DNF’ing ~50%
There’s a lot of discourse about the morality of this book, but I’m not going to weigh in much because I have enough to say about the book on a craft level. In short, my take is: there is a tendency for folks online to expect all media to be morally perfect and that’s goofy. It’s also a reasonable to not want to read a book with a romantic lead who performs atrocities based on real historical events. Again, I didn’t finish it, so I can’t really comment on the fallout of the relationship or where it goes from here, but even if the story resolves in a very thoughtful and interesting way, I just can’t get past the world building.
First issue: magic vs. science. The Romans have science, Pangu has magic (sort of)- but it seems like what counts as each is very squishy- sky portal? Science. The narrative just kind of makes science ‘bad’ which annoyed me, too, because a lot of interesting stuff that can be said about the nuanced role of science in colonialism (e.g., Babel does this in presenting silver-working- it’s a tool wielded by the colonizing force but reliant on the skill of the colonized and the tension within fuels parts of the conflict), but I felt like the hard line between magic and science here made the book miss out on all that. Also, on the topic of science, because Chang is open about Pangu pulling from Chinese history and mythology- robbing China of its rich scientific history just pissed me off. (Gunpowder???? The book gives inventing that to the Romans???) The use of opium is clearly parallel to aspects of the Opium Wars and British colonization attempts, but Pangu only has bow and arrows. Instead of creating a full fantasy world (e.g. The Spear Cuts Through Water) or putting fantasy elements into the real world (e.g. Babel), this book tries to do both at various times. This can be done well (e.g. The Shades of Magic trilogy) and this sort of inconsistency doesn’t bother me in fluffier or firmly character driven works, but To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is trying to be an epic fantasy and those need solid world building to keep the reader from feeling unmoored.
Finally, why are they the Romans? Why?? They’re not the Ancient Romans, but they sort of are, based on names and aesthetics, but also they came through a portal, so they’re extra dimensional? Aliens? I love some false gods in a fantasy story, I love some mystery, but why are they called the Romans? Again, this engages the history part of my brain and I want to know how this society is connected to the Rome we know about, but the story is more interested in the romance and repeating the same ideas about Ruying’s power over and over. I’ve been having more issues recently with books seeming like they needed another editing pass and I do wonder if the pace of the publishing cycle right now has been hurting authors (and readers) with the attention to editing.
TLDR; messy world building and repetitive writing focused on a romance that, even with morality put to the side, I found uninteresting.
Instead, I’m going to pop in a little recommendation for The Space Between Worlds as a book that delivered the sort of morally complex main character who makes bad decisions because she’s put in tough places that I was hoping for here (down to the messy romantic history with a terrible man!) It’s SF with fun world building and interesting commentary about the exploitative nature of the modern tech landscape but also some Mad-Max-esque road warriors and some classic self-destructive sapphic pining.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an eArc of the book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I picked this title for my store's book club before I ever read it because it sounded and looked good, I only got the arc for it later.
And now that I have finished it? I am so very glad I picked this title. It was a gamble, but it worked out and I hope everyone in the book club ends up liking it as much as I did.
The book is very political, something I don't always enjoy. But the way the author presented it was unique and kept me engaged. To pit magic against science might not be a new idea, but the way presented here felt that way. The characters felt real. No one is always good or always bad. The way the author presented Anthony, Ruying, her sister, and Baihu made them feel realistic and approachable, I would say they are all morally gray characters. All doing what they believe to be the right thing. I am interested to know where the story goes from here and I hope the author doesn't simply turn on Anthony on the next book. He is not a good man, but Ruying has chosen to close an eye and kill many, she is not good either. They are all in a way, being selfish.

My only criticism would be the 6 or so month skip in Ruying's life. It left a big hole in the story. Somewhat and somehow during those 6 months she develops a bond with her captor? It's odd.

Thank you & credits to NetGalley & Random House Publishing for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review of the book. I would like to note that no outside influences have impacted my review of this book and is rooted within my thoughts of the book and those alone.
--------
Before I get started, I want to say that this book is not at all what I expected. Looking at the cover, I assumed it would be a whimsical romance about a powerful fmc who uses her powers to combat the evil overtaking her country-- it definitely was not that. This book was much heavier than I expected, which was revealed early on in the author's note (which was a nice heads-up). I also was expecting to initially be introduced to our promised friends-to-lovers trope, which we... were not.

The world-building and the introduction of the characters, though it felt rough in some areas, was overall a very smooth execution. It didn't feel like we were being fed too much world-building at once. The inclusion of various elements of Chinese folklore (though in some areas became a bit repetitive), felt enriching and refreshing to the experience.

Ruying, our main character, is a young girl forced to grow up far too soon in order to protect her family and care for her loved ones. She wields the power of death at her fingers, a taboo magic that comes with a hefty price, making it something Ruying only uses in extreme emergencies. She makes deals with shady people, who have also been forced to become something they never wished to be, in the face of the destruction and colonization of their country.

With this book, the author successfully creates for readers the experience of a morally grey, unreliable narrator who consistently makes bad decisions in the face of hard decisions and even more difficult situations. From the very first moment, we see Ruying is not righteous, is not a person who sees things in black and white. That's clear from the very first moment at the very beginning of the book, where she steals from the Romans. As readers are led deeper into Ruying's psyche and the story develops, her morals appear to become even more unclear.

This book has potential, that's for sure.

Some things I didn't like:
This book has so much potential that it kind of hurts to rate it so low. The premise was wonderful, a magical, powerful girl fighting against the colonization and devastation of her people, and making a deal with a bad man to save her family? Sign me up.

But then things went wrong. Despite the wonderful ideas, I just could not get behind the writing style, so much that finishing this book was a struggle. I think another reviewer has already mentioned this, but the over-use of sentence fragments made this book pass at a snail's pace. And the use of "Rome" as the name of a kingdom in a fantasy novel? Yeah...

Not to mention, it felt like there were constant contradictions everywhere, even from sentence to sentence. Ruying is initially described as earth-shatteringly powerful, but at a steep, steep cost. Someone who would do anything to fiercely defend her people. But in the next second, she's helpless (which I get, because she's one girl that cannot single-handedly stand up to the overpowering military forces and technology of an invading group), cannot act out, and must do the bidding of Anthony while he actively harms her people??? It's a rough situation, I get that, but it just seems over the top. That immediately stood out to me at the beginning of the book. And then with the other contradictions, and it just felt like it hadn't been edited properly (which, seeing as this is an ARC, will hopefully be rectified!!!).

This doesn't even go into the biggest issue with the book, how we're led to believe Ruying is going to fall in love/end up with a horrible person who literally tortured her, blackmailed her, and is actively terrorizing her people. This book was marketed as being "friends to lovers" so I'm going to go ahead and assume that he isn't the final love interest, but that still doesn't alleviate the things he's done? There are so many young impressionable people that are going to read this book and romanticize their relationship, even if it isn't going to end up as cannon. I definitely couldn't really get behind that. But ignoring the giant well of the horrible things this man has done, can we talk about how useless he is as a potential partner anyways? This man has not a single protective or caring instinct in his body. Everything was clearly because of his intent to use and manipulate her.

Oh, and also: Was anyone else getting like occasional vague flashbacks to The Poppy War?

First of all, I’d like to thank Del Rey and Netgalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a faster paced and entertaining debut, a read that packs a decent amount of action into less than 400 pages. Our main character goes through challenging and grueling circumstances under the tyranny of an occupying regime. She must reconcile what she knew vs what she learns along her journey; and how helping out those you love while staying loyal to family and country under the yoke of an tyrannical occupier looks very different on both sides, and both perspectives. Lastly she quickly learns that not everything is as cut and dry and the MC originally thought; that every action has both consequences can you can try to plan for, and ones that take you completely by surprise.

Those are a few of the many themes the author tackles in this book among others that you’ll discover as you read, in my opinion they were handled well while adding to the story by providing additional insight or history without detracting from the plot or resorting to an info dump. Overall this was a fairly strong debut and earns a 4/5 from me.

They say never judge a book by its cover, but that was the first aspect that drew me in! You can feel all the idealism, strength, and pain detailed throughout the story. This complex read will have you questioning historical relationships and the quality of life. Ruying’s magic pushes her to be sometimes rash and quick to make ill-advised decisions. The world jumping was a bit hard to follow. Enemies to lovers is the way to go though I felt Ruying deserved better than falling the way she did. The ending!? I look forward to the second installment of Molly's work!

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is ultimately a mismatch of intent versus impact. I was looking forward to a China-inspired fantasy world with a strong-willed female main character. I was left disappointed with the overall reading experience in this book, but am hopeful for better additions to the series to come.

Ruying, a girl blessed with the power of death, must make impossible choices to protect herself and her family as she watches the world she loves descend into chaos. Years ago, Romans from another world came from a portal in the sky to colonize a fresh planet. The world of Pangu has not been the same. When Ruying is taken captive, she must decide between fighting and dying for her people or becoming a weapon for the enemy to protect those she loves most.

Even before reading this e-arc, there was a mismatch in the intention behind some of the marketing decisions and the impact they created on the reading experience. Originally, this was marketed as childhood-best-friends-to-lovers. Then it was marketed as enemies-to-lovers. I believe the former is representative of where the series is heading, but the latter is much more representative of the individual book's romance arc. Even still, there are issues with labeling this as an enemies-to-lovers romance at all. The relationship displayed has abuse, blackmail, and a colonizer/oppressed dynamic. I had hope that the story would become a commentary on these abhorrent aspects, but the attempt to do so near the end felt like too little too late to make an impact. I was already uncomfortable and put off by the overall dynamic.

There was a mismatch with the intention laid out plainly in the author's note and the impact of the theme written on the page. Taking inspiration from Unit 731 - a trauma experienced by the author's own family and ancestors - set this up to have strong anti-war, anti-colonialism, and anti-oppression themes. But by introducing the romantic arc with the oppressor, the author negated the intended impact. Instead of focusing on the atrocities committed by Rome and their modern day counterparts, I was left confused by the self- and community-deprecating monologues and actions of Ruying.

There are also glaring craft issues in this novel that did exacerbate the issues above. A few of these include: poor pacing, weak scene transitions, infodumping, excessive internal character monologues, overuse of incorrect sentence structure for stylistic impact (Think. Sentences. Like this. Over. And over.), and heavy repetition to state themes.

The majority of the book is incredibly slow. Painfully slow, even. The story does not pick up and become interesting until about 75% of the way through. The last quarter of the book is very promising and gives me hope for better additions to the series that carry the intended thematic impact the author has presented. However, this book on its own has too many issues for me to recommend it.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

**Many spoilers ahead:

I honestly had to push myself to finish this one. I think (hope) that the author just didn't do a great job of getting her point across and/or the theme will be developed more in the next book, but overall the theme of this book seemed to be pro-colonialism, which is a weird choice. The main character very easily decided to become a traitor and work as an assassin for the group of people that are oppressing her country? world? (I honestly don't know what to call it because there is zero world-building, but I'll get to that later). Then at every instance of her friends/family being like "yo, these are the bad guys. You aren't protecting us, we would rather die than on the side of the oppressors," Ruying is like "lol okay, but I'm going to keep making the absolute worst decisions because my captor is cute." I kept hoping that we were just waiting on Ru having her epiphany, but that never really happened. We started to get there towards the end and MAYBE it'll happen in book two, but who knows and I'm no longer hopeful.

Back to the world building, there is none. It took me until halfway through the book to figure out that Rome is a different planet than Pangu. They would off-handedly talk about "on the other side of the veil" but didn't give any descriptions as to what that means. The reader is kind of left to just figure it out. Rome is supposed to be a more scientifically advanced world that doesn't have magic and ruined their own planet through climate change and are now trying to exploit Pangu for its resources. Rome being "scientifically advanced" is incredibly vague. They never say what advancements they have except for basic technology (guns, ships, etc.). Whenever it is referenced, it's simply called "science". "How are we supposed to beat them when they have science?" "Rome will use the power of science to take over our world." What do you mean?? I desperately needed more background information.

As for the characters, Ruying was naive and so stupid that it was unbelievable and annoying. The prince literally kidnaps her, locks her in a cell, blackmails her, threatens to kill everyone she loves, suppresses her magic, electrocutes and tortures her, and she's still going mushy over him because he's cute?? She'll literally be talking about all these awful things he's doing and saying and then end it with something along the lines of "but his eyes softened when he looked at me." Okay, so?? This is not a morally grey man, this is literally your oppressor. Then their romance developed in the weirdest way possible. The book is pretty much completely Ru monologuing, but there isn't really development of the romance from Antony's side at all (not that I wanted there to be, trust me I hated that this was even an aspect to this book). He's literally her oppressor and doesn't do anything to seem like he's actually a nice guy, except for give her a hug after he MAKES HER MURDER PEOPLE and she swoons. Be so fucking for real. It's bizarre and gives off middle school girl thinking her history teacher is in love with her or some shit. The entire romance aspect was so cringey and gross. Ru is so smitten by this prince that she turns her back on her family and friends (who are the only reasons she's supposedly doing this anyway?) and sells out her own people. Her childhood best friend (Baihu) comes and tells her that he's a spy, tells her how horrible the prince is, and shows her actual evidence of his evil-doings and she literally tells him that she doesn't care. The book starts with her hating Baihu for being a traitor but now she's the actual traitor and is totally fine with it?

Another horribly problematic portion of this book is the connection to Unit 731. The author mentions Unit 731 in her letter at the beginning of the book and how it is connected to her family. Unit 731 is a real historical event of tortuous human experiments. When this gets revealed in the book, it's made obvious that Prince Antony is the one in charge of this and has been doing these experiments for years, including on Ru's very good friend (who Ru watches die from these experiments, by the way). This book, which is marketed as an enemies to lovers romance, has the romance they want us to root for between an oppressed person and the oppressor that is carrying out these experiments on her people. That is so deeply problematic and disgusting. Again, Antony is not morally grey, he's straight up a bad man. It would be one thing if this book was being marketed as an abusive relationship or made it obvious in any way that this is not a good dynamic, but no, it's romanticized and wants the reader to root for this very disturbing couple. Colonizer romances in 2024 is insane.

I could go on for much longer, but I think my main points are made. Obviously I don't recommend this book.

This was one of my highly anticipated reads for 2024. The cover is absolutely stunning! I’m usually drawn to book covers, and I couldn’t resist this one. Unfortunately, I feel a bit underwhelmed.

I found the world-building in this book to be quite confusing. New elements are primarily introduced through Ruying’s inner monologue which felt very prescriptive. As a reader, we are being told things vs. shown.

The pacing felt off with lots of pauses to explain external factors contributing to the current scene.

Even though Ruying narrates this story, I still feel like I don’t even know her? The writing is so flowery and repetitive that I consistently lost focus. As a result, I failed to connect with her at all.

While there were some redeeming qualities, I don’t see myself continuing the series.
My rating: 2.5⭐️

I extend my sincere thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey Books for providing me with a digital review copy.

Firstly, a HUGE thank you NetGalley for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my very first ARC and I was SO excited to read it! As an Asian American, science nerd, and avid bookworm, I was insanely hyped when I was approved for this. The novel is an amazing concept– a war between scientific advancement and Asian culture and history. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a colonizer v. colonized, oppressor v. oppressed, novel. These heavy topics and intricately nuanced conversations must be approached with caution and reverence in writing.

Which, unfortunately, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods did not do.

The romance between the two MCs felt rushed and underdeveloped (nonexistent). Which, when taking into consideration the undercurrent of colonialism, made me pretty uncomfortable to read.

As a whole, I felt that the novel was underwhelming and difficult for me to read. I really really REALLY wanted to love this one, but

1) romanticized colonialism?
2) the world building left a little to be desired (what is “Rome”? Is it the same as our Rome? What kind of “science” do they have?)
3) The Prose. Was. Very.
Dramatic.
At times.
4) I really hate when authors use modern slang or pop culture references in fantasy novels. :(

I think one of the most uncomfortable aspect of this book for me was the depiction of Unit 731– a REAL LIFE EVENT– being utilized as plot development and characterization. I personally feel like there are lines we should not cross (even as authors and readers), and using true horrific deaths to push the plot of your fantasy world is one of them.

While the novel and universe had a TON of potential, I was ultimately left uncomfortable with the dynamic, actions, and the prose was (at times) borderline purple. Finally, I think the ‘relationship’ between our MCs should be marketed as a DARK romance, not a typical fantasy/romantasy relationship.

A very sad and disappointed 1/5 stars. :( Really wanted to like this one.

Thank you netgalley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

I really hoped that this would be the next fantasy romance. But it felt underwhelming. I was dying to read it. It didn't pain me to put down, which is when I know a fantasy romance is IT. The writing didn't wow me, the characters didn't wow me, and the romance definitely didn't wow me. I feel quite sad that it didn't live up to my excitement. Was it bad? No. But it wasn't incredible or great.

3/5 ⭐

What an engrossing read! The main character's moral struggles in the tumult of war and peace felt so real, even if I found myself struggling to root for her at times. Plus, the pacing was spot-on, keeping me hooked from start to finish. While the world-building was so very unique and fun, I found myself craving even more vivid descriptions. I enjoyed the magic system, and really appreciated the prose. I’m buzzing with excitement for what’s next from this author! Thank you for the opportunity to read it!

When you pick up a debut novel, you never really know what to expect outside of the promise of the premise in the synopsis and perhaps the different details included in the book’s marketing and publicity push. Such was the case with To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods – my initial interest had been piqued by the deal announcement; and though the premise sounded like it had the usual fantasy touchstones, I was curious to see what unique flavor the author would bring to the table. Unfortunately though, this novel ended up not being to my particular individual tastes.

On the positive side, it’s the potential that stands out. There are some interesting ideas here: an alternate world where the Roman Empire never fell, where science made it possible to rip a portal into the sky to access the magical empire of Pangu (basically China, especially given the author’s note that’s included at the start), where the conflict is between the science and magic, the colonizers and the colonized. The writing was also quite readable; it read faster than I anticipated it would, likely added by the fact that most of the chapters were on the shorter side.

But otherwise, this book just didn’t really leave a strong impression. The worldbuilding felt underdeveloped (despite the potential I already mentioned); it was almost as if readers were expected to already know the details after just one chapter establishing the basics. The plot was almost standard fantasy fare; I’ve read shades of this story in other books before and this one didn’t have enough to make it feel unique. The characters didn’t feel fully fleshed out, and came across more like caricatures of their roles (and I want to make it clear though, that I had no problem with them being unlikable, making bad decisions, etc; that doesn’t typically bug me). It ended up being a combination of so many underwhelming elements and that’s why it’s just an okay read for me.

Since I’ve finished the book, I’ve seen conversations about the historical events it takes its inspiration from and the romance. I can’t speak to the former, as someone who isn’t knowledgeable about that part of history. But as for the latter, the romance, I will say that: 1) the story only really starts having the romantic inner monologues and characters actions after the halfway point, 2) none of it felt like developed enough (characters or their relationship) so I didn’t buy the chemistry or the relationship was even legitimately happening and 3) it was pretty obvious to me where it was going to be by the end for the pairing in question. So, I wasn’t a fan of it either, to be honest.

TL;DR – To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is another new release that didn’t live up to my expectations; the lack of any elements to really hook me means that it’s not going to be particularly memorable after a little time has passed. While I don’t intend to pick up the sequel or any other books in the series, the author does have potential to write something in the future that might work for me, so I’ll be keeping them on my radar.

Ruying Yang believes her magical gift of Death is a curse and will anything to not use it. Her world is surrounded by Rome and the fragile peace they are living in. One day Ruying steal coin purse from a Roman to help her family. Little did she know that she would be turning her world upside down. Now Antony Augustus controls Ruying's life and magic for a better world. Ruying's not sure she believes him but what can she do about it. Will Ruying change the world for the better or not? Find out in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods.

This was one of my most anticipated 2024 releases. Sadly, it didn’t live up to the hype I had built up around it. I do look forward to more of this authors work however.

Special thanks to netgalley for providing me with an advance copy of the book

So, I've been hyped about this book since I learned of it last December. I'm not going to address the Drama surrounding the book or go into detail about what type of romances I think people should read because that isn't my job and I trust you can make your own decisions.

I rated it 3 stars but i would probably give it closer to 2.5 if goodreads allowed that sort of thing and here's why. (Spoilers ahead if that wasnt clear).

1.) I know that this is a debut so the author cant be expect to have hit their stride as far as voice/style goes but every idea was repeated several times. And, hell, the sentence structure. It's very much giving bad tiktok poetry. Paragraph breaks after a couple words. Short sentences. For impact. Makings things seem deep.
Deeper than they actually are.
As if it is more thought-provoking.
To.
Space out.
Your words.

2.) The author uses a lot of phrases that have been used in social media justice campaigns that in context feel cheap ("be on the right side of history" and "history is written by the victors"). I feel like i know what the author wanted the reader to get from these phrases being used, but in all her monologuing Ruying lacked the nuance to convey why these phrases and the way she used them were... not right.

3.) A good portion of the book was Ruying's inner dialogue about her wanting to do anything she could to protect her family even if it meant killing people. That's being generous even. More accurately, every page she waxed poetic about how much she was sacrificing of her own morals for her family. Which. Fine, whatever. But it got old, fast.

4.) Because a good portion of the book was spent beating readers over the head about Ruying's motivations, not a lot of it was spent on worldbuilding. And what was there just felt... lazy. Like the other country/world the princes come from is called Rome. (Is it what the world is called? Or just the country they come from on the other world? No one knows). The have hellicopters and "science" but fucked if I know what the science actually means. Vaccines? Smartphones?

5.) but.... the romance? not even touching on the colonizer aspect (which if i hadnt received it from netgalley before i learned of this i wouldnt have read it bc ik i am not interested in those but alas ... i tried to remain neutral ) -- there was just absolutely nothing to even suggest they should have these feelings for each other? They meet after he kidnaps her, locks her in a cage for a week, and makes her use her powers to (almost) kill some kid. And then he blackmails her into killing MORE people for his...*checks notes* .... bid for world domination? And, due to the time skip and Ruying creepily watching her family from afar, that's basically all the one on one we get with those two. Ruying spends a lot of time going on about reasons why he is bad and shouldn't be trusted but, aside from a few kind words and some (unkept) promises.... they don't interact on page enough for me to see any chemistry? It's so flat and uninspired. She is monologing about how many people she has killed for Rome, expressing how she doesn't think they're all necessary for his plans to rule and maybe could actually be working against what he said his intent as ruler was. And then suddenly she's in love with him? I hate the "show not tell" cliche but i feel like it would have come in handy here. In fact, the way she defends him and straight up says she "doesn't care" that Antony is commiting genocide against her people crosses the line from morally gray fmc to just... evil. I felt sick reading some parts. The romance is unbelievable and actually disgusting.

6.) The thing that makes her believe Antony is bad isnt her childhood friend (who she admitted to having feelings for before he "betrayed pangu" by working with the Princes from Rome (GIRL.)) telling her straight up that Antony is a bad guy and doing exactly what she has been trying to convince herself he has been doing for the last six months (this was the time skip and we never really saw her training as or being an assassin) No. It's her childhood friend (who is a spy btw and isnt actually working FOR rome) taking her to see where Antony is ACTIVELY experimenting on kidnapped people where she watches her other childhood friend die a horrific needless death. She was all for Antony commiting genocide until he broke his promise and didnt spare her BFF from being murdered. Ruying was so selfish and willfully ignorant through the ENTIRE book it made me sick. Absolutely i wanted to hurl.

7.) "With great power comes great responsibility" - Ruying's grandmother.

Honestly this isn't even all I took issue with, but it's all I have the energy for. I know the tone of the end probably suggests that Ruying will turn on Antony and kill him but i don't think this can be redeemed for me.

"History is a melody sung by the victors. Truths and lies are what I make of these chords."

Ruying is blessed by Death and the ability to kill silently, but powerless against the conquerors and their science that came through a portal in the sky. All she wants is to spend her days caring for her opium addicted sister and her elderly grandma. But when she's captured for her gift, the prince of Rome offers her a bargain - kill for him and he'll work with his war hungry grandfather to broker peace between their worlds. Peace is all she's wanted - but it comes at the cost of her own soul and life - as he wants her to kill her own people.

Antony claims he wants to save them, but Ruying is truly an unreliable narrator. I think it would be easy to write her off as selling out to colonization but she's in an extremely unstable and unsafe position with Antony, and he's able to gaslight her into truly believing in him. Which is where I think the true brilliance of this novel comes in - with her slowly seeing the cracks in his world and coming to her conclusions of the truth.

I truly don't know how to rate a book like this because on one hand I just want to SHAKE the MC and say "CAN'T YOU SEE THAT HE'S USING YOU"?? but I also admire the author and her ability to write SUCH A realistic perspective on what stockholm syndrome looks like.

It's giving Darkling x Alina in the worst and best of ways. These two are mirrors of each other - each wanting to use and control powerful women for their own power. You can clearly see that Ruying hates him by the end, with both eyes open, and I'm eager to see how she takes him down in book 2.

rep// Asian MC

cw// drugs, death, murder, guns, opium, torture

Thank you to the publisher for sending me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Del Rey for this ARC for review!

I requested this ARC a few months ago because the cover is stunning and premise intrigued me, and then a huge wave of drama covered my social media surrounding this book. In general, I try not to read too many reviews before I give my own, but given the context I did read many of the very mixed reviews before I began this book. I wavered on if I wanted to read it still and if I wanted to review it and even be a small drop in the ocean of people talking about this, and eventually came to the decision that I would read at least 20-30% and DNF if I wasn’t enjoying it. Once I made it to 20% I quickly finished it in a couple of days! Needless to say I was completely enthralled with the story and dying to know what happened next.

One of the more intriguing aspects of the novel for me was the magic system, I love the idea of twins that are blessed (or cursed!) with powers of life and death. I wish that Ruying’s sister Meiya’s gift was shown more, but I’m expecting that she will be more involved in the sequel and very much looking forward to that! In general, I wished for more inclusion of the other Xianlings powers but I found Ruying’s internal struggle with being grateful for the protection of her gift and feeling cursed by the constant temptation of Death very interesting.

Ruying is such a complicated character and I wanted to grab and shake her consistently throughout this book but! I think that a lot of the upset over her and Antony’s relationship (while valid, he is the worst) overlooked that at every turn, Ruying was smart and saw through his bullshit! In nearly every instance of beginnings of their romance, Ruying is thinking about how she knows he is lying, she knows he is evil, she knows he is using her, she knows! She was being manipulated by someone who was incredibly good at lying and hiding things and had THEEE biggest power imbalance you can imagine over her. Colonizer romance is gross, but I just didn’t see that here. Aside from Antony being described as handsome, I have a hard time imagining how anyone would read this story and feel like he is meant to be someone we should fall for. The main character cannot even convince herself that he is someone worth falling for! I wish that Ruying had been less trusting of him, and I wish that she had been more trusting of her childhood friend, Baihu, who tried to save her from Antony early on… but I am rooting for her. I’m excited to see what happens in book two.

Things I really liked/found interesting:
- The magic system in general (though I wish it had been elaborated on more!)
- The magic VS science
- The world-jumping as colonization to escape/save the world they destroyed
- The rebels being led by the Phantom and being called Ghosts! I can’t wait for more rebel content!
- Ruying’s (misplaced) determination to save her grandmother and sister above all else. While I kept wishing for her to snap out of it and be less selfish, I can’t say I hated or didn’t understand her tired, angry decisions.
- The flowery prose! The beautiful descriptions!

Things I disliked:
- At times I found the writing to be really choppy and weird, but not enough to really bother me too much. I kept reading and ultimately enjoyed the book. It kind of made sense and fit Ruying’s thoughts/thought process.
- Obviously, the romance. But I can admit that really it was just that it was marketed as enemies-to-lovers which it really isn’t! I saw another reviewer say it was more like dark romance which is true…r than enemies-to-lovers. I just wasn’t convinced by the romance and it didn’t really seem like Ruying was either. Just experiencing mixed feelings and trying to survive.

Once again, I’m looking forward to reading the next book. After the backlash this one faced I saw the author say that the sequel will be titled To Kill a Monstrous Prince and THAT! Has me on the edge of my seat! Monstrous is the word indeed! Ready for the Ruying redemption arc and for these nasty men to get what’s coming to them!

First off, I opened this book and immediately was reading into the historical background that inspired the plot line. After diving back into the book, I do wish there was more historical connections instead of leaning towards the captor/captive love story with Antony. Ruying is a strong female main character and her powers are turning her into a tool for other people to use. Waiting for Ruying's moment to take control of her own destiny and drive out the Romans (including Antony)!

Thank you to Netgalley and Del Rey for this arc in exchange for an honest review.

(DNF at 53%.)

The beginning of this book held a lot of promise for me. I really loved the aspect of making drug abuse a key component to this story. I've seen a lot of rep for mental illness and other illnesses in fantasy novels but never seen a book target addiction. However, I started to lose interest once the prince got involved in the story. I tried for days to continue to read. However ultimately, I decided this book just wasn't for me.

This was a very emotional story. I enjoyed it from beginning to end. Thank you to NetGalley for gifting me this arc.