, even something like the An Ember in the Ashes series, this ain't it.
The writing style isn't my favorite. It reads very melodramatic, and this also extends to the dialogue scenes. There'd be characters talking in really long paragraphs, essentially info dumping through dialogue.
I understand that Ruying's situation (and the situation on the continent of Pangu as a whole) is entirely bleak, but since it's written in first person, we're lost in Ruying's head space 99% of the time. I'm honestly not entirely sure if this is just the author's writing style (since this is her debut), or if this is the author's way of trying to convey that Ruying is deeply depressed so she's spiraling in her thoughts/feelings most of the time.
And since we're lost in Ruying's head, the world building suffers A LOT. I feel like the author went into this novel assuming that readers already know what's going on in this world.
It took me way too long to understand that the world of Pangu and Rome are basically two multiverses connected via a magical portal in the sky, or that the Romans come from a world like ours, with technology, fighter jets, missiles, (melting polar ice caps???), etc. And Pangu is basically a medieval-type China-inspired world. The contrasts between the two worlds weren't clearly established, and we only get bits and pieces fed to us throughout the novel.
It'd be great if readers understood the vast discrepancy between the two worlds in the beginning, so we could actually understand what's at stake. Instead, we get vague descriptions of magic vs. science. And by science, it's the kind of hand wavy description that someone not well-versed in science would describe it.
I guess since people in Ruying's world don't know much about ~science~, Ruying can't quite describe what science actually is. But it's been about 20-ish years since the Romans arrived in Pangu, so wouldn't they know some basics, at least?
Also why is Rome called Rome while Pangu, the fantasy version of China, isn't called China? Make it make sense!! Please just come up with some random Western name instead of an actual place.
The summary/blurb tells us that Ruying becomes Prince Antony's secret assassin. Imagine my surprise when there were barely any assassinations on screen. Hell, there were barely any assassinations off-screen.
And the one assassination that was actually described was difficult for me to believe. There weren't any scenes showing us (or even telling us) that Ruying underwent any extensive training on being an assassin. So, I'm not sure how she knows how to climb buildings and sneak through windows? Even one throwaway training scene would be slightly helpful.
If you've read until this part, congrats, because I'm about to rant about my biggest issue with this arc:
The colonizer romance between Ruying and Antony.
I expected fantasy, but instead, the fact that the romance took up most of the novel made this feel like a romantasy, and a very toxic one at that too.
Most of the time, Ruying is simping over her captor, Antony. It's extremely cringe to read. Even though she knows that he's the ~Big Bad~, she's still going on and on about how he's nice to her. I think the author was going for Stockholm Syndrome, but damn, it was such a cringe fest.
I'm not sure what's going on with traditional publishing this year, but this is the third colonizer romance I've read in a BIPOC authored fantasy and I'm absolutely sick and tired of it. This trope(?), or whatever the hell it is, used to be something found on, say, AO3, but I guess we're straight up traditionally publishing it now.
***SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD***
***END SPOILER***
My buddy reader, Mai, was seriously annoyed with Ruying mentioning Antony's green eyes every other paragraph, but I was more irritated with how Antony can speak Ruying's language with "perfect pronunciation." Fuck, maybe I'm just jealous that I can't speak my mother tongue while some fictional white dude is out here speaking fictional Chinese perfectly.
Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for this arc.
If you click through the likes for the popular 5 star reviews, you can see that they're artificially inflated by fake profiles (private accounts, no profile pics most of the time, and zero friends).
Mar. 9, 2024 ETA:
In defense of those of us calling this a colonizer romance (and to clear things up), the marketing definitely changed after our early reviews from last year.
This year, the marketing is focused on the childhood love interest. But last year, when the arc was released, all I saw were reels and TikToks about the prince love interest.
Watching this switch has definitely been an interesting journey in the cause and effect of early arc reviews.
Feb. 20, 2024 ETA:
Please, please, please check out BIPOC reviews on this book.
And side note, us BIPOC aren't confused about who the love interest is. This is a very low blow. The author's socials clearly say that this is enemies-to-lovers, and does point out that the prince is the love interest.
Unless she deletes it in the future, in the author's TikTok from February 13th, 2024, she writes, "When the trope is star-crossed enemies on opposite sides of a wär(sic)
(She's the daughter of a conquered land and he's the dangerous enemy prince with a point to prove and a throne to win and he blackmails her to use her rare death magic to eliminate his political rivals)"
This is pretty obvious, no?
Jan. 18, 2024 ETA:
Check out nahid's review for everything I wanted to say, but didn't feel like wasting more words on a 1 star read.
I also deleted a line in my original review saying that this felt more like a romantasy.
This is definitely not a romantasy. It's more dark romance than anything. It's pretty much all psychological/emotional abuse (gaslighting, manipulation, physical threats to the MC and her family, exploiting the MC's powers, etc.).
On a personal level, I wouldn't have any issues with this if it was marketed correctly. Instead, this is being promoted as an enemies to lovers romantasy. Which is... a choice.
Jan. 14, 2024 ETA:
So my GR friend, Sarah, mentioned the lifted Taylor Swift lyrics in this book. I'm not a Swiftie so idk anything about that but it's fucking hilarious.
But I am a huge Marvel nerd, and around the 54% mark, the author pulls this shit from Spiderman and I absolutely CANNOT:
"'Then my sister shook her head. “Do you remember what Grandma told us when we were young and had just discovered our powers?”
I did. “Power means responsibility.”'
FOH!!! lmfao
4 months after reading the arc, I'm still thinking about this, the Taylor Swift lyrics, and overall how this was one of my worst reads in 2023.
Nov. 12, 2023 ETA:
Changing my rating to 1 star because two months later I can't stop thinking about how this was the absolute worst colonizer romance I've read this year (and I've read at least 5 too many).
Review/Rant:
My first buddy read with Mai!! As part of the AAPI community, we're always down to support Asian authors but...
This turned out to be a HUGE disappointment.
Although I did like the last 15-20%. If the entire book had those urgent, life or death vibes scattered throughout, then it'd elevate my rating to at least 1.5 stars.
Instead, this arc is mostly just the FMC moping and talking about how she's so attracted to an extremely toxic guy who's totally chill with experimenting on her people.
Since this arc was released way early before the official publication date (April 9, 2024), I'm hoping it goes through another round of edits because oh boy, strap in for a wild review.
First of all, on the PRH website, this novel is listed as "Epic Fantasy." There's nothing seriously epic fantasy about this, so if you're looking for something along the lines of The Poppy War series or hell, even something like the An Ember in the Ashes series, this ain't it.
The writing style isn't my favorite. It reads very melodramatic, and this also extends to the dialogue scenes. There'd be characters talking in really long paragraphs, essentially info dumping through dialogue.
I understand that Ruying's situation (and the situation on the continent of Pangu as a whole) is entirely bleak, but since it's written in first person, we're lost in Ruying's head space 99% of the time. I'm honestly not entirely sure if this is just the author's writing style (since this is her debut), or if this is the author's way of trying to convey that Ruying is deeply depressed so she's spiraling in her thoughts/feelings most of the time.
And since we're lost in Ruying's head, the world building suffers A LOT. I feel like the author went into this novel assuming that readers already know what's going on in this world.
It took me way too long to understand that the world of Pangu and Rome are basically two multiverses connected via a magical portal in the sky, or that the Romans come from a world like ours, with technology, fighter jets, missiles, (melting polar ice caps???), etc. And Pangu is basically a medieval-type China-inspired world. The contrasts between the two worlds weren't clearly established, and we only get bits and pieces fed to us throughout the novel.
It'd be great if readers understood the vast discrepancy between the two worlds in the beginning, so we could actually understand what's at stake. Instead, we get vague descriptions of magic vs. science. And by science, it's the kind of hand wavy description that someone not well-versed in science would describe it.
I guess since people in Ruying's world don't know much about ~science~, Ruying can't quite describe what science actually is. But it's been about 20-ish years since the Romans arrived in Pangu, so wouldn't they know some basics, at least?
Also why is Rome called Rome while Pangu, the fantasy version of China, isn't called China? Make it make sense!! Please just come up with some random Western name instead of an actual place.
The summary/blurb tells us that Ruying becomes Prince Antony's secret assassin. Imagine my surprise when there were barely any assassinations on screen. Hell, there were barely any assassinations off-screen.
And the one assassination that was actually described was difficult for me to believe. There weren't any scenes showing us (or even telling us) that Ruying underwent any extensive training on being an assassin. So, I'm not sure how she knows how to climb buildings and sneak through windows? Even one throwaway training scene would be slightly helpful.
If you've read until this part, congrats, because I'm about to rant about my biggest issue with this arc:
The colonizer romance between Ruying and Antony.
I expected fantasy, but instead, the fact that the romance took up most of the novel made this feel like a romantasy, and a very toxic one at that too.
Most of the time, Ruying is simping over her captor, Antony. It's extremely cringe to read. Even though she knows that he's the ~Big Bad~, she's still going on and on about how he's nice to her. I think the author was going for Stockholm Syndrome, but damn, it was such a cringe fest.
I'm not sure what's going on with traditional publishing this year, but this is the third colonizer romance I've read in a BIPOC authored fantasy and I'm absolutely sick and tired of it. This trope(?), or whatever the hell it is, used to be something found on, say, AO3, but I guess we're straight up traditionally publishing it now.
***SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD***
***END SPOILER***
My buddy reader, Mai, was seriously annoyed with Ruying mentioning Antony's green eyes every other paragraph, but I was more irritated with how Antony can speak Ruying's language with "perfect pronunciation." Fuck, maybe I'm just jealous that I can't speak my mother tongue while some fictional white dude is out here speaking fictional Chinese perfectly.
Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for this arc.
May 2, 2024
given this book’s penchant for abusing chinese proverbs, i’ll start with one of my own from sun tzu: 知己知彼，百戰不殆. know yourself and your enemy, and you will never be defeated even in a hundred battles. unfortunately, if i’m in a who can write the more insensitive novel based on horrific historical events competition and my opponent is molly x. chang, i fear i’ll lose no matter what.
you can argue that this might not be a colonizer romance exactly, that it’s a story of the colonized rising up against oppression, but one look at the marketing of this book debunks this train of thought entirely. phrases like “enemies to lovers”, “zutara on steroids” and “when the trope is star crossed enemies on the opposite side of war” come to mind instantly; or perhaps, what i find the most unbelievable, from the author’s own social media, she comments “it’s just a dark chinese romantasy that’s zutara on steroids, get over it” (which i assume is in response to negativity).
not even broaching the topic of how awfully flippant it is to tell someone to get over a story as poorly done as this is, these comments and marketing slogans tell us one thing. it is, without a doubt, a colonizer romance. when you call your book a ‘dark fantasy romance’, when you use buzzwords like “lover”, “romance” and romantic ships to market the content of your work, you are, inadvertently or intentionally, establishing your work as a love story. and if the author, the one who by all means should know their work the best, describes their book as a romance, what else can it be but that?
it feels... exploitative of family tragedy. knowing the gravity of the crimes that unit 731 committed, knowing the experiences that your family has had with the unit- how could one turn around and write something like this?
by definition, this book is a romance between a coloniser and the colonised. i’m tired of people claiming that it isn’t. even if i give chang the benefit of the doubt and i wilfully turn a blind eye to the marketing at play, even if i ignore the author’s own words, the fact remains that it is still a narrative romance. and that is the basis of my criticism. the fact that most marketing for this book switched tracks from calling the prince (the coloniser) the love interest to hinting at the childhood friend as the love interest following criticism from ARC readers is telling.
before i start, let me tell you a story.
my grandfather is nearing 90 this year. he was born in 1935, six years before hong kong was taken by the japanese— the infamous 三年零八個月, three years and eight months. i asked him about his childhood once, when i was barely in my own. he didn’t answer. i thought he had gone to sleep, maybe because i still thought life was that simple back then, maybe because he had always been distant to me as the stars in the sky. because he knew i would let it go without asking again, and he would let it go without answering- we both would. we never spoke much. it was just an irrefutable truth that he rarely talked to anyone that wasn’t my grandmother. this old, i understand now that it was because my grandmother understood better than anyone, somehow, what he saw as a child had stayed with him forever.
part of why i like reading books about colonialism and history particularly about china & hk is because i can relate to some of them, even if i’m only a child in my grandparents’ eyes. their history has passed down to me through my mother. the city i grew up in is the city they grew up in, but irrevocably changed. i feel, somehow, that i owe it to them to at least understand: what they have gone through are awful things that should be honoured and remembered with grief and loss, but most of all, dignity. i’m prouder than anyone that my grandparents survived the atrocities of the japanese, and if i had to write a story for them, i would write a story of resistance and persistence— bravery and courage in the most dire of times. i would not write a sympathetic coloniser romance where the main character bends over backwards to excuse the actions of the colonising male lead, nor would i write the villains as white romans when the real horror were people of the same ethnicity as the chinese themselves. japanese.
there is a problem i have, if i’m being frank, with how the japanese and i assume the british (with references to the opium war) are mashed into one conglomerate cartoon coloniser villain mish-mash. both have committed their fair share of horrors, but you cannot replace one with another. the japanese are japanese, and the british are british. you cannot turn the japanese into silly cartoonish genocidal villains who think their skin colour and technology makes them better when the book claims to be built on true history of unit 731. and i understand that chang wants to consider the opium angle as well, which was instigated by the white british, but the truth is i find it a touch distasteful to smash the two together. pick one, or the other, or hell, even have both forces working as antagonistic characters (which worked in things like the poppy war), but not both in one.
rome- a ‘western’ country by eastern asian standards. yet the bulk of the history this book is built on was japanese history. i hold no grudge towards the japanese of today, but to ignore their past while simultaneously pushing their crimes onto other countries only serves to perpetuate and gloss over the history of this war and the people. the blood history between two countries is now cleaned up. sanitised and repackaged. we now receive a different, familiar angle to the asians of modern age, following spikes in asian hate crime: white people dislike asian people. maybe even a stronger word than that. but while some of this may be true, it is not for what chang builds her story upon. asians can still harm other asians. the relationship between east asia’s three major countries has always been bloody. if we are to truly honour the past, we must acknowledge that.
like chang herself said in her foreword, japan largely does not recognise manchurian blood spilled even to this day. she does the same herself in her own book, but i suppose it’s not on purpose.
i know, i know, expecting accurate historical representation in YA- how dreadfully unrealistic. i do agree in the fact that most of the time, YA fantasy is not the genre i should be looking for real history in. but given the fact that this was pushed as chinese fantasy, as a love poem of sorts to the author’s grandparents, based on historical events such as unit 731 (which, by the way, i feel was so very trivialised in this book) and several features in the story are blatant real world references such as rome and opian (opium), i feel expecting the villains to be the correct ethnicity isn’t too far of a stretch.
to the actual book: it was… it was okay. it was messy. the world building suffered badly, as well as any character depth for anyone that wasn’t our main girl, ruying. i may not be the sharpest gal around (i certainly have the cognitive ability of a particularly heavy brick), but the world building was even more muddled than my mind on an exam day. tell me, why was the world never explained? is rome a different planet? is it a different country, a different continent? and why is rome still named rome and opian still… opium but with one (1) different vowel but china is pangu? alas, only until the… maybe last 30% of the book was it semi-coherently explained to be another planet somehow connected to pangu through a portal. and yes, they have guns and machine guns and laser guns and shotguns and pistols and all! types! of! guns! an american’s true dream. oh, and they have… spaceships. or something of the like; i grew too tired by the end to remember.
antony- what do say about this… green-eyed, colonising, manipulative dumpster fire of a man? just. just no. there was an attempt to flesh him out: a typical sob backstory. abusive grandparents, bad childhood and all that. as always, the book frantically attempts to get you to sympathise with him even till the last moment. he is a poor facsimile of what i consider even the lowest of the low. the personality of a coat rack if said coat rack had green googly plastic eyes, a strong desire to experiment on humans, and an insufferable habit of saying “(__insert random chinese proverb__), in the words of your people” to ruying. truly, i have never quite met a character like him. like ren so eloquently said, individual suffering does not equate to systematic suffering. for a book claiming to be for the 'oppressed', no truly oppressed characters are given the spotlight apart from ruying. taohua, a true victim of colonisation, has no humanisation or use beyond being a basic plot device. and you know who gets the spotlight of the book? you guessed it. our favorite coloniser, antony.
similar problematic sentiment resurfaces at the very beginning of the book when i think back on it. according to the author, we, the chinese, were fighting our 'western invaders' with 'bows and arrows'. 1) simply untrue. isn't this based on ww2? 2) by the time japan invaded manchuria, the chinese had already had access to guns- in fact, gunpowder weapons date back all the way to the ming dynasty. to turn back all this technological advancement of the country for a narrative that perpetuates a white/western superiority viewpoint is simply distasteful. it is, by all means, rewriting history; buying into this dichotomy that all good technological ideas came from the west and the east, the backwater, uncivilised east, were countries that needed to be enlightened.
you see this sentiment throughout the entire book. it's what the central conflict is about. backwards, mystical, cultural pangu versus the technologically superior rome. except it's not just about pangu and rome, it's china and the west. pangu is weak, with all its customs and traditions. meanwhile, rome, who discards history to propel their future forward, is superior. culture is simply fraudulence; something that must be trampled underfoot to shape a country into a coloniser's sanctified vision.
it isn't just that rome had better technology and thinking. it's portraying pangu as some helpless country too fixated on their culture to move forward. inept in it's ability to innovate and progress. and now we see this for what it truly is: repackaged colonial thinking. a carbon copy of the views that the british empire held during the opium war, and to an extent what the japanese thought of the chinese during ww2. it's not always necessarily about white people against asian people. sometimes it's asian people against their very own. but even then, colonisers are colonisers. no matter the race.
it's disappointing to know that to this day some people would still agree with this notion. even more disappointing to see that this is how a chinese-american author honours her heritage. and not to mention, the author mentions she has been trying to publish this book since 2019 but states she only learnt about unit 731 in 2020 in an article. i think the book would've been completely fine without the historical influences. it might not have been my taste because i'm still not a fan of the dynamic here, but at least it's fictional. to slap a label on this book based on these events AFTER you've finished writing- it feels like it's just a thing. a commodity to be marketed, just so that western audiences can fawn over 'POC stories' and 'POC history'.
between me and you, molly, i can guarantee this is not an attack on you. promise. i think i would’ve genuinely enjoyed your writing style if it was any other book with any other plot, because it’s easily better than a lot of things i’ve read. but as it stands, i just can’t get behind this book with the knowledge that it was based on real life history yet failed so very badly at doing it justice to the point where i felt distinct dislike. or maybe the history was only added as a marketing tag, in which case, makes it even worse. perhaps the second book will be better. the title alone seems promising. but this book is just not it.
꒰ 𖦹 ⊹˚. pre-read.
⤿ 19 / 04 / 2024.
personally, i think writing a romance story based on unit 731 is…. pretty damn questionable. and i’m also sure i won’t enjoy this much. but i do want to see what the hype (or in this case, the criticism) is about, so i, an empath, can give my two cents to the loud sound of the crowd booing me offstage. wish me luck 💯
you can argue that this might not be a colonizer romance exactly, that it’s a story of the colonized rising up against oppression, but one look at the marketing of this book debunks this train of thought entirely. phrases like “enemies to lovers”, “zutara on steroids” and “when the trope is star crossed enemies on the opposite side of war” come to mind instantly; or perhaps, what i find the most unbelievable, from the author’s own social media, she comments “it’s just a dark chinese romantasy that’s zutara on steroids, get over it” (which i assume is in response to negativity).
not even broaching the topic of how awfully flippant it is to tell someone to get over a story as poorly done as this is, these comments and marketing slogans tell us one thing. it is, without a doubt, a colonizer romance. when you call your book a ‘dark fantasy romance’, when you use buzzwords like “lover”, “romance” and romantic ships to market the content of your work, you are, inadvertently or intentionally, establishing your work as a love story. and if the author, the one who by all means should know their work the best, describes their book as a romance, what else can it be but that?
it feels... exploitative of family tragedy. knowing the gravity of the crimes that unit 731 committed, knowing the experiences that your family has had with the unit- how could one turn around and write something like this?
by definition, this book is a romance between a coloniser and the colonised. i’m tired of people claiming that it isn’t. even if i give chang the benefit of the doubt and i wilfully turn a blind eye to the marketing at play, even if i ignore the author’s own words, the fact remains that it is still a narrative romance. and that is the basis of my criticism. the fact that most marketing for this book switched tracks from calling the prince (the coloniser) the love interest to hinting at the childhood friend as the love interest following criticism from ARC readers is telling.
before i start, let me tell you a story.
my grandfather is nearing 90 this year. he was born in 1935, six years before hong kong was taken by the japanese— the infamous 三年零八個月, three years and eight months. i asked him about his childhood once, when i was barely in my own. he didn’t answer. i thought he had gone to sleep, maybe because i still thought life was that simple back then, maybe because he had always been distant to me as the stars in the sky. because he knew i would let it go without asking again, and he would let it go without answering- we both would. we never spoke much. it was just an irrefutable truth that he rarely talked to anyone that wasn’t my grandmother. this old, i understand now that it was because my grandmother understood better than anyone, somehow, what he saw as a child had stayed with him forever.
part of why i like reading books about colonialism and history particularly about china & hk is because i can relate to some of them, even if i’m only a child in my grandparents’ eyes. their history has passed down to me through my mother. the city i grew up in is the city they grew up in, but irrevocably changed. i feel, somehow, that i owe it to them to at least understand: what they have gone through are awful things that should be honoured and remembered with grief and loss, but most of all, dignity. i’m prouder than anyone that my grandparents survived the atrocities of the japanese, and if i had to write a story for them, i would write a story of resistance and persistence— bravery and courage in the most dire of times. i would not write a sympathetic coloniser romance where the main character bends over backwards to excuse the actions of the colonising male lead, nor would i write the villains as white romans when the real horror were people of the same ethnicity as the chinese themselves. japanese.
there is a problem i have, if i’m being frank, with how the japanese and i assume the british (with references to the opium war) are mashed into one conglomerate cartoon coloniser villain mish-mash. both have committed their fair share of horrors, but you cannot replace one with another. the japanese are japanese, and the british are british. you cannot turn the japanese into silly cartoonish genocidal villains who think their skin colour and technology makes them better when the book claims to be built on true history of unit 731. and i understand that chang wants to consider the opium angle as well, which was instigated by the white british, but the truth is i find it a touch distasteful to smash the two together. pick one, or the other, or hell, even have both forces working as antagonistic characters (which worked in things like the poppy war), but not both in one.
rome- a ‘western’ country by eastern asian standards. yet the bulk of the history this book is built on was japanese history. i hold no grudge towards the japanese of today, but to ignore their past while simultaneously pushing their crimes onto other countries only serves to perpetuate and gloss over the history of this war and the people. the blood history between two countries is now cleaned up. sanitised and repackaged. we now receive a different, familiar angle to the asians of modern age, following spikes in asian hate crime: white people dislike asian people. maybe even a stronger word than that. but while some of this may be true, it is not for what chang builds her story upon. asians can still harm other asians. the relationship between east asia’s three major countries has always been bloody. if we are to truly honour the past, we must acknowledge that.
like chang herself said in her foreword, japan largely does not recognise manchurian blood spilled even to this day. she does the same herself in her own book, but i suppose it’s not on purpose.
i know, i know, expecting accurate historical representation in YA- how dreadfully unrealistic. i do agree in the fact that most of the time, YA fantasy is not the genre i should be looking for real history in. but given the fact that this was pushed as chinese fantasy, as a love poem of sorts to the author’s grandparents, based on historical events such as unit 731 (which, by the way, i feel was so very trivialised in this book) and several features in the story are blatant real world references such as rome and opian (opium), i feel expecting the villains to be the correct ethnicity isn’t too far of a stretch.
to the actual book: it was… it was okay. it was messy. the world building suffered badly, as well as any character depth for anyone that wasn’t our main girl, ruying. i may not be the sharpest gal around (i certainly have the cognitive ability of a particularly heavy brick), but the world building was even more muddled than my mind on an exam day. tell me, why was the world never explained? is rome a different planet? is it a different country, a different continent? and why is rome still named rome and opian still… opium but with one (1) different vowel but china is pangu? alas, only until the… maybe last 30% of the book was it semi-coherently explained to be another planet somehow connected to pangu through a portal. and yes, they have guns and machine guns and laser guns and shotguns and pistols and all! types! of! guns! an american’s true dream. oh, and they have… spaceships. or something of the like; i grew too tired by the end to remember.
antony- what do say about this… green-eyed, colonising, manipulative dumpster fire of a man? just. just no. there was an attempt to flesh him out: a typical sob backstory. abusive grandparents, bad childhood and all that. as always, the book frantically attempts to get you to sympathise with him even till the last moment. he is a poor facsimile of what i consider even the lowest of the low. the personality of a coat rack if said coat rack had green googly plastic eyes, a strong desire to experiment on humans, and an insufferable habit of saying “(__insert random chinese proverb__), in the words of your people” to ruying. truly, i have never quite met a character like him. like ren so eloquently said, individual suffering does not equate to systematic suffering. for a book claiming to be for the 'oppressed', no truly oppressed characters are given the spotlight apart from ruying. taohua, a true victim of colonisation, has no humanisation or use beyond being a basic plot device. and you know who gets the spotlight of the book? you guessed it. our favorite coloniser, antony.
similar problematic sentiment resurfaces at the very beginning of the book when i think back on it. according to the author, we, the chinese, were fighting our 'western invaders' with 'bows and arrows'. 1) simply untrue. isn't this based on ww2? 2) by the time japan invaded manchuria, the chinese had already had access to guns- in fact, gunpowder weapons date back all the way to the ming dynasty. to turn back all this technological advancement of the country for a narrative that perpetuates a white/western superiority viewpoint is simply distasteful. it is, by all means, rewriting history; buying into this dichotomy that all good technological ideas came from the west and the east, the backwater, uncivilised east, were countries that needed to be enlightened.
you see this sentiment throughout the entire book. it's what the central conflict is about. backwards, mystical, cultural pangu versus the technologically superior rome. except it's not just about pangu and rome, it's china and the west. pangu is weak, with all its customs and traditions. meanwhile, rome, who discards history to propel their future forward, is superior. culture is simply fraudulence; something that must be trampled underfoot to shape a country into a coloniser's sanctified vision.
it isn't just that rome had better technology and thinking. it's portraying pangu as some helpless country too fixated on their culture to move forward. inept in it's ability to innovate and progress. and now we see this for what it truly is: repackaged colonial thinking. a carbon copy of the views that the british empire held during the opium war, and to an extent what the japanese thought of the chinese during ww2. it's not always necessarily about white people against asian people. sometimes it's asian people against their very own. but even then, colonisers are colonisers. no matter the race.
it's disappointing to know that to this day some people would still agree with this notion. even more disappointing to see that this is how a chinese-american author honours her heritage. and not to mention, the author mentions she has been trying to publish this book since 2019 but states she only learnt about unit 731 in 2020 in an article. i think the book would've been completely fine without the historical influences. it might not have been my taste because i'm still not a fan of the dynamic here, but at least it's fictional. to slap a label on this book based on these events AFTER you've finished writing- it feels like it's just a thing. a commodity to be marketed, just so that western audiences can fawn over 'POC stories' and 'POC history'.
between me and you, molly, i can guarantee this is not an attack on you. promise. i think i would’ve genuinely enjoyed your writing style if it was any other book with any other plot, because it’s easily better than a lot of things i’ve read. but as it stands, i just can’t get behind this book with the knowledge that it was based on real life history yet failed so very badly at doing it justice to the point where i felt distinct dislike. or maybe the history was only added as a marketing tag, in which case, makes it even worse. perhaps the second book will be better. the title alone seems promising. but this book is just not it.
꒰ 𖦹 ⊹˚. pre-read.
⤿ 19 / 04 / 2024.
personally, i think writing a romance story based on unit 731 is…. pretty damn questionable. and i’m also sure i won’t enjoy this much. but i do want to see what the hype (or in this case, the criticism) is about, so i, an empath, can give my two cents to the loud sound of the crowd booing me offstage. wish me luck 💯
August 28, 2023
Rating: 4.5⭐️/ 5⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley and ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this eArc! You will find my unbiased review below.
To Gaze Upon the Wicked Gods is an Adult Sci-Fi Fantasy written by Molly X. Chang.
Blessed with the magic of death, Ruying struggles to live in her empire when foreign invaders have taken over. When she is taken from her family and given a deal by a prince of Rome, she has the choice to become an assassin for the enemy to keep her family safe or die. But would she want to become a traitor to her people to keep her family safe or die for her empire?
This book of full of magic, science, betrayal, lies, romance, and sorrow. The author wrote this world beautifully and the emotions that our main character goes through. Ruying struggles with what is right and what is wrong. Then also what she wants. I believe Ruying is a morally gray character and to be honest no one in this story is a “hero” or “good person”. I loved that aspect of it. The author did so well with world building but not making it complicated. Even though there was a lot of information about the world it didn’t feel overwhelming which I appreciated. I haven’t been this excited for a release and so happy I got the ARC! It’s definitely a Slowburn, enemies to lovers. I believe Prince Antony is also a very complicated character and I hope he doesn’t end up a terrible villain in the end. I can’t wait for the next installment in this series!
Thank you to NetGalley and ARC provided by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine for this eArc! You will find my unbiased review below.
To Gaze Upon the Wicked Gods is an Adult Sci-Fi Fantasy written by Molly X. Chang.
Blessed with the magic of death, Ruying struggles to live in her empire when foreign invaders have taken over. When she is taken from her family and given a deal by a prince of Rome, she has the choice to become an assassin for the enemy to keep her family safe or die. But would she want to become a traitor to her people to keep her family safe or die for her empire?
This book of full of magic, science, betrayal, lies, romance, and sorrow. The author wrote this world beautifully and the emotions that our main character goes through. Ruying struggles with what is right and what is wrong. Then also what she wants. I believe Ruying is a morally gray character and to be honest no one in this story is a “hero” or “good person”. I loved that aspect of it. The author did so well with world building but not making it complicated. Even though there was a lot of information about the world it didn’t feel overwhelming which I appreciated. I haven’t been this excited for a release and so happy I got the ARC! It’s definitely a Slowburn, enemies to lovers. I believe Prince Antony is also a very complicated character and I hope he doesn’t end up a terrible villain in the end. I can’t wait for the next installment in this series!
October 9, 2023
I received a free copy of this book thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine; all opinions expressed are exclusively my own.
"Heroes die, cowards live."
Ruying's constant refrain is only one of the many ways To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods stares unflinchingly at the brutality, humiliation, and despair faced by her and her people from the colonizing "Romans". There are no good choices for Ruying, only different routes to attempt to secure survival for her and her family, most of them humiliating at best and deadly at worst. The reader is swept along with Ruying, and even while her decisions are entirely sympathetic, the question of whether or not she truly has any choices is raised at multiple points, and, I would say, never truly resolved in this book. However, the ending leaves the reader aching for more, to know whether Ruying manages to completely be free. This is not a comfortable read, but I think it's a vital one, if for no other reason than to acknowledge as the author notes that a great deal of this story, while science fiction/fantasy, is based heavily on real events that happened to real people.
For sensitive readers, due to the nature of the story, there are a wide array of content warnings: violence, racism, death, addiction, and more. As far as sexual content goes, assault and coercion are referenced but do not happen "on screen" as it were, and nothing of a graphic nature occurs.
"Heroes die, cowards live."
Ruying's constant refrain is only one of the many ways To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods stares unflinchingly at the brutality, humiliation, and despair faced by her and her people from the colonizing "Romans". There are no good choices for Ruying, only different routes to attempt to secure survival for her and her family, most of them humiliating at best and deadly at worst. The reader is swept along with Ruying, and even while her decisions are entirely sympathetic, the question of whether or not she truly has any choices is raised at multiple points, and, I would say, never truly resolved in this book. However, the ending leaves the reader aching for more, to know whether Ruying manages to completely be free. This is not a comfortable read, but I think it's a vital one, if for no other reason than to acknowledge as the author notes that a great deal of this story, while science fiction/fantasy, is based heavily on real events that happened to real people.
For sensitive readers, due to the nature of the story, there are a wide array of content warnings: violence, racism, death, addiction, and more. As far as sexual content goes, assault and coercion are referenced but do not happen "on screen" as it were, and nothing of a graphic nature occurs.
November 15, 2023
The writing was so brilliant and detailed, I had so much fun reading this book! I felt that the book had a really nuanced description of the realities of colonization, and the desperation that drives colonized people to view the colonizers as either saviours or enemies - the MC Ruying herself goes through this whole range of thoughts and emotions (most of which felt uncomfortable and uneasy, which I'm guessing is what the author intended for us to feel?). This book pretty much puts Ruying through a gruelling emotional journey (her origin story!), and I'm very keen to say how this story ends! Can't wait for the next book!
TWs - colonization, genocide and senseless violence by colonizers, death and murder on page, heavy violence on page, gun violence, drug addiction on page (not the MC), physical and verbal domestic abuse (past)
-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!
TWs - colonization, genocide and senseless violence by colonizers, death and murder on page, heavy violence on page, gun violence, drug addiction on page (not the MC), physical and verbal domestic abuse (past)
-- ty to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for an advanced copy!
November 13, 2023
I am obsessed with this book, and I will be ordering it the moment it comes out! Let's just cover the basics of this book...
-Enemies to lovers
-EXTREME slow-burn
-THE MAGIC SYSTEM!?!
-World building is perfection
- Chinese cultures and myths
-love triangle
and literally so much more! This book is in my top five of best books I have read in 2023 and I sooooo highly suggest it for whomever may be reading this review. I cant wait to get my hands on a physical copy of this book and also to read the second book when it comes out! Instant favorite!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
-Enemies to lovers
-EXTREME slow-burn
-THE MAGIC SYSTEM!?!
-World building is perfection
- Chinese cultures and myths
-love triangle
and literally so much more! This book is in my top five of best books I have read in 2023 and I sooooo highly suggest it for whomever may be reading this review. I cant wait to get my hands on a physical copy of this book and also to read the second book when it comes out! Instant favorite!
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
April 21, 2024
5 stars
You guys, wow, just wow. I cried, laughed, loved and shouted at all of these characters. I am amazed with how great this book was. Especially with that ending, I didn’t see it coming. And especially since Molly x Chang is a first time author.
I have no idea how the MMC is going to come back from that ending. I mean I’ve read about some truly villainous MMCs but Antony Augustus takes the fricken cake even over Tom Riddle/Voldemort from HP. I mean wow that was intense from what he did to his own parents to what he ends up doing to Pangu. Wow, just wow. I feel like he’s still going to be the main love interest, but I have no idea how the FMC is ever going to realistically get back with him. I mean up until the reveal I was so enamored with this man, he had the whole “burn the world” for the FMC vibe going on and “I will start a war for her” vibe, but wow that ending. Ya he deserves to die and get his ass kicked by Ruying.
This gave me big Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi vibes, but tbh this was probably better and I love that series.
My only complaint is that there’s a big time skip in the middle of the book. Part of me understood why the author made this choice as it may have taken away from the momentum of the plot to add in the descriptions of all Ruying’s 48 kills. Tbh I think it would have added to her character to show her struggles with murdering people and using her power “for the greater good”. I think it also would have added to show how it complicated her growing feelings for Anthony as he was the one giving her the orders to kill all of them.
Best book of 2024 so far. I’m so excited for book 2 which will come out next year!!!! And I will most definitely be rereading this sometime later this year.
Initial thoughts 4/19/24
Am I going to get dragged into this bc it sounds like Shatter Me, regardless if it’s good or not? Why yes I am. I need that brutal enemies to lovers fix right now 😬😬😬
But also why does the hardback for this have to be 30 bucks usd if it’s less than 400 pages? Usually Ya hardbacks are 20 or 25.
You guys, wow, just wow. I cried, laughed, loved and shouted at all of these characters. I am amazed with how great this book was. Especially with that ending, I didn’t see it coming. And especially since Molly x Chang is a first time author.
I have no idea how the MMC is going to come back from that ending. I mean I’ve read about some truly villainous MMCs but Antony Augustus takes the fricken cake even over Tom Riddle/Voldemort from HP. I mean wow that was intense from what he did to his own parents to what he ends up doing to Pangu. Wow, just wow. I feel like he’s still going to be the main love interest, but I have no idea how the FMC is ever going to realistically get back with him. I mean up until the reveal I was so enamored with this man, he had the whole “burn the world” for the FMC vibe going on and “I will start a war for her” vibe, but wow that ending. Ya he deserves to die and get his ass kicked by Ruying.
This gave me big Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi vibes, but tbh this was probably better and I love that series.
My only complaint is that there’s a big time skip in the middle of the book. Part of me understood why the author made this choice as it may have taken away from the momentum of the plot to add in the descriptions of all Ruying’s 48 kills. Tbh I think it would have added to her character to show her struggles with murdering people and using her power “for the greater good”. I think it also would have added to show how it complicated her growing feelings for Anthony as he was the one giving her the orders to kill all of them.
Best book of 2024 so far. I’m so excited for book 2 which will come out next year!!!! And I will most definitely be rereading this sometime later this year.
Initial thoughts 4/19/24
Am I going to get dragged into this bc it sounds like Shatter Me, regardless if it’s good or not? Why yes I am. I need that brutal enemies to lovers fix right now 😬😬😬
But also why does the hardback for this have to be 30 bucks usd if it’s less than 400 pages? Usually Ya hardbacks are 20 or 25.
October 28, 2023
This was SO good. The ending was *chefs kiss* I loved the dynamic between the main characters. I loved the world building and the culture. I loved the magic system. The only thing I need is more!!
November 28, 2023
There was a woman who grew up hearing whispered stories of Nanking when the Japanese invaded & the atrocities they committed against civilians of that area. Her name was Iris Chang & she wrote a book called The Rape of Nanking. The forward of this book brings her to mind. But here is a tapestry woven of history, perseverance, beauty & hope. This is how a people rewove the atrocities that happened to them in a horror fantasy fairy tale. The rape of Manchuria under the Russians & Japanese was a holocaust that has barely been acknowledged because it is not politically accepted as comfortable, the same of Nanking.
What do you do to survive under the most impossible of situations with the tyrants of an invasion occupation? What to do to try and keep yourself & loved ones alive if never safe? How far are you willing to go when you can't get out from under the heel of never ending abuse, hunger & death at best mercifully fast? Occupation & the arrogance of the occupier's. I never will forget a black & white old picture I saw in some article when young of a pair of fashionable dressed pretty French girls withh baskets of rice in a court yard, apparently in Vietnam. They were throwing the grain to Vietnamese that had probably grown & harvested it [or around those that did] to see people scrambling to pick it up, almost fighting over the minute grains that pebbled the ground to feed their families. The look of craven lack of morals shown on their faces as well as the energy of desperation of the peasants gathering the kernels overwhelmed the senses.
Ruying is a girl just out of teens and we play the story through her eyes & mind. A survivor whose sister is an opium addict that she tries to keep alive through her connection with a playmate grown up that runs the main opium den & is a right hand pawn controller of the outside prince. England did well in its attempted domination of the giant Cathay using the dragon of dreams & nightmares to subvert & harness the Chinese into submission so heavily then with the invasion of others the die was already cast. A tainted would have been love story marriage to a lifelong friend due to invasion. Baihu, her former friend who now gave her opium for her addicted sister, was the illegitimate son of royalty & could be a puppet prince/king to the invaders if his legitimate cousin died. He want her to murder with magic the prince in charge of next to nothing to take his place. Some of her people havve magic in different manners and strengths but they can come at a cost to their energy taking from their very life span depending on type & amount. She has death magic or the ability to kill someone with magic which is the strongest type but it is also at a cost to herself every time she uses it. She badly choses a theft that almost costs her everything & puts her directly in front of the Princes of Rome and all that entails. A provocative read that evokes a lot of emotion. Good read
What do you do to survive under the most impossible of situations with the tyrants of an invasion occupation? What to do to try and keep yourself & loved ones alive if never safe? How far are you willing to go when you can't get out from under the heel of never ending abuse, hunger & death at best mercifully fast? Occupation & the arrogance of the occupier's. I never will forget a black & white old picture I saw in some article when young of a pair of fashionable dressed pretty French girls withh baskets of rice in a court yard, apparently in Vietnam. They were throwing the grain to Vietnamese that had probably grown & harvested it [or around those that did] to see people scrambling to pick it up, almost fighting over the minute grains that pebbled the ground to feed their families. The look of craven lack of morals shown on their faces as well as the energy of desperation of the peasants gathering the kernels overwhelmed the senses.
Ruying is a girl just out of teens and we play the story through her eyes & mind. A survivor whose sister is an opium addict that she tries to keep alive through her connection with a playmate grown up that runs the main opium den & is a right hand pawn controller of the outside prince. England did well in its attempted domination of the giant Cathay using the dragon of dreams & nightmares to subvert & harness the Chinese into submission so heavily then with the invasion of others the die was already cast. A tainted would have been love story marriage to a lifelong friend due to invasion. Baihu, her former friend who now gave her opium for her addicted sister, was the illegitimate son of royalty & could be a puppet prince/king to the invaders if his legitimate cousin died. He want her to murder with magic the prince in charge of next to nothing to take his place. Some of her people havve magic in different manners and strengths but they can come at a cost to their energy taking from their very life span depending on type & amount. She has death magic or the ability to kill someone with magic which is the strongest type but it is also at a cost to herself every time she uses it. She badly choses a theft that almost costs her everything & puts her directly in front of the Princes of Rome and all that entails. A provocative read that evokes a lot of emotion. Good read
March 9, 2024
Edit: I’m aware this author has had a wave of fake negative reviews and that’s extremely unfortunate, however it’s not cause to question every negative review. I read the book in its entirety and gave it my honest opinion. If you are someone who values my reviews, I would not recommend this book. If you would still like to and form your own opinions, by all means, go ahead! But my opinions are mine and valid.
Aside from the fact that the love interest is the colonizer, I didn’t like the writing at all. The dialogue was really hard to read and overall the whole thing needed massive edits. I’m not even entirely sure what the plot was, I just didn’t like the MC and her decisions continued to get worse and worse.
Aside from the fact that the love interest is the colonizer, I didn’t like the writing at all. The dialogue was really hard to read and overall the whole thing needed massive edits. I’m not even entirely sure what the plot was, I just didn’t like the MC and her decisions continued to get worse and worse.
April 2, 2024
To get this started, let's talk about this cover! It's absolutely stunning!
This book is absolutely amazing and honestly I got lost in its world. Our main character is Ruying whos world has been invaded by the Romans and she’s forced to fear them not only because of being conquered but because of her magical power. She has been ‘ blessed ’ by Death. Shes able to kill people by just pulling the life out of them. Unfortunately she gets caught and ends up working with Antony one of the mortal princes in exchange for keeping her alive and her family safe.,
The world building in this book was good! The portal was an interesting factor because I wasn’t expecting that was the way they invaded. The descriptions of the towns and stuff was also good. And for character development well, I think Ruying developed quite while especially in the last 15%. And Antony well, hes seen as a ' morally grey ' character in the start, but towards the end you find out hes just fucked. And I love how Ruying didn't stand for anything he did once she found out
The romance though, is definitely a slow burn so don’t get into this thinking the characters are going to instantly be onto each other. And a slow burn + the twist definitely fits this storyline super well.
I’m excited to see where this story takes us in book two and I’m ready for more of Ruyings story! Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing group for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
This book is absolutely amazing and honestly I got lost in its world. Our main character is Ruying whos world has been invaded by the Romans and she’s forced to fear them not only because of being conquered but because of her magical power. She has been ‘ blessed ’ by Death. Shes able to kill people by just pulling the life out of them. Unfortunately she gets caught and ends up working with Antony one of the mortal princes in exchange for keeping her alive and her family safe.,
The world building in this book was good! The portal was an interesting factor because I wasn’t expecting that was the way they invaded. The descriptions of the towns and stuff was also good. And for character development well, I think Ruying developed quite while especially in the last 15%. And Antony well, hes seen as a ' morally grey ' character in the start, but towards the end you find out hes just fucked. And I love how Ruying didn't stand for anything he did once she found out
The romance though, is definitely a slow burn so don’t get into this thinking the characters are going to instantly be onto each other. And a slow burn + the twist definitely fits this storyline super well.
I’m excited to see where this story takes us in book two and I’m ready for more of Ruyings story! Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing group for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
October 25, 2023
1 star, five words: fuck this colonizer apologist bullshit.
Let's start at the beginning. This book is ostensibly inspired by and meant to honor the author's grandparents' experiences during the occupation of Manchuria. But quite honestly, I find that hard to believe. Firstly, I'm not sure how any of this book speaks to the historical occupation of Manchuria. The fantasy China in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (called the Er-Lang Empire; the wider world is called Pangu) seems more based on ancient China, as evidenced by the author's claim that "we fought their science with bows and arrows," which worries me - does the author genuinely think that the armies of China, the culture that invented gunpowder, were fighting with bows and arrows in the 1930s? The naming of the colonizers as "Romans" adds to this confusion; certainly Rome was not invading Manchuria in the author's grandparents' memory, and in a fantasy world where all the names of every other real-world analog was changed to "Er-Lang" or "Pangu" or "opian" (seriously), the choice to transplant "Romans" from the real world is a bit jarring. Very little of the world or plot in this book speaks meaningfully to the real history of the occupation of Manchuria at all.
Secondly, if the author wanted to honor her grandparents' memory and intergenerational trauma from the occupation of Manchuria, she never would have written 368 pages of the most colonizer-sympathizing, Stockholm-syndrome bullshit I have ever read in my entire life. The main plotline of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods follows a romance between Ruying, a "Xianling" (her world's name for those born with magical powers) blessed with the powers of Death, and Antony, the younger prince of the Roman Empire. From the outset, this set off alarm bells in my head for what I think should be very obvious reasons. And as I read, those alarm bells only started ringing louder and louder. Antony literally kidnaps Ruying and forces her to become his personal assassin, or else he'll kill her and her entire family. I'm really not quite sure how this is romantic, but apparently it's supposed to be, because all it takes is Antony telling Ruying she's special and she conveniently forgets that he's one of the colonizers oppressing her people and actively enslaving her. She spends the next 20 chapters or so parroting Antony's colonizer rhetoric ("it's for the greater good!"), "looking at him from under her lashes" (*gags*), and killing her own people to serve his ends (which she never seems to question until literally the last few pages of the book). There's a lot of words I could use to describe Ruying, some of them more polite than others, but some of the first few that come to mind are: naive, willfully ignorant, and self-serving. And those are just the nicer ones. I could not bring myself to care about Ruying, Antony (don't even get me started), or their relationship whatsoever.
Now to be clear, I don't think it's inherently wrong to write about a toxic or abusive relationship, but to romanticize it - and I'm certain that the author meant for the readers to find it romantic - is. Nor do I think it's inherently bad to write a flawed character who, in the words of the author, "makes all the bad decisions," but when those "bad decisions" are aiding a colonizer in the oppression of your own people, I think that as an author, you have the responsibility to engage those issues meaningfully and thoughtfully (lest you become a victim of Poe's law). And I don't think the author put any thought into Ruying's actions other than "this will make her seem morally gray!"
Speaking of moral grayness, the author could not seem to help reminding the reader every other page that everyone in this book is sooo morally gray. The author could definitely benefit from a few more classes in "show, don't tell," because tell, tell, tell is all she does. I can't count how many times the actual words "[this character] wasn't black or white, but a shade of gray in between" were used to describe characters in the book. In general, the prose read like a first draft written by a writer who just took their first creative writing class - pages of infodumping, repeated sentence fragments, purple prose, and way too many grammatical errors even for an ARC (seriously, did this book get edited at all?). At one point the author literally uses paraphrased Taylor Swift lyrics (yeah, I noticed) in - what else - a single random chapter from Antony's POV:
File this book under "comedies" because reading those lines and realizing they were literally lifted from You Are In Love was honestly one of the funniest moments I've ever experienced while reading a book.
Narratively, the worldbuilding was weak and the motivations of the characters questionable at best. "Rome" and "Pangu" apparently exist in two different worlds that are connected by a magical portal - something that is never explained and doesn't really add much to the narrative. Ruying's main motivation for her questionable actions is supposed to be her love for her family and dedication to keeping them safe, but we hardly see her relationship with her family before Ruying is kidnapped and all she can think about is Antony, Antony, Antony, which it makes it difficult to sympathize with the idea of her betraying her people for them. The romance, colonizer/colonized issues aside, is barely developed; it's marketed as a "slow burn" but this is just categorically false, unless by "slow burn" you mean a six-month timeskip during which we are told Ruying and Antony apparently magically developed feelings and started calling each other "my love." The mysterious rebel group led by someone called "the Phantom" is first characterized as a bunch of ragtag nobodies who are completely ineffective against Rome's "superior technologies" and then suddenly appear 75% of the way through the book as a highly-trained, powerful force that have been secretly thwarting Rome at every turn. Ruying's people are supposed to have no knowledge of the Romans' science and advanced technology, yet she switches between being mystified by "tablets with ever-changing surfaces" and then casually recognizing "computers" pages later. Never mind the ever-present characterization of "science" as some sort of monolithic evil unknown, a rhetoric that I have always had issue with.
This book wants to be The Poppy War so badly, but the difference is Rin would beat Ruying's ass for the bullshit she pulls in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods. This book could never be The Poppy War for a lot of reasons, but to bring it all back to what I said at the start of this review, the critical one is that The Poppy War is firmly anti-colonialist and To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a poorly-written, barely-edited, thoughtlessly researched (if at all, given *gestures to the review above*), colonizer-sympathizing "I can fix him" fantasy to an embarrassing extreme. All I can really say, at the end of this review, is this: Girl, please stand up.
Let's start at the beginning. This book is ostensibly inspired by and meant to honor the author's grandparents' experiences during the occupation of Manchuria. But quite honestly, I find that hard to believe. Firstly, I'm not sure how any of this book speaks to the historical occupation of Manchuria. The fantasy China in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (called the Er-Lang Empire; the wider world is called Pangu) seems more based on ancient China, as evidenced by the author's claim that "we fought their science with bows and arrows," which worries me - does the author genuinely think that the armies of China, the culture that invented gunpowder, were fighting with bows and arrows in the 1930s? The naming of the colonizers as "Romans" adds to this confusion; certainly Rome was not invading Manchuria in the author's grandparents' memory, and in a fantasy world where all the names of every other real-world analog was changed to "Er-Lang" or "Pangu" or "opian" (seriously), the choice to transplant "Romans" from the real world is a bit jarring. Very little of the world or plot in this book speaks meaningfully to the real history of the occupation of Manchuria at all.
Secondly, if the author wanted to honor her grandparents' memory and intergenerational trauma from the occupation of Manchuria, she never would have written 368 pages of the most colonizer-sympathizing, Stockholm-syndrome bullshit I have ever read in my entire life. The main plotline of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods follows a romance between Ruying, a "Xianling" (her world's name for those born with magical powers) blessed with the powers of Death, and Antony, the younger prince of the Roman Empire. From the outset, this set off alarm bells in my head for what I think should be very obvious reasons. And as I read, those alarm bells only started ringing louder and louder. Antony literally kidnaps Ruying and forces her to become his personal assassin, or else he'll kill her and her entire family. I'm really not quite sure how this is romantic, but apparently it's supposed to be, because all it takes is Antony telling Ruying she's special and she conveniently forgets that he's one of the colonizers oppressing her people and actively enslaving her. She spends the next 20 chapters or so parroting Antony's colonizer rhetoric ("it's for the greater good!"), "looking at him from under her lashes" (*gags*), and killing her own people to serve his ends (which she never seems to question until literally the last few pages of the book). There's a lot of words I could use to describe Ruying, some of them more polite than others, but some of the first few that come to mind are: naive, willfully ignorant, and self-serving. And those are just the nicer ones. I could not bring myself to care about Ruying, Antony (don't even get me started), or their relationship whatsoever.
Now to be clear, I don't think it's inherently wrong to write about a toxic or abusive relationship, but to romanticize it - and I'm certain that the author meant for the readers to find it romantic - is. Nor do I think it's inherently bad to write a flawed character who, in the words of the author, "makes all the bad decisions," but when those "bad decisions" are aiding a colonizer in the oppression of your own people, I think that as an author, you have the responsibility to engage those issues meaningfully and thoughtfully (lest you become a victim of Poe's law). And I don't think the author put any thought into Ruying's actions other than "this will make her seem morally gray!"
Speaking of moral grayness, the author could not seem to help reminding the reader every other page that everyone in this book is sooo morally gray. The author could definitely benefit from a few more classes in "show, don't tell," because tell, tell, tell is all she does. I can't count how many times the actual words "[this character] wasn't black or white, but a shade of gray in between" were used to describe characters in the book. In general, the prose read like a first draft written by a writer who just took their first creative writing class - pages of infodumping, repeated sentence fragments, purple prose, and way too many grammatical errors even for an ARC (seriously, did this book get edited at all?). At one point the author literally uses paraphrased Taylor Swift lyrics (yeah, I noticed) in - what else - a single random chapter from Antony's POV:
Now, in this bed with Ruying beside him, Antony finally understood what his grandfather meant when he said love was a weakness.
Why they fought the wars.
Why poets dedicated their lives putting this feeling into words.
File this book under "comedies" because reading those lines and realizing they were literally lifted from You Are In Love was honestly one of the funniest moments I've ever experienced while reading a book.
Narratively, the worldbuilding was weak and the motivations of the characters questionable at best. "Rome" and "Pangu" apparently exist in two different worlds that are connected by a magical portal - something that is never explained and doesn't really add much to the narrative. Ruying's main motivation for her questionable actions is supposed to be her love for her family and dedication to keeping them safe, but we hardly see her relationship with her family before Ruying is kidnapped and all she can think about is Antony, Antony, Antony, which it makes it difficult to sympathize with the idea of her betraying her people for them. The romance, colonizer/colonized issues aside, is barely developed; it's marketed as a "slow burn" but this is just categorically false, unless by "slow burn" you mean a six-month timeskip during which we are told Ruying and Antony apparently magically developed feelings and started calling each other "my love." The mysterious rebel group led by someone called "the Phantom" is first characterized as a bunch of ragtag nobodies who are completely ineffective against Rome's "superior technologies" and then suddenly appear 75% of the way through the book as a highly-trained, powerful force that have been secretly thwarting Rome at every turn. Ruying's people are supposed to have no knowledge of the Romans' science and advanced technology, yet she switches between being mystified by "tablets with ever-changing surfaces" and then casually recognizing "computers" pages later. Never mind the ever-present characterization of "science" as some sort of monolithic evil unknown, a rhetoric that I have always had issue with.
This book wants to be The Poppy War so badly, but the difference is Rin would beat Ruying's ass for the bullshit she pulls in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods. This book could never be The Poppy War for a lot of reasons, but to bring it all back to what I said at the start of this review, the critical one is that The Poppy War is firmly anti-colonialist and To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a poorly-written, barely-edited, thoughtlessly researched (if at all, given *gestures to the review above*), colonizer-sympathizing "I can fix him" fantasy to an embarrassing extreme. All I can really say, at the end of this review, is this: Girl, please stand up.
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