Unfortunately I could not connect with Ruying and the story. I did not like Ruying, she seemed very boring and she did not make me want to get to know her character.
I also did not like the idea of these modern Romans, with guns that come from another world and using planes or some kind of flying machines, when I think about Romans, all I think about is about the Roman Empire. I would have loved it if it was some kind of historical.
I also do not like drug use in books, I don't want to go to fantasy books to read about real life stuff. I read 22% of the book and it did not interest me. Ruying was the main issue, she is not a likable character.
It was a DNF for me. I tries to leave a review or rating in Goodreads but they shut down the rating for this book.

I am DNFing this around 20%.

I am finding the writing to be a bit redundant. I have been reading this over the last few days, and there are multiple details of the story that just keep repeating, almost word for word, to the point that it is throwing me off.

I really enjoy the premise of the Death powers, and while I think that the world is a little confusing, I do hope that these issues have been cleaned up a little for the release.

I plan on listening to the audiobook once the completed work is published.

3.5/5 rounded up

This book has been on my radar ever since I first saw the cover/synopsis. Overall, I didn’t hate this, in fact I’m quite excited to see where the rest of the trilogy goes, but it also wasn’t as strong as a book as I hoped it would be. I usually don’t write such long reviews, but I have a lot of thoughts.

TL;DR for anyone trying to decide if they want to read this book:
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is what I would call an adult dark science fantasy story with some alternate history elements. It’s not YA (though apparently it’s being marketed this way in the UK for some reason and I would say it does have crossover appeal). It is also not a Romance/Romantasy (though it does feature a complicated romantic subplot involving the protagonist and a villain)
The writing style makes it very clear it’s a debut novel (lots of repetition, infodumping, telling vs showing) and the worldbuilding is rather vague and hard to make sense of
This is a character-driven novel featuring an unreliable morally-grey first-person narrator who makes terrible choices in order to protect herself and her loved ones which can occasionally be frustrating
The most compelling parts of this book are Ruying’s character arc, her Death magic, and her evolving relationships with Meiya (her twin sister who longs to be a revolutionary), Baihu (her childhood friend turned traitor with mysterious motives), and Antony (the secretive enemy prince she forms an alliance with)
It very much feels like a setup book for the next two books in the trilogy rather than a book that can easily stand on its own. I don’t think this is inherently a bad thing though because a lot of what I ended up enjoying about this story was how the elements setup here could develop over the course of the trilogy.

Full Review:

Writing Style:
This is the part I struggled with the most while reading. It is very clear to me that this is a debut novel. There’s a lot of infodumping and flashbacks (particularly in the beginning) and a lot of repetition. It’s also a book that’s full of telling rather than showing which is a bit frustrating - especially when there’s a six month time jump in the middle. In many ways it felt like an extended prologue for the rest of the trilogy - this book was full of set up in terms of world, character dynamics, and character development and not much plot. All that said, the writing style was easy to read, there were some really beautiful lines throughout, and the short chapters made this book hard to put down. Despite feeling like this book still needed significant revision, I was still quite invested.

Worldbuilding:
The worldbuilding is very vague and not enough information is given to fully make sense of it. The central conflict is between Pangu - fantasy China on a different planet (galaxy?) that is full of magic, and Rome - the colonizing empire (seemingly from an alternate/future Earth?) that comes through a portal in the sky bringing technology and scientific advancements. This creates some interesting concepts (the conflict of magic vs science, themes of colonization and environmentalism, etc) but they were not as developed as I would’ve wanted. I left this book with a lot of questions about the world that I hope will be answered in the rest of the trilogy. On one hand it’s understandable since this is a first-person story and our protagonist doesn’t have a lot of information herself. On the other hand it makes it hard to feel fully immersed in the world.

The magic system isn’t very complex but overall it was enough for me. I found Ruying’s Death magic to be one of the strongest parts of the book and I always loved the haunting way it was described.

Plot/Characters:
I went into this book expecting it to be more plot-driven but it actually is very much a character-driven story. Once I realized that, the elements of this book that didn’t work for me were less distracting. It’s a first-person narration story and the plot is Ruying facing significant moral dilemmas after being forced to become the private assassin for a Roman prince. There’s not a lot of action and if that’s what you’re looking for this story will likely not be for you. Instead this book relies heavily on internal monologues and conversations between characters as Ruying tries to sort out right, wrong, and the grey areas in between. While I think at times this grew repetitive and I felt the narration could be a bit subtler, I found that I really loved Ruying’s character. She stood out to me as a kind of fantasy protagonist I rarely see - she’s selfish (yet has a big heart for her family and friends), naive (in a way that feels like a coping mechanism - willful ignorance as a form of self-preservation), and realistically cowardly given her circumstances. It’s refreshing to see a fantasy heroine who isn’t naturally a bold revolutionary leader. She makes 100000 bad decisions throughout this book but her (albeit unreliable) narration always made me understand why - even if it was a bit maddening to be in her head sometimes. I enjoyed her character arc throughout this book and the ending sets up an intriguing arc for Book 2. I’m excited to see her journey throughout this trilogy as she has potential for some really great character growth.

Outside of Ruying, I found that the book particularly shined in scenes that were just conversations with various characters that were pulling her in different directions - Meiya, her twin sister who longs to be part of the revolution, Baihu, her childhood friend turned mysterious traitor, and Antony, the Roman prince with whom she forms a very complicated alliance. She is pulled quite a few different I’m very intrigued to see how these relationships evolve over the course of the series.

Romance:
I think the most important thing to note about this book is that just because there is a romantic subplot, it does not inherently make this book a Romance/Romantasy. There are some mismarketing things that I think perhaps set up wrong expectations but throughout the book I felt that the narrative was clear on what the central relationship really was. It’s a slowly built and complicated enemies to “allies” to “friends” to “lovers” (sort of?) to enemies dynamic. I would also call it a “villain romance” so if that type of character dynamic is not appealing to you at all, you likely will not enjoy this book. Ultimately though describing it in terms of tropes doesn’t truly capture the layers of the relationship between Ruying and Antony. It’s a morally grey relationship built on an imbalance of power, manipulation, and many secrets. While there is a genuine connection (or at least what the two of them think is a genuine connection) their relationship arc over the course of the book takes a significant turn and I think it’s highly unlikely that this is a couple that will be endgame. Also, despite the fact their relationship is central to the story, the romantic elements in this book are quite minimal - to the point a case could be made that it didn’t need to turn romantic at all. That being said, I think the romance adds an interesting layer to their dynamic to be explored in future books. If I had to compare it to another character dynamic I would say it’s similar to the Alina/The Darkling dynamic from Shadow and Bone.

There’s also another potential romance for Ruying that I do think will be endgame and the angsty slowburn potential of it developing over the course of this trilogy is excellent.

I am DNF-ing this book at 35%.

Maybe I will come back to this story some day, but right now I am simply not interested in it.

The world building is sloppy in my opinion. It may get better at the middle and end, but I am too tired of it. I do not want excessive telling rather than showing, and the info-dumping is too intense for my taste. It feels as if the author does not trust the readers to make their own opinions. Maybe the manipulation of the lead is partly why it feels that way, but again, I'm not in the mood for this currently. At the time I am stopping, the writing needs another round of major edits. This writing isn't getting to the meat of the story like it should.

I am rating this three stars because I DNF-ed. I do not have the whole story to rate, so I am neutrally rating it.

Thank you NetGalley and Del Rey for access to this digital ARC. This review is based on my own interpreting and enjoyment of the text. Unfortunately, I didn’t love this one. I found myself excited when looking at the incredible cover art and the synopsis was very intriguing. As I progressed through the first quarter of the book I found my interest being challenged to the point where I decided to begin skipping though future chapters as I tend to do when my ADHD gets the best of me while reading subjects that don’t fully captivate me. I was hoping I would gain some cultural insight, that there would be some lore or mythology to support the way things were presented however I found that there was quite a bit more darkness between the characters than I realized. I don’t particularly look to read titles with colonialism at the forefront and this title took it to another level. I just couldn’t get on the same page as the characters to the point in which I stopped reading and put it down all together. I’ve taken some time away from it and yet after coming back have decided it’s just not something I want to read. While the writing itself wasn’t to blame for my disinterest, the topics and presentation made it challenging to continue therefore Ive decided to not finish the title. Some might like the direction of this story, however I did not.

A 19 year old girl with the power of Death is torn between helping her family survive or helping bring peace to her world.

What I liked about the book: the main struggle or conflict is explored enough for the reader to understand the circumstances of the main character but there is some mysterious aspects left to discover as the story progresses. I liked Baihu's character as he is constant with the personality shown at the beginning but has some improvement throughout the story. The main idea for this book was interesting enough to keep me reading.

What was lacking: the main characters (protagonist and antagonist) were a bit vague and weird. The protagonist is not constant with her personality and keeps doubting herself (which makes her read as a YA character.) The antagonist is not really good nor bad, he reads as a kid trying to look evil and its just wanting to trick others into giving him what he wants but its not doing a great job. I couldn't get to care about the other characters as they were not explored that much. The way the chapters were split made the reading immersion a bit confusing. I don't think it was necessary to explain every aspect of the character's life if we could discover it through events in the story or know what another character was really doing/meaning if we could read about it through another character's revelation.

The romance in the story was not the best. I think that it could have been avoided and made into just a friendship or strong bond somehow. It read like the characters knew they were on a book and were doing fanservice just because romance was expected in the book. I get that romance is an important part of books these days but it doesn't mean that you have to force it into the story.

Overall, I liked the story enough to finish the book but it did have some irregularities that could have made it better. I liked the world building and the different living styles portrayed for each world. The main idea was interesting and I'm hoping the second book brings answers and emotion to the story.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC.

I was really excited to read it based on the description and topics, however I just found the overall story - not bad. It’s not something I’d personally reach for to read again. The overall story line was ok. Good concept. I liked the exploration of the xianlings and the various types of magic. Perhaps this could have been explored more. I didn’t mind the tension between the worlds and the science va magic- all great concepts. I think one thing that would help is a bit more backstory. I was super confused how the two worlds came together - and even still kind of confused in the end. Is Rome in the future and traveling back through time in the portal? The enemies to lovers aspect lacked the feeling for me. Normally, there is hatred but a spark that slowly builds- but I never felt that. The romance was a bit more of an annoying element in the story for me personally. Perhaps others feel differently. Again, not a bad book, just not my cup of tea.

DNF @45%

I should've stopped reading sooner. I didn't like the writing and the "romance" made no sense and was a terrible addition to the story.

Right off the bat this book failed to pull me in - I found the writing on the dry side and the worldbuilding and characters underdeveloped. It took a really long time for the plot to actually start happening, so I’m not sure why the first book failed to really set up the structure of the story if there wasn’t any plot either. There was also quite a bit of what I can only describe as “melodramatic YA inner monologue” that kept taking me out of the story more and more.

This book was beautiful. Molly X. Chang weaves a gripping narrative into her poetic prose, presenting her characters with choices too big for any one person. Set in a fictional universe, where Rome conquered the whole earth and found a portal to other worlds, Chang unfolds a fantasy and a nightmare all in one. Reading this book felt like being curled up, listening to one of my aunties tell stories of far away lands. If you liked The Cruel Prince, you should give this book a try.

This story touches on so many topics—war, poverty, addiction, power, loyalty, honor, exploitation… and just when you think you can’t take another ethical dilemma, another one appears. The twists and turns in this story were incredible. I want to mention that I did find the timeline a little confusing, and there was some repetition in the details that felt unedited, but otherwise, every beat in the story compelled me to keep moving forward.

Ruying is a complex and conflicted FMC, and we only see that increase as she transforms into something fearsome. I think I finally understand the allure of morally grey characters. While I have to admit that it’s not my favorite trope, the relatability of facing ethical dilemmas is so powerful, even if what I experience is so much less than life or death. It’s easy to put ourselves into the shoes of our MC’s knowing that we would struggle to choose too.

Sweet and terrible Antony. I wanted to love him and I wanted to hate him. Very rarely do characters make me feel so conflicted! I am amazed at the empathy I developed for his character, even though his ambition made me question his every move. I do believe that he was the lesser of two evils, though I suppose we will never know…

As a debut novel, I think Chang knocked it out of the park. I will definitely be reading whatever she writes next!

(Review will go up on Goodreads once reviews can be posted again—there’s currently a review limitation for this book on Goodreads. Review will go up on Insta in the next couple of days and then again on pub day.)

Sadly while I was excited to read this, the recent discourse with the author has turned me off to this. The handling of the discourse online by the author felt very chaotic and messy and ultimately, feels like a reflection of this book itself in that the love triangle referenced in the authors social media is barely a whisper if even that within the book. The romance feels unsettling and also quite dry. The author’s comp to The Darkling feels very lazy instead of feeling like this offers something new and fresh to a genre severely oversatured with the enemies to lovers trope.

I will not be continuing with the series as I didn’t feel there was enough to keep this at the forefront of my mind and lacked characters I felt I wanted to invest my time with.

Goodreads reviews are locked at this time - will add review when unlocked
Will not feature on Instagram besides Stories because of low rating
Will discuss in Youtube's March Reads pt 2
Blog Post goes live April 5th


**TL;DR**: I did not enjoy this. From the choppy, redundant writing to the VERY suspicious romance. This was not well thought out or edited.

**Longer TL;DR with theory:** I have a theory. This either initially meant to be a Shatter Me style story where in fact our Roman Prince WAS the love interest and he’s meant to truly be good. This is absolutely disgusting as the things he did were inhuman, cruel, and gross. Not to mention the author herself drew a parallel between the Romans and Unit 731 from WWII. I genuinely hope this is NOT the case, but I suspect it might have been. The other part of my theory/my prediction for this based on the swerve in marketing from enemies-to-lover to childhood-friends-to-lovers is that the second book in this series is abruptly going to turn to her romancing her ‘traitor’ of a best friend from childhood. This could be setup as a ACOTAR style change in romance or could be pitched as ‘this was meant to be a love triangle’. Either way, this is a mess.

I’m sincerely hoping my year has been frontloaded with 1 and 2 star books because this is getting out of hand. I had very high hopes for To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods but sadly they were dashed on the rocky shores of ‘toxic romance’ and ‘nothing but angry’.

This one has a fairly standard story, especially for this type of Young Adult/New Adult leaning Fantasy with romance. Our main character Ruying can kill people, her power over death allows her to pull the life force from someone and kill them. She is quietly living her life, attempting to not use her power while her people and country are colonized and persecuted by the Romans. The Romans (exactly who they sound like, just more technologically advanced) have also brought Opian (Opium) and use it to control the masses. Ruying spends the first 35-45% of the book telling us over and over how terrible and cruel the Romans are. Which yes, I agree with. However we get only brief moments of worldbuilding, of any character besides Ruying has no more depth than a sheet of paper and absolutely nothing else besides her rage marks her out as different.

After the 45% mark she is given a job by a Roman prince and the book seemingly becomes an Enemies-to-Lovers romance. He is the prince of the Romans, the people who are subjugating her own and he is blackmailing her into working for him - and there is a romance between them. I was very uncomfortable here, but it got worse as the ‘twist’ at the end showed him to be *even worse* and yet she was genuinely just upset that he lied to her. In fact she was told, no less than three times, what he was doing but she chose to ignore it. I’m not going to specify but you can find it easily by searching up Unit 731 which the book itself notes as inspiration.

While this is happening the writing itself is dragging us down. Choppy, repetitive with far too much of the same thing said over and over in every possible way. I did not enjoy the writing, and I especially did not enjoy the VERY uncomfortable romance. And I was again, extremely uncomfortable here. Especially when taken in reflection on the author’s ‘inspiration’ in Unit 731 and the very real war crimes and heinous acts inflicted on the real life victims of their crimes.

1 out of 5 stars

Normally I don’t DNF books this fast but the writing was not for me. It was choppy, too full of dramatic prose. I understand the use of figurative language but when one whole page of the book consists of 70% figurative language it’s quite confusing.
The author jumped back and forth between trauma dumping, random inner monologue and descriptions of things around her. She contradicted herself a few times painting the narrator as unreliable.

I was quite excited for this book and I’m very bummed about this but if a prose is trying to hard I can’t look past it and it will only anger me to continue to read.


I attempted to do a Goodreads review to attach however Goodreads is not allowing people to review this book.

I want to start by saying that I'm very conflicted by this book. Some parts were very interesting and intriguing, the world and setting of the story are two examples. While other parts made me uncomfortable. And not in the sense that you’re not supposed to be comfortable with the colonization of an entire world of people way, but in the romance in this book is not sitting right with me kind of way.

Truthfully, I feel like this book would have been a better read if the stockholm romance subplot had been left out of the story entirely. Instead, the author should have focused on helping make Ruying into a strong character through other means of storytelling. Perhaps her growing and becoming stronger by fighting against the things she was being forced to do in the little ways she was able. Forming her own personal resistance to help her people instead of just being a willing participant. Learning about the people that she was being forced to kill and why they were so important that they needed to be removed from the playing field. Or just opening her own eyes to what she was really helping to do long before she had to be forced to see it.

I just feel like if she had used all the rage from her sister and grandmothers’ lessons earlier on and rebelled in small ways it would have made for a more compelling story than the will they/won’t they romance that was pushed on us instead.

There were some errors that should have been caught in editing, nothing to terrible – just a few lines here and there that I had to reread a couple of times and reword them myself so they would make sense and I could continue with the story.

Just a random side note - Using what seemed to be a fantasy world but introducing Romans as the villains who came in from the sky was a bit confusing. I almost wished the author would have just made up a fictional name for the invaders and instead pointed out the differences through storytelling. Though I understand the point it was making, it still just took me out of the story sometimes as my mind kept imagining the characters from Gladiator as the bad guys. So, the entirety of the book I kept imagining them walking around looking like ancient Rome Commodus only for them to then be described wearing ties and other modern-day clothing.

I’m very torn on how to rate this one. On one hand I enjoyed the world building and the overall story the author was trying to tell. But on the other hand, the unnecessary romance kind of killed my excitement for the story overall. Hopefully the author accepts some of the criticism that they’ve received regarding the romance, and it’s fixed in future books.

Thank you to Del Rey and NetGalley for providing an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

**I received a free digital copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

When I was initially sent this ebook, I was really excited to give this it a read, and I'm kind of conflicted about how it struck me. There were some interesting high points, but some confusing lows. The premise was really intriguing, especially after I read the Author's note at the beginning of the ebook. I think this book had a noble, respectable goal, but ultimately, it ended up feeling like it strayed in a different direction. I've glanced at other reviews to try and put into words what about this exactly made me uncomfortable, and I have to agree with the feedback that I saw. I'm aware that Ruying's situation is meant to be difficult, that she's making hard choices, but this felt a little bit too close to romanticizing colonizer's and their hold over oppressed people. It felt as though the author wasn't doing this intentionally, because of the ending, but for a good bit, there, I did feel sort of uncomfortable about the turn the book was taking. Part of this could be reader understanding on my part, but after seeing other people's reviews, I'm less inclined to believe that.

I know this was touted as an "enemies-to-lovers" book, and normally, I really do enjoy that particular trope in stories, but I just didn't really connect with the main love interest that the reader is meant to care about. The entire time I was thinking "...but why him, though?" That could just be a me thing. Ultimately, I enjoyed the style of the novel - the imagery in particular was gorgeous - but bits of the book did feel a little long-winded/repetitive - in the grand scheme of things, that's a minor note for me compared to the larger issue I discussed above.

Tl;dr - This book has issues. It wasn't the worst, but it wasn't the best either.

I got about a third of the way in and then realized this was probably a colonizer romance, and I’m not interested in reading that.

I also felt that the pacing was a bit slow for my taste. I like a really plot heavy book, and at 31% it felt like the plot was still being set up.

I imagine that if I finished the book I would rate it no more than 3 stars, so that is the rating I have given it on this review.

As I did not finish this book, I will not be reviewing it on Instagram or Amazon.

Thank you Del Rey and Netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I've seen a lot of discourse around this novel and I would like to hold off on addressing it as I am a white woman and this is book one of a series.

The political intrigue really hooked me in. I also *believe* the enemies to lovers in this one is between childhood friends not the colonizer but time shall tell. We have a really interesting magic system that I've yet to see before and I truly enjoyed Ruying. I am excited to see where the story takes her.

This book unfortunately really did not work for me. Everything from the world-building to the character development, to the actual line level writing need significantly more editing. This writing felt like it was trying to be overly flowery and metaphorical, but it made the reading process a slog to get through and some of the metaphors did not make sense. There was also a lot of grammar and typo errors. The world feels extremely underdeveloped. I did not get a good sense of place, and all of the side characters felt inconsequential. It did not feel like a real world with real people in it. Ruying and Antony are the only characters that we really spend any time with, and they also feel underdeveloped, I think perhaps I understand what the author was trying to do with this book in terms of commenting on colonialism, but I think the execution was so poorly done that it has the opposite effect that intended. Whether or not this is a colonizer romance is a bit of a nuanced question, but I don't necessarily disagree with those calling this book one.

Unfortunately, this is a DNF (50%) for me. It was a struggle to feel invested in any of the characters and especially the MC and the plot felt so slow and I was pushing myself to even get halfway.

I had high hopes for this book since I really liked the premise of the fantasy mixed with roman colonizer plot. It sounded super interesting but something about the romans coming through a portal into their fantasy world felt like there was a bit of a disconnect - the two didn't really mess together well and maybe because the world building didn't feel fleshed out enough.

I think if you like The Poppy Wars or Shatter Me, you'll like To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods. This book definitely lives in the morally grey and depicts Ruying as a character who is really stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Before Ruying was born, Romans from another world ripped a portal in the sky and invaded her world. Even though Ruying's people have magic, the Romans have science and weapons. For decades, Rome has kept their boot on the neck of her world and kept her people down by flooding the streets with opium. When Ruying is coerced into being an assassin by one of Rome's princes, she finds herself in a difficult position. She uses her powers to kill for Prince Antony and begins to believe some of his lies, that he is the lesser evil and really wants peace.

There were things I liked about this book and several things I almost hated. Let's talk about the good. I thought the brutal reality of colonization was wonderfully done, and I loved the alternate history of Rome not only being a superpower but powerful enough to punch holes in worlds. Oh, and I loved Antony as a character; he very easily represents a White Savior. Even when Ruying tries to object or show the evil of his actions, he always defends his actions with "the greater good" because he never really sees her people or world as anything more than resources. He's the most realistic type of villain.

Now what I didn't love, first, I thought the characters were all a little thin. Even Ruying as our main character didn't feel fleshed out enough for me. It wasn't until the last 25% of the book that I got a real sense of any motivation for any of the characters (beyond Ruying wanting to save her family). I thought it would have been interesting if Ruying would have been using her position of power to learn more about her own gift, but instead she just murders and relaxes, I guess. It's like she doesn't want to help herself. The writing was also incredibly repetitive. The same turn of phrase was used over and over.

I would be interested in the next book to see if the characters and writing get better. This was a quick read with an interesting plot; it just needed more oomph.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine Books for the ARC. All opinions are my own.