4.5 stars! I absolutely love this one. I can’t wait to see where the story goes next. I also appreciate that this one ended at a good spot where a lot has just happened, but it also wasn’t a complete cliffhanger. The world building in this story was super unique. The legends that were interwoven were super cool, and I thought the descriptions of the magic, and the science were well done. The characters created in this story were very complex, and I appreciated that there were layers to the two main characters that left you pondering who they were at their core. I definitely recommend this one and I can’t wait for book two!

3.5 stars ☆
tropes: fantasy enemies to lovers 🪐
ೀ⋆｡「🌷」» you shouldn’t ask the girl blessed by death whom she’ll die for.
you should ask her whom she’ll kill for. ೀ⋆｡「🌷」«


molly x. chang’s debut novel to gaze upon wicked gods is out today!!! i honestly have never been more excited to read a book and i hope i can relay some of that excitement here. This book absolutely delivered a plethora of emotions and i need to talk about them like right now so grab your favorite bubble tea and let’s chat about the beautifully complex book that is to gaze upon wicked gods.

⤿ i. the plot ᡣ𐭩 the book follows ruying, a girl blessed by death with the ability to pull a life right into her hands, who’s doing everything she can in order to survive and protect her family with her country invaded by foreign invaders. when her gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an unfeasible deal that he swears is for the good of both their words: work for him and become his private assassin in order to eliminate those who are in his way and never have to worry about her family starving or being harmed every again. but to agree to his deal would mean ruying would be turning on her own people and giving into her gift which will ultimately cost her years of her own life. will she be able to trust this prince by using her powers for his claims of the greater good? or will ruying end up betraying her own nation in order to protect those she loves most?

⤿ ii. the world ᡣ𐭩 first of all the world building: it’s incredible albeit a little bit confusing. the world is purely magical rich, enriched with beautiful folktales that i could not help but vividly imagine everything ruying ended up describing the beautiful but broken world that she lived in. the stories were so cool and i am an absolute sucker for fairytales so that in itself was a huge bonus because the fantasy was real people and i was having a grand old time. the Chinese proverbs sprinkled throughout the book was truly an astute test to my deteriorating chinese skills but honestly made me appreciate them even if they sounded like they came out from a fortune cookie. while the overall world was a bit complex, i think that molly x. chang handled the world building pretty solidly and i was nonetheless still very intrigued anyways.

⤿ iii. the characters ᡣ𐭩 as for ruying and antony, i have honestly never felt more conflicted. on one hand, i understand ruying’s intentions of being desperate enough to agree to work with the enemy in order to give a better life to her family but on the other head, i didn’t want her trusting antony because i’ve read way too many murder mysteries to be as trusting as she is. antony is also like the most morally gray love interest i have ever read and frankly i’m not sure what to think. i think that both he and ruying are torn by their obligations to fully trust each other and they do have their own reasons for doing what their doing but as i watched their cautious love bloom, i could only screech from the sidelines and pray that everything ends up okay. as for ruying’s sister and baihu, honestly their goals stressed me out even more because everyone’s goals are against each others and there’s conflict and betrayal and i am too stressed for this i swear im not okay anymore.

⤿ iv. my thoughts ᡣ𐭩 in the end, i was way too emotional and i think my older sister can attest to me screeching throughout the house when i got to certain parts of the book. i did really love how molly x. chang conveyed the complexity of morals during times of war and i was nothing short of heartbroken for ruying’s internal struggle in coming to terms with the actions and choices she made throughout the book. this debut novel isn’t perfect by any means but i do think that the central message and beautiful portrayal of so many emotions made this more worth it at least in my end. i do think there are some more heavy topics that people might not be okay with but i do nonetheless recommend this book if the premise sounds interesting and i hope that if you do pick it up, you’ll enjoy it as much as i did.

huge thanks to colored pages book tours, molly x. chang, and del ray books for the opportunity to participate in this book tour ♡

⋆⭒˚.⋆「☄️」» 聪明一世，糊涂一时. intelligent and cautious for a lifetime, it takes a second of stupidity to unravel it all. ⋆⭒˚.⋆「☄️」«

I wanted to love this one but there was a certain amount of character missing. It was a very interesting premise and an ok read but just underwhelming over all.

There was a lot of drama surrounding this book that I was not aware of prior to reading it. That being said, I personally think the drama is unwarranted. This book definitely touches on complex and challenging topics, especially in this day and time, but does not condone. I thought some of the writing was a little annoying because its very staccato. She talks. In short sentences. Like this. Personally, this made it a bit hard to follow for me. The MC had that trait where they are seemingly the most naive person around since they seem to constantly miss gigantic hints that certain things are not as they seem, and that also annoyed me and took me out of the story. Still, overall I think the concept is good and I will likely be reading the sequel.

Disclaimer: I'm well aware with the "drama" surrounding this book before it even debut. The negative bomb review, and personal chat getting out of hands leading to misinformation. I've stated that I'm willing to give the author benefit of the doubt and would still read the book despite what everyone saying. So, this review is objectively about the story itself.

Okay so where do we start.... There are sooo many things I wanted to talk about and they're not nice.

Let's start with the main character, Ruying. I can't stand her. She has the deathly power, PLENTY I MEAN PLENTY OF TIMES to prove herself and support her hometown cause but she didn't. When literally her sister begged her to. But the moment the colonizer (yes, it's a colonizer romance) (he didn't even try hard enough) talked to her, she used the power for the colonizer's side. In the name of survival, protection and greater good, she was soooo naive and simply stupid. It doesn't make sense and there are no chemistry between them. I don't like the symphatizer gaze throughout the book on the colonizer's side. It doesn't sound right. Like "I believe you have power better than me, you're able to protect me and my family, and you're not evil like everyone else" then surprise when the said colonizer turned out to be the same. She would always choose their romance before anything else.

Idk the ending didn't make it better.... About the freaking time. That's just logical and should've been done waaayyy before to make the story better.

And the writing is kinda repetitive and the proverbs were oftenly out of place. It could've been written better and to have the enemy using the proverbs in between sentences are also nope.

Idk if it's wise using Romans as the enemy while mendling with the historical chinese with Sino (?) idk why don't u created a new fantasy place rather than using a real life place (?)

It doesn't give a nice aftertaste.

The star is for the gorgeous cover!!!! 😍

Thank you so much for the arc in exchange for an honest review🫶🏽 hopefully the next installment could've been better written.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Ray for providing me with a digital arc of this book!

I want to start this review by pointing out that I have never written a review of a book so heavily controversial before. I hear and understand each and every person this book has impacted negatively, and my sorrow is with them all. As a white woman, I have very little place in speaking on the opinions of the BIPOC people affected by this story, so if you wish to understand the impact this story has had on that community, I would recommend reading through other Goodreads comments yourself.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a historical fantasy story set in a world where Rome has colonized China. The main character, Ruying, is a girl granted the ability to inflict death on others, with the understanding that death will take from her own life as repentance. When she finds herself on the radar of a Roman prince, Antony Augustus, Ruying is forced to become an assassin on this side and kill her own people in order to protect them against a war between magic and technology.

I found myself frustrated with this book as a whole. I think the largest criticism I have is the pacing of the story. Nothing was drawn out in the way it should have been, and it took me entirely too long to even get into this book because it was so slow in the beginning. The magic system wasn't very developed at all, despite being pivotal to the story as a whole. I found the world to be bland and underdeveloped, and the characters annoyed me most of the time. I was annoyed with how little belief Ruying had in her family and friends, the very people she had sought to protect when they told her the truth.

I completely understand where other readers are coming from when they say this is a colonizer romance, and while I agree, I don't think that that is what this story primarily was. I never believed that Ruying loved Antony. All that I saw was a traumatized girl doing whatever she could to save her family and trusting that the person who protected her family would also extend that protection to her people.

In the end, there was little I enjoyed about this book. It was in large need of more edits and sensitivity readers. As a reader, one of the things I love most about creative writing is the fact that it is a highly controversial art form, one that everyone perceives differently. While that is a beautiful thing, and everyone should have the freedom to write the things they wish to, more sensitivity should have been extended to something based on the history and suffering of real-world people. 2/5 stars.

I have been refraining to say anything about this book after reading about all the controversies surrounding it but the more I think about it, the more I agree with a lot of the things reviewers are saying. I feel like the characters weren't all that compelling and their romance more so. It was not believable at all on top of the very problematic aspect of the heroine falling for the man who was actively involved in colonizing her people and had held her family hostage to ensure her co-operation. Maybe that was on purpose and we'll see how that happens in the next installment in the series, but for now, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone, really.

The story started out so beautifully but sadly got boring and often repetitive to me.

Thank you, Netgalley for the ARC.

Thanks to Del Rey Books and Netgalley for the ARC.

This is one of the tougher reviews for me to write. I make a concerted effort to avoid reviews before and while I read a book, but hearing opinions about this story was hard to avoid with all the drama surrounding it. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was quite enjoyable.
As a first book, there are a lot of positives here, Ruying is a character who refuses to give up and tries to everything in her power to fight for her family and friends, and while she definitely has numerous questionable decisions, she is easy to root for. She fervently wants peace for her people and to see her culture survive and thrive, so she is willing to do things she used to believe were unthinkable in the hope for peace. I also really liked the development of Baihu's character over the course of the story and wish this partnership was much more developed (and not necessarily romantically) and maybe that is something that is planned for future books in the series.
The disservice that's done to the overall story is the focus on the romance aspect, as it is a small amount of the story and honestly.......not that romantic. I am all for falling for the villain and love a good villain, but Antony honestly is just meh on the page. I kind of feel like this story fell victim to the popularity of romantasy books and I wish it had focused on the political machinations and the fight for Pangu's future, as the dystopian elements were all there, but the execution overall just fell short.

This book is about a girl blessed with the ability of death, living during the colonial occupation and rule of a kind of modern Roman Empire she has lived a difficult life and witnessed a lot of injustices.
Then an important figure discovers her powers and she’s offered a position where she must reevaluate her principles and ask herself what she’s capable of

It’s super engaging and intriguing
The characters are well written and the atmosphere is superb, this book really takes you to a distant land where things are not so different from our reality

Ok so I loved this book. It’s world and the magic within it were written in a way that felt so right. The story is twisted and manipulative and I am here for it. Ruying is such a great character and as flawed and afraid as she is, I cannot wait to see her claim that courage as her own in the next book. Anthony is complicated, I want to hate him and part of me does, but his part in this book is not as simple.

A lot of telling instead of showing. The author had a dynamic idea, I can see the potential for this story but I struggled to get immersed in the story.

What I liked:

- I feel like there could have been more world building and explanation of the magic system, but I did like what was there.
- Intriguing right off the bat
- The battle between a world with magic and a world with technology

What I didn’t like:

- The romance🙄 besides the problematic dynamic, it was just not believable at all. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be? Idk
- The time jump somewhere in the middle of like, 6 months or something (sorry, I finished this book last month lol). I think that time jump makes the reader miss out on the developing relationship between Ruying and Antony.
- Maybe it’s just me but it felt weird to call “the other guys” Romans when everything else was purely fictional? That also just enforces the fact that Ruying is falling for her colonizer…
- I wanted more explanation of the magic system…it seemed pretty random honestly
- Ruying was honestly so annoying and was constantly making terrible decisions lol

Stay tuned to see if I’ll continue the series!

I was excited for this book because it at first reminded me of the song of six realms. But man was this very very different. The first 20 chapters are just her complaining about how to give in. Then its written as an enemies to lovers and it just felt extremely wrong. It gave Disney Pocahontas vibes
Antony was very flat. Everyone's personalities were so very one sided. It was so long 3/4 of the book was just internal monologue.

In a world scarred by conquest and magic subdued by advanced technology, "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" plunges readers into a realm where power, intrigue, and ethical dilemmas collide. Ruying, blessed—or cursed—with the ability to wield death itself, finds herself entangled in a precarious bargain with an enemy prince. Molly X. Chang weaves a tale of high stakes and moral ambiguity as Ruying navigates the treacherous waters of political manipulation and personal survival.

Chang's narrative prowess shines through vividly in her depiction of Ruying, a reluctant protagonist forced to grapple with impossible choices. The prince's proposition—to become his clandestine assassin in exchange for her family's safety—propels the story into a realm where alliances shift like shadows and every decision carries weighty consequences.

The novel's strength lies in its intricate world-building, where ancient powers clash with futuristic technologies, creating a rich backdrop against which Ruying's moral compass is tested. Chang masterfully explores themes of loyalty, sacrifice, and the nature of power, deftly crafting a narrative that keeps readers on edge with each turn of the page.

"To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" is not merely a tale of action and intrigue; it delves deep into the psyche of its characters, especially Ruying, whose internal struggles mirror the external conflicts that threaten to engulf her world. Chang's prose is both lyrical and suspenseful, drawing readers into a world where the boundaries between right and wrong blur, and where the pursuit of justice often comes at a profound personal cost.

This novel is a captivating journey through realms of magic and politics, offering a fresh perspective on familiar fantasy tropes while delivering an emotionally resonant tale of courage and sacrifice. "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" is a must-read for fans of complex characters, intricate plots, and thought-provoking storytelling.

I didn’t have objections to Ruying’s feelings for Antony. But that doesn’t mean that I was fully enchanted with Chang’s story. It was an okay story, but it was very predictable. I didn’t feel like she really went anywhere new. I felt for Ruying, she was a very real feeling character with lots of struggles, but she wasn’t quite enough to save the story.

(full review in link) https://thecosmiccircus.com/book-review-to-gaze-upon-wicked-gods-by-molly-x-chang/

I tried to get into this, I really did, but I just couldn't get past how much this book felt shallow to me. Maybe I will try again later, but I don't know. I couldn't connect to this character, nor could I get past the Romans as the main antagonists.

I was intrigued where the story would lead when first first beginning. There were similar concepts to other fantasies I’ve read so I was curious to see how the author would create her world, and if you are looking for a love triangle where you aren’t quite sure who to be rooting for while watching a sister try her best to protect those she loves, then you will likely enjoy this book.
The setting is characters with powers as a minority group and being forced into games of survival, not knowing who is right or wrong, rebels against the reigning empire, and it was enough to make me finish yet the ending left me with more questions I would have liked based off the worldbuilding and plot.
3.5 stars

I am belatedly reading an ARC Copy of this book - and thus my review is based on an advanced copy. If changes have been made to the book since, I cannot account for them.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I found this story to be really interesting- especially in the way that the trustworthiness of characters was handled. In a morally gray story full of characters fighting to survive and fighting for an agenda of their own, I found myself questioning the actions of almost every character and especially our main character Ruying. It was hard to watch her make decisions that seemed to neither match her values nor truly advance the plot. Having just read the Skyhunter duology in which a character must also become an assassin for a colonizer state where that character's stakes were high and the desire to liberate her people was at the heart of every calculation, it was hard to read this book and feel that Ruying was directly putting herself and her people in harm's way at every turn. I don't feel she ever really took responsibility for any of her actions. I wasn't a major fan of the romantic subplot of this book - as I didn't find the romance to be a couple I wanted to root for and a lot of the romantic tension felt more a product of Ruying's vulnerability and Antony's obsession with power than any genuine connection between them. I find it hard to reconcile that they could ever truly be a couple of equals and I personally never found any redeeming qualities in Antony that made me yearn for their relationship the way I think I was intended to. The enemies to lovers trope works only when the enemies find a common ground and see each other for their own humanity and worth despite external factors that should impede them from being together. It doesn't work in this book because I do not believe that Antony can ever truly love and value Ruying while his eyes are on the throne and I do not believe his interest lies in her humanity but rather in her potential to grow his own power (and thus control over her own people). Everytime Ruying started to see this, he would offer a small touch or a gentle word. RED FLAGS GIRL!

Giving this a 2.5 because I did find that this book was engaging and that I finished it quickly, but it just didn't hit the marks I had hoped it would as a fantasy, as a romance, or as a book that would help me to understand the impacts of colonization on Manchuria.

DNF around chapter seven. The writing here is poorly done--full of cliches, info dumps, repetitions, confused storytelling, and an over-reliance on overwhelmingly bland exposition that tells rather than shows the bleakness of the book's world. In debuts I often see a lot of inexperience and rough edges but this also felt like incomprehensible trauma porn. I will pass on the sequel.