Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for offering me an arc in exchange for an honest review.

First I'd like to say, I think Molly X Chang has so much writing potential. I think this series can be really special if given the opportunity. That said, it does kind of feel like the editor and marketing team let her down quite a bit. I think if you're gonna buy a series for that much money, maybe make sure the entire middle portion is more than just "yeah he's a psycho, but he's kinda hot". Before anyone comes for me about how she was being groomed- yeah I get it. It just dragged on and on and on. Where was the plot other than her being groomed for like 10 straight chapters? I don't think this is an enemies to lovers romance like it's marketed, and I also don't understand the comparison to The Poppy War.

Ruying is supposed to be this strong morally grey villain (ish) female MC who would do anything to save her family, but she is really just a girl who is trapped in a crappy situation with MULTIPLE men who are taking advantage of her and her powers.

Listen- I'm gonna read the next one because like I said, the series has potential. And I enjoyed it for what it was, but it should have been marketed as something else and edited more.

The style was clunky: big long paragraphs with repetitive phrases and very little as far as imagery is concerned. All of Ruying’s character is told instead of shown (ie she claims to be willing to do “whatever it takes” to survive but all we see in practice is hesitation, spiraling thoughts, and judgement of other people who are actually trying to create change). I would have loved to see more of Jing-City and Er-Lang, specifically culture, history, and stories of the Xianlings - beyond the colonizer love interest spitting out random idioms in his “perfect pronunciation”. (That whole thing is also confusing because, like, it’s never stated which language Ruying and Antony communicate in, and all of the phrases written out in Chinese characters in dialogue are then also translated in dialogue? Is Antony assuming Ruying doesn’t know her own culture’s idioms? I’m not bilingual but I’m pretty sure that’s not what being bilingual is like in practice.)

And beyond that, colonizer romance gives me major ick, so even without all the weirdness above, this would be a no from me.

The author’s note about Manchurian history hooked me more than the actual story, so now I think I’m going to go find some nonfiction to learn more about it - so to that end, the book was successful

If you enjoy morally grey main characters trying to survive, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods may be the book for you. The FMC, Ruying, has been gifted with Death magic and when a raid occurs that puts her in the enemy’s hands, she must make a choice — live with aiding the enemy who has taken over her homeland or die. However, the choice is even more complex when the enemy prince offers to take care of Ruying’s family if she agrees to help him. From the moment the bargain is struck, Chang does well detailing the struggles that Ruying faces between claiming lives for the prince, going against her own people, and wanting to hope for the better world Antony promised. Chang thoughtfully tackles some heavy topics in this book including colonization, oppression, and addiction. The plot is slower in pace since there’s so much to set up in this tale particularly in terms of the politics and political machinations at play. There were a lot of pieces this book had to cover as well in terms of setting up the series. The element I loved most was the broad range of characters both in terms of morality and what they would do to achieve their own ends. This involved a lot of thinking about what’s right and what would you do if you were in the characters shoes. Overall, I found the book interesting and plan to read the sequel. Make sure to check trigger warnings before picking up this book, though.

DNF'd at 10%. The sheer amount of info dumping in the first few chapters completely turned me off of this book.
I liked the sprinkling of Chinese mythology, but it was confusing in context with the world-building.

Thank you to NetGalley and publisher for the opportunity to read and review.

This was a super powerful book meant to look through the eyes and experiences of a girl/people who have been invaded and are on the brink of an all-out war that could finish the job for her people. She is of a race of Magic wielders while the Romans who invaded are ruled by science. When the invasion came through the portal the war didn't last years, months, weeks or even days; it was all done in one day. With that kind of power, it just feels like it is only a matter of time before they finish the job. What would you do to protect your family, so they are safe and to put food in their belly. What choices would you make and what lies would you tell yourself and believe in order to live with your choices. What good are you willing to "see" or believe in order to trust in your enemy when he claims he wants to help your people. What would you do to prolong the illusion of peace against those who could wipe you out in a blink of an eye. And what would you do when you are finally forced to confront the truth of the situation and the choices you made?

One of the promotional tropes of this book is that everyone is morally grey, and I think that is so true with this book. In this book everyone is trying to make the best choices they can for the people they care about and have to live with the bad choices they make but that they think will help their people in the end.

I just found this to be a powerful book to read from the eyes of someone who has been invaded and what impossible choices they would make, and it left me to wonder what choices I would make in the same situation.

Was the writing style and everything perfect; no but the effect it left on me really made an impact.

I received an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

2 stars is generous, 1.5 is more accurate because Y I K E S.

Not only is there a colonizer relationship, but it’s literally basically instant love because she goes from hating him to wanting him to kiss her with absolutely no plot in between. Sure, some time passed, but literally nothing indicating their relationship has changed. Just that he’s “not like the rest of them” while actively murdering her people, and having her do the same. Again I say Y I K E S.

Also this book is quite literally the Shatter Me series somehow even less well done. So congratulations, if you’ve read that, you’ve read this one and don’t have to pick it up. At least that series let Juliette and Warner develop a relationship. But the plot, the tropes, the story progression, the motivations—literally a carbon copy of that series. Only real change is her sister in this one is Adam in Shatter Me. And the author of this one provided the historical context.

The book could have also been 100 pages shorter with a lot of repetition removed. There are areas you can skip multiple chapters and not miss anything. I understand the story that was ATTEMPTING to be told here, but between repetition galore slowing the story down, the gross relationship, and lack of truly focused plot, it just didn’t work. Between the extremely problematic romance, the repetitive chapters with no story progression, and the way every other page had writing.
Where the characters.
Talked like this.
For dramatic.
Effect.
Was just way too much and didn't work. Overall, this book just wasn't it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this before publication!

Ruying's people were conquered by people using technology her world had never seen before, defeating her peoples' magic. She was born with the ability to pull life out of mortal bodies but still fears the invaders. The enemy prince discovers what she can do, and wants her to become his private assassin in exchange for her family's comfort. Doing so involves using powers she fears and shortens her own life. Can she trust that this is actually in service of both their worlds? Or is she betraying her country and her family?

Inspired by history, we see the effect of colonization upon the indigenous people of Er-Lang. Ruying's people scramble for scraps amid extreme poverty, addiction, and their own government bending over backward to appease the stronger military might of the Romans, who invaded and used guns against the magic, bows, and arrows of her people. The stronger technology ground the willpower of the ruling class to dust, and surrounding nations left them to it. Ruying has an addicted sister and grandmother to support, leading her to sell off precious belongings their once well-off family used to cherish or to steal. As with any oppressed people, there are collaborators and those who rebel, and the Romans crush rebellions hard. They also use people, land, and resources to their own benefit, and don't care who they ruin to get it. This is the world that Ruying is born into, and the second prince of Rome soon enough gets control of her power, holding her world and her family as collateral for her help, seeing her tendency toward mercy as a weakness. Power and cruelty are the only things that matter to the Roman throne, and Ruying is caught in their web.

While Prince Antony has moments where shows kindness to Ruying, he pushes her to kill and become his assassin. He plans to rule her world peacefully by eliminating opposition to his plans, as he once knew loss and deprivation. But ends will always justify the means for him, and there are plans within plans. Ruying is conflicted due to her love for her country and people, her heritage, and her desire to do right. It's a battle that goes back and forth, as UT had between the two realms for twenty years. My heart went out to Ruying, who wants so badly to believe she's helping in her own way. We all would in her place, and the choices she makes are very understandable. I howled at the end of this book, immediately wanting more. It's a fascinating dynamic, with characters that drew me in immediately, and it will for you, too.

I really wanted to like this book. The premise sounds intriguing, but, unfortunately, there were a few key flaws that I could not overlook.

First, the writing: Much of the point about Ruying’s purpose for helping the Roman prince was repeated ad nauseum, to the point where it not only slowed down the pacing of the book but also eliminated room to explore plot elements that would have been useful. Other aspects, such as how hot Ruying found Antony and how much she trusted him, were also redundant.

Second, the missing plot elements: 1) The world building is missing a lot of key elements, such as the backstory of the magic, how/why their gods were needed to fight to the Qin Dynasty, and more. We get pieces of this, but there are still many unanswered questions. 2) We skip over 6 months of time between when Ruying is captured and when she is knee deep in working for Antony. In that time, the two have formed a bond. Clearly, something changed in those 6 months that led Ruying to trust Antony and buy into his plan. But because we never see how that bond develops or why she becomes convinced of the plan, it’s really hard to understand their relationship.

Third, their relationship: As other reviewers have noted, it is really hard to understand how the two are supposedly in love. Ruying is clearly an unreliable narrator, but without those missing 6 months, it’s hard to understand why she came to trust Antony, let alone started to fall in love with him. Because of that, what we get suggests that it’s more lust than love. It also makes it incredibly difficult to understand how Ruying goes from hating all Romans (rightfully so as the colonizers who are destroying her home and people) to suddenly trusting and falling in love with a prince (literally) of the colonizers. And that’s not even getting into the basics why a colonizer love story is problematic. What’s even more frustrating is this love story wasn’t needed. With a bit more development in the missing 6 months, we could have been given more reason why Ruying started to buy into Antony’s plan and thus why she started to trust him. That alone would have been enough for the reveal at the end of the book to hit just as hard (if not more so) and explain why she went back to hating Antony. Indeed, the sudden love for a colonizer makes it both unsettling and unbelievable. It also made it that much more obvious that a giant betrayal would be revealed.

What’s frustrating is there are elements of a good book here. I saw another reviewer say they wish the book had focused on Baihu and I agree. Or at least, on Baihu’s angle. Instead of a romance, we could have gotten a story of Ruying pretending to trust Antony as a way of working towards undermining his plans. Then the romance as a ploy would have made more sense. The betrayal revealed at the end would have added more fuel to her fire and, revealing her plan to Baihu, would have set up some interesting possibilities for the next book. Sadly, that’s not what we got and I’m not even interested in finding out what happens next.

A few pages into To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods and it felt very similar to RF Kuang’s Poppy Wars trilogy. The stories are both based on the same historic events and the types of power, use of opium and invasion by a Western civilization and its technology. It was hard to read this book and not compare it to Poppy Wars.

I thought Ruying could have been a stronger character. Her power is death. But when she is forced to use it, she falls for the person making her kill.

I didn’t really understand how the Romans were able to invade this. Overall, I didn’t love the writing.

I received an ARC copy of this book from Balentine Books in exchange for my honest review.

I admittedly didn't finish this book. I only made it about 20% through before deciding that this just wasn't for me.
I really wanted to enjoy this one because the synopsis sounded so interesting. And I also want to support the author. I don't think she deserves all the hate she got.
I'm not the biggest fantasy reader so I found the world-building a bit too convoluting and confusing. But I can see how big fantasy readers would enjoy this

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was a book that mostly lived up to my expectations. The plot was engaging and compelling, though there were some aspects I had mixed feelings about. The characters were complex and morally grey, for the most part. The writing was amazing, but it had some pacing issues. It’s a great novel, it sets up the series’ very well, and tells an important, and intriguing story.

Thank you to Ballantine and NetGalley for providing me with this ARC.

Littered with poor sentence structure and several typos, To Gaze Upon Wickes Gods is a novel of wasted potential and abysmal writing on a technical level.

Where to start? Ruying begins the novel speaking of her hatred for Romans. They're all vile colonizers. None of them have any respect for humanity, they treat her people like dirt, etc etc. In fact she believes this so strongly that pages on pages are endlessly dedicated to expressing this sentiment. Which, of course, makes what follows so unbelievably stupid!

So persistent was this D-1 yapping that I found myself forgetting the main characters name for the first 50 pages. All I knew was that Romans were bad and her sister was an Opian user. We're introduced to Baihu and automatically I was wishing he was the main character.

I digress. She steals a Roman's money, only to find out is the prince of Rome. She's saved by Taohua, also a better candidate for MC. All of this eventually leads to her being captured, blah blah blah, here's where it gets extra dumb.

Ruying starts to fall in love with her colonizer!!! Yep!! Wow!!!! This is Stockholm Syndrome on a level never seen before.

Antony is the biggest piece of shit ever. Zero redeemable qualities. He's honestly a master gaslighter.

Watching this "romance" develop made me sick, angry, and ready to snap. And watching Ruying throw away all of her morals and love for her people to be his pet? Nothing has ever pissed me off so bad in a book.

Additionally, as mentioned in the first paragraphs, there are a handful of typos. Here are the ones that caught my attention the most:

1. Page 45, "The last time I saw hadn't seen Taohua since the New Year, more than six moons earlier."

2. "Creations of science that Rome didn't want us to existed"

3. Chapter 43's number title card thingy spells Antony's name like Anthony.

Before I write the last paragraph, let me be nice. I found the fact that her people are called "Pangulins" very cute. The sentences of Chinese sprinkled throughout were also a good touch. Okay, thats where it ends.

TL;DR: Horribly written colonizer romance with an insufferable MC. Wasted a pretty interesting world on the worst 305 pages I've read in a very long time.

I truly enjoyed the world building and the underlying themes throughout. Knowing this was based on past events, the atrocities presented landed more of an impact. Some of the phrases used are repetitive and Ruyings thought process for important decisions, was also quite repetitive from one to the next. Overall I did enjoy the story and the plot. Excited to see what is next in this series.

Title: To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods
Author: Molly X. Chang
Page Count: 368 pages
Time Length: N/A
Dates Read: 4/1_4/6
Format:E-book
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Review: This is an Arc supplied from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Ruying is the main character in a world where Pangu has magic and Rome has science. Science is taking over the magic and controlling the people with weapons and opian.

Ruying magic is deaths magic that shaves time off of her life with each use. I love her character. She is strong-willed and sticks to what is right. She never falters from her goal to keep her family safe.

I felt the story was quite repetitive at times. The same things were mentioned way too often. The story was quite informative and you understood why things were the way they were. The world building was good. The twists and turns of who to believe and trust kept me reading.

This will be a reread for me. I need book two now!

TW: drug abuse, physical abuse mentioned, addiction, murder


Quote: "They said demons were from hell, but none of us could have guessed that hell opened from the skies above"

When I requested this book I didn't realize the huge amount of issues that would come along with it. Besides personally not agreeing with the content, I also am not interested in supporting any part of this.

Thank you Netgalley and Publisher for this Arc.

2.8 / 5.0

This book had great promise but did not deliver. The world building could have been better conceived with more originality. It could still be inspired by real history without using “Rome” as the colonial invader. There was a lot of disconnect between the real and fantastical, the magic system being one of them. This could be seen past if the characters were the main drivers of the plot but that wasn’t it either. They’re unlikeable in a poorly written way, which I don’t believe was intentionally done.

Overall, it was a slog to get through and I won’t be investing in this series. Not the worst debut but not the hype it received either.

Until Next Time,
MC

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for access to this ARC for review.

This book takes place in an alternate universe where some people are born with magic. Their Chinese-inspired world has been invaded and essentially conquered by Romans from another realm, masters of science and military warfare. The protagonist struggles with her powers of death and the oppression from the Romans, but is recruited by the Roman Prince Antony to be his assassin.

I was immediately hooked by the title and was interested in reading a Manchurian-inspired fantasy. The book started out strong, with good description of the harsh realities of colonization from the Roman Empire. The writing is very flowery. I liked how the author inserted sayings in Chinese text that the characters would use to describe a situation. The book was about 300 pages and read more like YA, so there could be crossover appeal. It does cover dark subjects like addiction, slavery, genocide, and torture. It's a quick read; I read the book in two sittings.

The author set up how bad things are under Roman occupation, that once we started getting to know Prince Antony and see Ruying working for him, the reader has no inclination to trust him and it seems dubious that Ruying would believe anything he tells her. She seems stupid for falling for his lies. The writing is a bit more "romantasy" than perhaps intended; a good portion of the book is Ruying thinking about how hot the prince is. Ruying's friends and family are only brought in for dramatic tension; I didn't feel a great bond between them even though Ruying is working to keep them safe throughout the book. There is a time-jump about halfway through the book that I wish had been fleshed out more. We went straight from Antony making Ruying murder people against her will to them cuddling after each assassination within pages.

If you are into dark romance, this book might be for you because the Romans do some terrible things and it is a colonizer romance, although it is unknown if they will end up together by the end of the series.

Disclaimer: I received a free advanced reader copy of this book from NetGalley.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods.

Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems with this book. The world building was lacking... which would have been fine if I liked the characters...but nope. I think I struggled to understand the concept of the portals and different planets thing. It didn't seem to fit the world and it was a bit jarring whenever they mentioned something randomly sci fi. I think part of that was the use of "Rome". Thinking of Rome puts an idea into my head right away that didn't work with the sci fi element of this book. I think the author could have made up a name and it would have made that aspect like 30% easier to grasp.

I couldn't stand the main character. Ruying has these wicked awesome powers. But is portrayed as weak and naive the entire book. I couldn't stand listening to her make excuses for Antony the ENTIRE time. It was like "oh, he's committing war crimes but he's kind of mysterious...". It was nauseating. He threatens to kill her family, has a bracelet on her that shocks her and steals her powers, and is experimenting on her people. But, he's the lesser of the evils so it's okay? ish? He talks about peace and has pretty eyes. Gag. She also spends the first chapters talking about how much of a traitor Baihu is and then becomes a total hypocrite (literally assassinating her own people) and still thinks she is better than him because she is (in her head in some screwed up way) doing it for her family's future.

We're supposed to think she cares for her family so deeply and the author really tries to make us think she cares, but then she does the exact opposite of what would help at every turn. She defends the colonizer over her sister (who we are supposed to believe that she would do anything for). She is incapable of making decisions without someone else's input and she is swayed by whoever she talked to last. She goes so long on empty promises without ever standing up for herself or asking the hard questions.

I feel like a lot of issues with this book were in the marketing for me. If the book was not marketed as romance, I think it would have gained a star. I'm also struggling with whether I think this should be YA or not. It had a lot of adult content from psychological manipulation to straight up genocide. The author does manage to keep dozens of assassinations off page (maybe because it's YA?) but honestly, I think that would have added a little excitement to the book and some more depth to Ruying's character. It feels like it is trying to be YA in some parts and adult in others.

Overall, I think this book should have cut the "romance" thing out and just gone for fantasy. I would have liked more depth to the characters especially Ruying's family and Antony's family. I would have liked to hear more about Ruying and Baihu's childhood together. I think the author should have made more clear choices in what they were trying to portray. And I think the sci fi element could have been cut entirely. Why do we need portals at all?

I see that the next book is titled "To Kill a Monstrous Prince" so that gives me some hope. I think there might be a chance for redemption if the main character can grow a backbone. But I'm worried that it will be a lot of Ruying going back and forth over whether he deserves to be punished for his crimes when everyone in her life says yes, he should. And I am really worried that his "love" for Ruying is going to result in some Antony "changing for her" plot line where we are supposed to forgive him because he's realized what he did is wrong or something.

2 stars.

Genre: fantasy
Rating: 2⭐
Diversity: Asian representation
Trigger Warnings: colonization, war, addiction, death

This was one of the books I was most excited to read, however, I was very disappointed. The cover is gorgeous and the author's note, in the beginning, explaining her inspiration for the book was compelling and made me excited for the book. I REALLY, REALLY, REALLY wanted to like this book.

What I did love about the book was the magic system and the conflict is based off other civilization from another world through a portal. The writing was descriptive and beautiful.

What fell flat for me was:
- the colonial civilization was called Rome but they were modern with technology and clothing. Everything else is made up in the book with inspirations to Chinese civilizations or modern life. This may have been intentional for the author, so the reader can contextualize something familiar. It just didn't work for me.
- The FMC Ruying is not believable and unlikeable. I can chalk it up to being an unreliable narrator but I don't think it fits. Some of her actions and thought processes were inconsistent. For example, she was taught many things to survive and be politically savvy, but none of that shows. With all the references to what she was taught by her grandmother, I expected some Margaery Tyrell behavior and we did not get that.
- There were many repetitive phrases and thoughts by Ruying throughout the book that felt like the author was beating a dead horse. This might be something this debut author will work out as she grows in her writing.

This book is part of a series. I like the premise of the book and I think the themes of the story are important to share. I hope the author finds her stride in the rest of the books of this series. I wouldn't recommend this book as I found this wasn't an enjoyable read. If it wasn't a debut author, I would have DNF'd it. I pushed through hoping the climax and ending would be redeeming.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

First off, thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC! As a lover of Asian fantasies, I was happy to get a hold of this.

I think this was a very ambitious debut and a solid start to a series. I have to admit that I was affected by the previous marketing, but I went into it with an open mind as I figured out the flow of the story.

Starting with Ruying, I did not mind her as a main character, and although frustrating, I thought her being so headstrong in her ways was a given seeing the situation she was placed in. She plays the role of an unreliable narrator, so although as a reader, you're opposing everything she thinks and does, you have to go along with it. And to me, that was fine, everything was going to fall into place in due time.

I did find it a bit irritating that Antony would commit many crimes including the killing tasks that he gave her many times, but she drew the line at him experimenting on people which involved her childhood friend Taohua. Her seeing someone she knew being subjected to these horrors was the final straw, but also it was the fact that Antony betrayed her trust. With Meiya and Baihu in her ear telling her that he was not a good person and even worse than his brother, I held on to hope that she would understand.

As someone who despises the colonizer (as we all should), I never thought that Antony was 'one of the good ones' so every scene that he was in, I was not having a good time. Whenever he and Ruying would be soft with one another, I had to place the book down and take a break because it was a lot for me.

But I was so positive that the colonizer romance would be over soon because of Baihu's existence. I believed that the author would not portray him in such a way or mention specific details about him if he wasn't supposed to be the main guy, so I was relieved. His whole position with the Phantom, Ghosts, and being a spy was an aspect that I enjoyed.

Moving onto the technical aspects, I think the earlier parts of the book did more telling than showing. Since this world is filled with magic and science, I think that it would have painted a more vivid picture if it had been a bit more descriptive and tapped into the feelings of Ruying and how she responded to her environments. Especially since the book is told in first person POV.

I thought the idea of magic vs. science was very interesting as well. I think the details of magic and its origins are still in a gray area as the characters with magic didn't grow up with the ability to properly nurture it, but I'm curious to see where this goes now that Ruying has freed herself from Rome and has joined the Phantom.

All in all, I am wondering where the next two books will take the story and how this major shift in the main character's motives will spark that change.