This is a very interesting premise. I applaud and appreciate the writer's efforts. Ruying (the FMC) and her world (Pangu) are invaded and occupied by foreign settlers, the Romans, who’ve come through a portal. I’m going to preface this by saying that this feels more semi-fantasy than full-fantasy as there are elements like opian, choices of modern worlds/descriptions (jet fighters, misses, video, audio, bulletproof glass) that may make it tricky to divorce it from actual East Asia history (Opium Wars) and fully immerse into an escapist world.

In a nutshell, my understanding of the landscape and its players:
The Romans (antagonists) – they bring advance technology, cars, planes/jetfighters, weapons of mass destruction, modern medicine, drugs (opian) and their world seems to be today’s Earth people, but maybe far more advanced given they travelled to a different universe? world? to access Pangu. Following their namesake, they are depicted to follow leaders elected based on merit (and this means the next heir may not be from the same bloodline.) Key to note the main villain and love interest, Antony Augustus, is not related by blood to the other two Roman princes. At present, their occupation is heavily focused on Er-Lang and the story follows their attempts to expand their stronghold to the other empires in Pangu.

Pangu – Inspired by a fantasy/ancient backdrop of China. There are five (?) empires within this realm which is Er-Lang (where the FMC resides and the story takes place), Sihai, Lei-Zhen, Ne-Zha, Jiang. Xianlings are a group of humans blessed with magical gifts—in this case, the FMC has the gift of Death, able to take the qi (or life essence/energy) of a person, effectively killing them without a trace. Clearly a power that the Romans would exploit to get rid of immediate threats. Dissent by the Phantom (a shadowy rebellion leader) are crushed and neutralised by the Romans’ more advanced military might and the drug, opian, that weakens the average folk and the Xianlings—getting them dependent and addicted on the substance.

—————

Romance
1) There are two love interests: Antony Augustus (one of the 3 Roman princes) and Baihu (the morally grey childhood friend who turned to work for the Romans in exchange for favours and better prospects.) Oh the endless love triangle possibilities!!! There is a nostalgic yearning from Ruying for who Baihu used to be and what they once shared—a girl and boy who grew up together and could have gotten married before the invasion tore their realm apart. I very much adore the pining in this!!!!!
2) Imho, the dynamic between Antony and Ruying could have been tagged/marketed as a Dark Romance/Dark Romantasy—as there is physical/mental/emotional abuse, deceit, kidnapping, blackmail and manipulation between them. He convinces her to help stamp out any growing insurgency to the Roman’s regime to avoid his grandfather from unleashing their full military power (vs Pangu who largely fight with blades, swords, arrows etc.) and ignite an all-out-war in exchange for “peace” and protection for Ruying’s sister and grandmother. Essentially, she becomes his assassin/bodyguard. As an enemies-to-lovers enthusiast, I do love the complicated nature of their feelings and forbidden attraction.
3) There are some moments where the FMC is repeatedly told “Do you have any idea what Antony is doing to our people?” and she responds with “I don’t know and I don’t care.” And honestly, despite understanding every character needs growth and an arc, I’m unsure how to feel about this.

—————

That being said, it’s been a joy to read the weaving of Chinese myths, folktales, customs and beliefs into the story. The tales behind Sihai, their waters and dragons were probably one of my favourite parts! I’m very much looking forward to see where the writer takes this story, and how they will reconcile what Antony has done and Ruying’s feelings/connection to him given the ending of Book 1 and the title of Book 2!!! Is there going to be angst of betrayal and separation? Sign me up for all that deliciousness!!!!

Thank you so much to Molly Chang, Penguin Random House UK and Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Overall I had a good time with this book, it had an interesting world and really complex themes being explored. Curious to see where it goes further in the next books. However, I didn't enjoy the writing in this one. The incessant monologuing drove me mad. It felt like there was so little plot and so much of just internal and external thoughts going on and on about their motivations. I think if the writing was honed a bit more it could be really amazing!

This review is for To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang which releases in the UK on the 18th April! Thanks so much to Netgalley and Penguin Random House UK for giving me an eArc copy for this book in exchange for my honest review.

This is a debut novel from Molly and I am honestly so excited to read book 2. This book definitely felt like a set up for the rest of the series so cannot wait to see what happens next.

It’s a fantasy world loosely based on Chinese mythology and folklore, which is ruthlessly conquered by invaders from another word through a portal that rips through the sky. The world the invaders come from seems to be loosely based on a futuristic Earth, called ‘Rome’ where the world has been destroyed by pollution and over consumption by the entire population. It’s a war between science and magic, and science seems to be winning…

The biggest negative I had with the book was the repetitiveness I found in the first 50-60%, as well as the slower pace. It didn’t affect the story too much, it did just make it a lot harder to connect with the story.

I really enjoyed the characters in this book, as I love when they are more morally grey, struggling to find their purpose in the struggles they have been thrown into. It makes you question a lot of things, especially about the things you will do for the people you love. Our female main character really struggled with this, and the first part of the story is her trying to come to terms with the atrocities she’s manipulated into commiting for the enemy forces. She is also fighting her attraction to the man making her do these things, as she realises how complicit he and his family are.

All in all, the start was a struggle but the ending of the story really captured me and I cannot wait to see what happens with the rest of the series. Would highly recommend this to any fantasy readers out there, even if this more YA based.

I want to first off say the cover of this book is beyond beautiful! I enjoyed the magic system of this book, it was other-worldly and I think this was needed as the themes being addressed real life problems. There’s plenty of horrors within the pages and a toxic relationship at play. I found the writing a bit choppy at times disturbing the flow but there is plenty of detail. The FMC was an indecisive one, she goes through a lot and has to be a killer on demand. I wasn’t sold on her character overall but definitely an interesting read.

I am aware that reading the next sentence will sound very odd if you have zero context on this book, but "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" by Molly X. Chang is a blend of fantasy and almost science fiction, set in a Chinese-inspired world invaded by the Roman Empire.The novel explores themes of colonization (a lot), moral ambiguity (a little), and the clash between magic and advanced technology (the magical system) .
The protagonist, Ruying, possesses the power of death magic and finds herself entangled in a dangerous game of politics and betrayal when she is coerced into becoming an assassin for the Roman prince, Antony. The dynamic between Ruying and Antony might be triggering for some (see the colonialist theme), but if that is not your cup of tea then probably this isn’t the book for you.
Overall, "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" is a trilogy I am planning to continue, I am definitely not fully “all in”. The setting and the prose are interesting to me, even if sometimes I need to struggle through what I perceive as repetition.

First of all thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Took me a little while to get into this book, but I am glad that I persisted. Told from the perspective of Ruying while her world is being oppressed and conquered by the Romans (people who sound a lot like they have come through a portal from our earth). It follows the lengths that Ruying will go to to keep the people that she loves and cares about safe. Ruying also struggles with the conflicting emotions she has towards the enemy prince, Anthony.

I enjoyed the magic vs. science element of this and found that to be the much more interesting part of this book. I enjoyed the world-building and the visit to Sihai (which was unfortunately brief).

The romance was eh. Not for me, he is quite literally a colonizer and she is the colonized. The power imbalance alone would be ick, but then you add in all he does initially and the bracelets on her wrist that can be used to electrocute her at any time and it's just gross. The time jump made things a little stilting, and unfortunately didn't think the one chapter from Antony's POV added much.

I found the magic elements fascinatinand I am interested in finding out a bit more about the mechanics of it. Ruying has been blessed by death, which means she can separate people's qi from their bodies. Her conflict with her gift and what she is being made to use it for. I do believe she wasn't left much of a choice, but she did read as quite naive.

This book had enough in it to leave me wanting to read the next book in the trilogy.

It is a crime that a book this pretty can be this bad.

I highly recommend reading reviews by other readers who go into much more detail about the controversies surrounding this book, but to summarise, not only has Chang used the very real circumstances of Unit 731, one of the most appalling war crimes in history, as the backdrop of this book, but also included a coloniser/oppressed romance arc, which she has promoted as ‘enemies to lovers’ on her TikTok. I have seen counterarguments propose that because this is set to be a trilogy, that perhaps she is planning to follow a similar narrative arc as Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow & Bone trilogy in which Alina falls for The Darkling in book one but ultimately becomes cognizant of his abuse and oppression and defeats him in later instalments (especially seeing as book two is titled To Kill a Monstrous Prince.)

And to that I say - Leigh Bardugo had the nuance, care, and skill to pull it off. This lacks all three.

The writing is incredibly bland and repetitive. The info-dumps of word building are clunky and all over the place. The entirety reads like a melodramatic monologue that goes nowhere. Not a single thing is actually shown to us demonstratively, only told. A random chapter from Anthony’s POV that tells us nothing and creates an even stronger lack of cohesion. A time jump that is so totally unnecessary and is only really included because it meant Chang could put even less effort in to develop her characters. Speaking of, all of them are such cliches it’s painful. The protagonist, Ruying, was honestly ridiculous in the worst way possible. Again, if effort and nuance had been put in to really show how vulnerable she was and how much she sought validation, the dynamic between her and Anthony could’ve been SO interesting, but instead she reads as a complete and utter fool.

Not to mention the MULTIPLE Taylor Swift references, and the Spider-Man quotes???

I have absolutely zero interest in carrying on with the series, reading the first was painful enough.

Thank you to Penguin Random House UK and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC. All opinions are my own.

It pains me to write this review. This book held so much promise, and the first few chapters had me completely hooked, unfortunately it all went downhill from there and became a story with the flattest of MC's, too many moving pieces and a romance that made me feel incredibly uncomfortable... and not in a good way.

Let's start with the good stuff. Chang can write, which is good because the writing was pretty much the only tether keeping me hooked to the story at some points. Descriptive and prosaic it had all the potential to drag you into her world and keep you there, unfortunately the world itself was incredibly choppy in it's building. The author tries to draw in so many elements, colonization, global warming, racism, as well as some almost sci-fi feeling parts (the Romans came from a hole in the sky) that were all thrown together, but none were really developed enough for us to get a grasp on them. I buddy read this with a friend and at the end we had so many questions because these bits of information got dropped with seemingly no backstory to go with them, and it just all seemed a bit under-developed to me.

In fact, if I could only use one world to describe this book it would be under-developed. The world, the characters, the romance, it all just felt incredibly surface level. Ruying herself was such a bland MC. She starts off as this kind of kick-ass, wont bow down to anyone character I thought I was going to adore, but as soon as she enters into her deal with The Romans, the colonizers of her world, she becomes this shadow of her former self. Someone willing to toe the company line. She goes from someone who wants to use her power to kill the Romans, to the person willing to use her power to kill for them. It's jarring at first, mainly thanks to a pretty significant time jump that happens once Ruying first enters into her bargain, and not being able to see that journey, that inner turmoil she surely felt, made it incredibly hard to empathise with her.

I also feel this story was screaming for a second POV, not only because of how bland Ruying was, but there were elements to the story; the rebellion and the Romans inner circle that, had we gotten an insight into, would have fleshed the story and world out and given us a little more to bite into. The side characters that we did get were not well developed at all, in fact they only existed to give drama & emotion to Ruying's story, drama and emotion that didn't work because Ruying was about as interesting as a wet lettuce.

The romance was... uncomfortable. I can see why people are calling this a colonizer romance, to me it gave off big stockholm syndrome vibes. Thanks to us missing a big chunk of Ruying's time with the Romans when she first enters the deal we get a completely different character out of the other side, someone who seemed brainwashed in a way. She stops looking for ways to end the Roman's rule over her people and instead starts empathising with the person who took her captive. I'm all for a 'bad guy' when it comes to romance, but this guy wasn't just bad, he was despicable and even knowing what he was doing to her people, Ruying almost vindicated his decisions, saying he must be doing it for the 'greater good.' It was a weird decision to write it that way and it didn't work for me at all.

This could have been a book filled with rage, a book in the vein of The Poppy War, with a girl with the power to destroy using her rage to kill the people systematically murdering her own. Unfortunately, what we got instead was someone who had all the power and instead used it to further her own enemy's goals. It was an uncomfortable and pretty meh read if I'm being honest and, had I not been buddy reading it, I probably would have DNF'd. The MC does have a change of heart in the last 5% or so, a pretty jarring one that starts to put her on the right side, but it came a little too late for me and I'm not really interested in finding out what happens next.

"To Gaze Upon a Wicked Gods" is the first installment of a ya fantasy trilogy written by Molly X. Chang, here at her debut. A dark, bewitching, and powerful book, characterized by lyrical and evocative prose, an intriguing and intricate story, a large and articulate world building, and an extremely complex and tormented protagonist. I admit that I perceived several flaws, including a somewhat nebulous setting, a strong initial infodump, a style at times clunky and a bit tentative, and a narrative at times rushed, with several convenient situations and numerous chaotic time jumps, but I honestly don't care. Yes, it is a novel with flaws, but in the end it managed to involve me a lot, touching me so much in certain passages. And for me that's what counts. In short, I loved it and can't wait to read the sequel!

Thank you to the Publisher and NetGalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rounded up from 2.5

To be completely honest I think I just didn't get on with the writing style. It felt like important things were glossed over while small details were expanded on.

Not wanting to touch on the romance too much because a lot of other readers have talked about it a lot better than i can but i will say I didn't like the relationship between Ruying and Anthony. The power dynamic made their interactions quite uncomfortable. While that is likely the point given how the whole story progresses it was hard to read in a story I was already struggling with.

I also thing it just needed to decide whether it wanted to be a dark story or not. It felt like it was straddling a line where it wanted morally grey characters but was forced to make them the good guys so i felt like some of the moral dilemma was not explored as fully as it could have been, which kind of left the characters just looking more evil.

I wanted to enjoy this more as I was really looking forward to it but it didn't quite hit for me.

To Gaze upon wicked Gods by molly x Chang
Release date 9th April
Rating 4 stars 7.58 Cawpile
This book was an important book to tell as story and when you delve into it, a heartbreaking story of someone who just wants to keep the stories of those who are gone alive.
I really loved how this book wove fantasy/ folklore into real world and it was believable at times I felt that it happened. I cannot wait to see more from this author and what they come with because this has my emotions it had me wanting to read on and it made me angry which it was supposed to be, I wasn’t supposed to be like this is a nice little story it was meant to make me feel and that is what it did. I do not want to give too much away for this book because I feel it is important to just feel the story however, do check triggers and do take breaks if you need to with it.

Read this book, you will not regret it.

Post will be up 4th April

I think the plot is interesting, but sadly, the prose is the book’s biggest flaw imo. It’s purple prose, but not actually good enough to be poetic or compelling, and just comes across as clunky and melodramatic. After the first 100 pages or so, the emotional turmoil of the main character start to become very repetitive and are weighing down the story with just how much she waxes on and on and on about them.

Whoever said that this is a book for Zutara-lovers grossly misunderstands what Zutara is actually about so I’m putting that into false-advertisement category. (If anything, I think people who liked Manacled and that flavour of Dramione fics, will like it, rather than Zutarians. Just saying.)

Pro: the world is interesting and the conflict of magic vs science is very intriguing for me.
Con: the antagonist is literally the Roman Empire. I still don't know how I feel about that because couldn't have the other called it Holy Britannian Empire, like anime does? just to distinguish it from the actual Roman Empire.

Overall, I think while the BIPOC reviewers should be part of the conversation, the book is worth reading on its own without letting others' opinions colour the experience and not enter with preconceived notions about it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC copy of this book, in exchange for this honest review.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
I have some conflicting feelings about this book and I will admit that I DNF. It has also been some time ever since I stopped reading, as I needed to reflect on what really made me dislike it so much (as I normally do not DNF).

(I would like to add that I have not read any of the other comments for this book on Goodreads before writing my own review. So my review is not influenced by what other people have said about this book.)

I was really looking forward to reading it, as the premise seemed to be right up my alley. I knew that there would be romance elements, and although I am not much of a romantasy reader, I do not mind some romance in my fantasy.

To be honest, I did not like that the book just starts with exposition. The protagonist just tells the reader right at the beginning about how the world works and what happened to make it so. The story luckily picks up after that and we get to know our protagonist and the troubles she and her family have in life. I really enjoyed the power system and the way we are shown Ruying's special gift. While I enjoyed reading this part, the story fell off soon after for me. Suddenly the author jumps a significant amount of time and Ruying's conflicting emotions start to become very repetitive. The action at that point also takes a back seat and instead of describing it to us, it mostly happens off screen. Another underdeveloped element seemed Ruying's romantic feelings, which to me seemed to happen out of nowhere.
That was about the point I stopped reading, because I just realized, that I did not enjoy it anymore.

I think my biggest issue was with the time jump, as everything that bothered me about the writing started happening afterwards. I would have wished that the author had spent more time developing Ruying's conflict with what she has to do to survive, as well as her conflicting feelings for the man who makes her do these things she hates.

TO GAZE UPON WICKED GODS is a science fantasy exploring collaboration and resistance to colonial rule.

The world building in the book is very interesting, merging fantasy elements and sci-fi ones. The colonisers ("Romans") came through a portal in the sky with technology that can outpace the local magics. I liked the balance of these elements, two different powers used in very different ways that set up an sharp slope of power.

Because the narrator has magic, the book felt more slanted to the fantasy side, which I do enjoy, and let the technology part feel simply like a different form of magic. I would love to read an essay from the author on how she put together the world and decided on the exact proportion of the mix.

The book draws on a range of inspirations, one of the more obvious being the British colonial endeavours in China, particularly the use of opium to gain money from a society that needs nothing from them. The set up is used to explore collaborators and resistance under colonial rule.

Ruying assists the prince because of the sense of safety for loved ones it gives her as well as how trapped she feels. She grapples with the sense of betrayal but also responsibility towards her sister and grandmother, not to mention wanting to believe the promise of a change less bloodless than other promises. I liked how the varying pressures on her were explored without judgement.

The book ends at a turning point in Ruying's perspective of the system and her place within it, promising a large confrontation in the next book.

Where to even start?

The worldbuilding!?!? 10/10!

Ruying as a protagonist? So real. Having to pick between your morals and keeping your family safe is not the easy decision some critics of this book seem to think it is.

I loved the plot, the pacing was good. The character development was perfect and realistic and everything happened at exactly the right times for me to emphasise with Ruying without judging her.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was very much a prologue to Ruying's story and that's not a bad thing, I'm eager to see what happens next. I just think it's best to preface this review that a lot of people have been making assumptions based on other reviews and buzzwords when the 'romance' was a tiny tiny part of this book.

The world has been invaded and it's inhabitants live under fear of Rome. The theme of magic vs science is really interesting and the horror of what modern weapons could do to this world is ever present. We know more than Ruying what Rome is capable of and this further amplifies the stakes.

Throughout the novel you'll find it incredibly tense and at times uncomfortable as Ruying is subjected to Roman rule, the disturbing consequences of that across the city and the direct manipulations of one of its rulers. We follow Ruying as she works for the Roman Prince, Anthony Augustus, as his personal assassin from what she thinks is her own free will but is very much manipulation. Small details add up across the story which further increase your unease, such as Anthony immediately using pet names once Ruying agrees to his 'offer' & his schemes to get her to kill for him.

As stated before the story very much reads as a prologue wherein the characters and their motivations are laid out, the growth that Ruying goes through under terrible circumstances is vital for that personal element to her journey in the sequel. I just hope enough people give this book a chance for themselves & that there's not too long a wait!

Thanks to Netgalley & Penguin Random House for the arc.

𝐓𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐬 | 𝐌𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐗. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠 | 𝟑*

“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘦𝘢 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶.”

Typically I write my likes and dislikes for a review but I’m genuinely uncertain of what to make of this read. I think my problem is that I’m just not sure what this book is trying to be. The writing style is lush, the content serious, and the execution unsettling.

So this book was inspired by the authors own family history, their experience in Manchuria, and the war crime Unit 731. A worthy and tragic inspiration story that needs highlighting in modern day fiction lest we forget. But to then blend it with what struck me as an Antony and Cleopatra inspired romance was an odd choice. Especially as the power dynamic was imbalanced to the point of being hugely uncomfortable. Was it really love or Stockholm syndrome? I’m not sure. The added complexity of the potential for a love triangle doesn’t help to clarify either.

From the authors own words: “The book features an unreliable narrator who convinces herself to do terrible things to protect those she loves, but when she finds the full truth of the occupying regime she does NOT continue harboring any illusions about it.”

I think the standpoint and perspective of the main character was a choice that was difficult to execute well. If you were to ask the majority of people if they would keep their family safe but had to kill a strangers family or keep a strangers family safe but had to kill their own family, most of us would choose the former option, right? But most of us would not fall in love with the person who handed us that awfully manipulative decision to make. And most of us definitely wouldn’t push the colonizer ideals and agenda as their justification for their decisions. There is no worse personality combination than morally grey AND naive. It’s confusing how to feel about the MC because it seemed that all the characters around Ruying were just as exasperated as I was with her. I couldn’t tell whether the author wanted me to root for the MC or hope for her death. All I know for certain is that Ruying is unrelatable to the point of unlikable.

I think it’s worth reading BIPOC reviews on this, particularly Asian book reviewers. As much as I love to promote diverse character and story representation, I can’t say whether this book gives its intended representation the justice it deserves. Perhaps it does over the entire series arc but judging from this book alone I can see how it raises hackles.

I wanted to like this book, I really, really did. But between the chapter long info dump, the exceptionally dubious relationship between protagonist and antagonist and the fact that Chang tells you everything shows nothing and jumps huge time frames and things just suddenly happen like pow! In the last sentence you read I was living with the dubious love interest now I have my own apartment about which nothing has previously been set up. The world building is thin to non-existent and the read is left to infer A LOT. I didn’t have a very clear picture of what anywhere looked like except that “Rome” (Yes, let’s take the story from the horrific crimes of the Japanese during the occupation of Manchuria and substitute in an ancient Empire for it) There was also the incredibly weird random chapter from the villains perspective. The title of book two leaves me hope that Chang is going to set up Baihu as the endgame LI and not Antony but this first installment was written as enemies to lovers so unless she’s swayed by reviews I’m not convinced. Given the author’s not e at the beginning the whole arc of ruling falling in love with her coloniser and abuser did not sit well. Other reviewers have put it better than I can but there’s a lot of red flags in this narrative and I hope revisions have been made.

Interestingly goodreads has suspended reviews on this book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

The concept of this book is intriguing, and really highlights the issues of colonialism and exploitation in a new and interesting way. However, I did find the narrative repetitive at times, especially Ruying's inner monologue, which broke my concentration and ejected me from the story at several points. I'm not sure if this is going to be a duology or a trilogy, but I feel the plot from this book could have been effectively condensed into a shorter page count. It does make for an effective endpoint to the novel though. Having said that, I am invested enough to want to read the next installment.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods seemed like it would be an interesting and thoughtful read however unfortunately I have found that this was not a book that I particularly enjoyed.

The main issue for me was the writing. The first chapter in particular was a complete info dump and it made me tired of reading this book after only a few pages. The main character also has a habit of monologuing SO much! This really interrupts the flow of the plot and just makes the writing a little bit tiresome.

Overall… yes I am disappointed in this book. I do understand the coloniser romance argument that has been going around and think that for me this pushed the boundary for an enemies to lovers romance a little too much.