Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Molly X. Change for the advanced copy of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods!

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods follows Ruying, a girl with the magic to separate a person's life force from their physical body, as she navigates an ever-changing political landscape to save the lives of her twin sister and grandmother, as well as the rest of her country.

I struggled with the Ruying's monologuing through the first 25%. It felt as if she repeated herself over and over and over again without much changing behind the scenes. Once things progressed, however, I felt myself questioning everything as much as Ruying- was Baihu to be trusted? Was Antony to be trusted? What did the Romans want with Pangu? The last half of the book was a thrilling adventure full of assassins, politics, and romance that left me intrigued and wanting for the next book in the series.

2.5 rounded to 3 stars.
Thank You to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine and Del Rey for the chance to read this 2024 anticipated release of mine early.
The beginning half for me was very slow and rocky and almost ended in a DNF around 40%. As an epic fantasy reader and I needed more descriptions and explanations for the world we are placed in.
I felt like everything was info dumped and that continued and was reiterated almost in a repetitive way the rest of the time. There was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing. Which may be because we only saw things through Ruying's perspective. It also would have been nice to have more dual perspectives.
I was also bothered by the choice of the enemy faction being Rome and Romans, then also having a few things in common but also being in an undetermined timeline with advanced weaponry like guns, fighter jets, and missiles. A different name choice, even a made up one, would have bothered me less, because it was written to be a modernized country and not the actual Roman Empire.
The lack of descriptions ended in me not understanding the location a scene was taking place in. As a very visual reader, sometimes I would picture one thing about a situation but then suddenly an action would happen that would take me out to reorient myself. This might be edited by the full published release, but it definitely made the reading experience tougher.
Things got much better around 60%. The involvement of politics, opening up of the scope of world, and more things happen. By this point, I actually began enjoying my time reading. I'm thinking the very beginning needed just a little bit longer to work on the setup. I didn't have a connection to the characters when things started wrapping up to the ending. I never bought the “romance”, and I still don't.
By the end I did have a better understanding of the world setup, that Rome entered like aliens through a portal and they are trying to save their former world. This all should have been understood in that beginning slog. I feel like this author can improve with the second book because we ended on a solid chain of events to get Ruying to be someone who you are rooting for. I did note the emphasis on “doing the right thing” and trying to figure out for yourself who to trust and figuring out morality within your own self. Especially as a 19 year old that is still trying to understand the world.
Overall, I think the series can become promising. This first book is hopefully only a struggle because of everything it had to introduce.

Within the last year, I have started to get more into asian fantasy so I was super excited for this one. The world building was really interesting and something different for me (magic and science) but it was a little hard for me to figure all out. I really liked Ruying but I didn't love some of the relationships in the book-romantic, family and friends. Hopefully the author will continue to build on her writing skills because at some points, I could tell this was her first novel and a little under-edited. I would consider reading the next one but I am not dying to.

Aot of people talk about this being a colonizer romance and I thinknthat colored my perception going into this book. That being said, I think this book iltimately wasnlt for me. I've been looking for an Asian inspired adult fantasy series for a while and while I had high hopes for this, the setting and chatacters were ultimatly not my thing. I would the proganist both naive and dense in a way I wasn't able to overlook and I couldnt tell if the love interest was suppose to be a good person doing bad things or just a colonizer doing their thing.

I will be publishing to my Goodreads and my blog, which will be linked below. The review will be posted on 4/14/24.

I would like to thank Random House and NetGally for an ARC of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang.

I always get super excited to read books from debut authors, so I was very excited to read this book. Especially after hearing that the main character, Ruying, is a necromancer.

Overall, I liked To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods and I wished some elements had been improved on or eliminated.

For one, I really liked the main character, Ruying, and her friends. They were all incredibly likable and I wanted to learn more about her friends throughout the book. Ruying is also an interesting character, she has magic powers that she does not want and is being forced to use them against her will, so her journey throughout the book with her powers was fun to watch. I also liked the world of the book. Ruying's home planet has been conquered by the Romans and war is constantly on the brink, something nobody wants. I did wish the Roman planet had a different name, as because they are named after Ancient Rome, I could only often think of their technology and not the super advanced futuristic technology they are described as having. I did like though that because they are named after Rome, it was easier to picture the comparison being made in this book.

Now, for things I did not like. This book was marketed as an enemies-to-lovers, which I was excited for, but did not like the execution. Antony is a part of the Romans, and even though there is time spent in the book making it clear he was adopted into their royal family, I still could not get past that Ruying was falling in love with a man that was helping in the colonization of her planet. I thought their relationship worked better as enemies who were forced to work together and not as romantic interests. I also wish we were able to see more of Ruying using her necromancy and how Antony directed her to do so, as I think that would have allowed more world building and time for them to hate each other even more, rather than fall in love.

Overall, I would give To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang a 3.5 out of 5 stars, rounded down to 3 stars on Goodreads. While I liked the world and characters, I wish the romantic subplot had not been a part of the book and either gone or change Antony's background.

Thank you for this arc. I am in love with this book. It was so much more than I anticipated. I love how flawed the characters are and how complicated the plot is. The worldbuilding was gorgeous. The magic system was divine. I loved every second of this book and I will be in horrible suspense waiting for the sequel.

Gorgeous cover, but not for me. The pacing was so slow and didn't really interest me until the second half. Things did pick up then but not enough to get fully engrossed in the story.

The world-building was also just so confusing to me. Even in the last few chapters some things were mentioned about the world that didn't feel like a reveal or plot twist, just as matter-of-fact statements about the world, and I was left so bewildered feeling like I had fundamentally misunderstood everything about the world. It's definitely possible that I missed a few things (especially during the slow first half), but things still shouldn't have been so confusing or jarring.

The premise overall was intriguing, but the execution just wasn't for me.

***ARC received from Del Ray and NetGalley, opinions are all my own. Thank you!***

First, I think its important to point out that, if you were not aware, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods was one of the targeted books by an author that was trying to prop up their book by creating and giving false negative reviews to this book. This author did not deserve that, none of the other authors deserved to be treated in such a way. This does not in any way shape what I feel about this book, I had it before all the review bombing information came to light.

Ruying is gifted by death to kill and lives in a world that has been oppressed by an invading nation. There is so much there but it just doesn’t fully deliver.

For the characters I didn’t really like any of them that much which was a shame as they all have potential. I wish that Ruying had been a little bit of a stronger lead, she just seems to be there to do whatever anyone else tells her to do while angsting over everything. She uses her abilities yet never fully commits when it really matters but is fine when it doesn’t. The rest of the secondary characters are a little one dimensional, the cruel sister wanting to be a martyr, the childhood friend potential love interest that comes and goes as the plot needs. The only interesting one was Antony because he seemed to run counter than what the book was trying to portray him as.

I know there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the romance, romantazing an oppressor and oppressed relationship. I’m not here to pass judgement on those that may feel that way as those are their valid feelings. I just expected the romance simply because its one of the most common tropes in these types of books. Rarely is it handled well and that is certainly the case in this book. Most of the build up of their relationship happens off page, there are six months that we get glimpses of what Ruying is doing and little of what she is feeling other than Antony is somewhat of a comfort, I guess? Since we aren’t spending significant time with these characters watching them build up a relationship it just falls flat. Antony actually could be a good person fighting against the repression of his family and empire but that is never shown and if that it was the book is trying to show it missed the mark. He’s all pretty words but the book feels like it is going out of its way to cast him as a not so bad guy. Even Antony doesn’t see himself as a not so bad guy, he is willing to do whatever it takes to see his end game come to pass. The book should just let him be a bad guy and we know that he isn’t, at least not toward Ruying.

The ending felt a little rushed for me, yes I get that its the first in the series but it doesn’t cast Ruying is much of a good light. She finally gets to witness what the empire is doing to people like her and its shocking but why? Antony has not exactly been secretive that the scientists have been performing experiments, maybe not the full truth but he brings it up quite a few times. I get that Ruying may be blind to the idea due to her feelings but it just fell flat for me as it makes her feel completely oblivious as opposed to someone truly left in the dark about what Antony is doing. It also removes the chance at her being a truly morally grey character, someone aware but willing to turn a blind eye for what they believe to be the better good. Which the book tries to do many times but can’t seem to commit, if anything Antony and Baihu come off as the more morally grey characters while Ruying just feels like 90% of the time she isn’t paying attention.

The writing is fine, some sections move along at a good pace keeping the book moving forward while others it can slow down a bit. I did like how the book dealt with the opian addiction that different characters dealt with but even that gets pushed off to the side. The politics of agreements and double crossing each other were interesting but it was all pushed to the back of the book when it would have been better spread out throughout the story as I did like those parts.

I so deeply wanted to like this book, all the potential is there to tell a fascinating story about what people are willing to do to protect their people. Unfortunately the execution of it fell flat leaving much to be desired.

4.5 ☆

This is how you tell a story folks. I love the refresh take of having a FMC being on the morally gray scale instead of pure hearted and good. At time I found myself acknowledging the tagine of the book, "Heros die, cowards live." because I get it in this context. I understood where Ruying and Baihu meant everytime they explain these to the other. We know how twisted Antony appears to he and I couldn't fully trust him throughout the novel but I couldn't not trust him until the last 15% when we truly see his colors show.
I loved the way Rome was so closely described to mimic our own world and structure and show Er-Lang as a time before greed and the need for luxury took center stage for our lives.

I'm looking forward to book two to see where Ruying goes with her alliance and hope she continued on her own morally gray path.I want to see more of how she sees Death and maybe even come into a way to control it rather than be a chain


Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for this e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book unfortunately didn't work for me even though I was very hyped about the premise of exploring colonization in a fantasy lens. The magic system was neat and had good consequences for use. But, overall, I had a hard time with Ruying as the main character. So much of our time with her is spent with her self flagellating and working to protect her Grandma and sister Meiya. The pacing didn't work for me and felt slow. The writing itself had a lot of unnecessary description and I found myself skimming frequently.

The prose is so hard to get through. Every single paragraph is trying to end with a dramatic punch, eventually the effect is diminished and nothing actually makes an impact.
The world building is so clunky and for attempting to be political intrigue, each nugget we learn feels like an after thought. Nothing happened the entire first chapter except our main character just listing examples of why Colonizing Empire = Bad. We got it. The info-dumping monologues (both internal and via speech!) were killing me. Worse than being morally gray is just being annoying.

The romance felt icky. I just really didn't have a good time with this one.

This was fun and interesting and I enjoyed the unique story line. Would recommend to many. I enjoyed the growth of the main character and the struggles they encountered.

Look, your mileage may vary but while I found the pages flew by quickly enough I thought the book had a number of flaws. Calling the high tech invaders Rome was kind of a weird choice stylistically but ok. I found neither side sympathetic. The invaders are evil and murder a lot of folks yes. The magic side is obviously super sexist at the you girls better hope your nearest male relative is nice and treats his property well because you’re nothing as a female level of suck. And frankly that deserves to fall as a society and is also evil. So, two unsympathetic sides. Both suck. Colonists suck, women aren’t really people and exist just to serve men suck. Everyone sucks. You can pick which one you think sucks more. There’s plenty of ick to go around. And then the potential romance relationship being shown is super Stockholm syndrome creepy. This is the second fantasy romance I’ve read this calendar year where the girl is soft for someone outright abusive of her. Ewwwwwwww. No. Nope. No thank you. Ick. I started to rate this book at two stars because I did find it readable enough to hate finish it but I took a star away because the falling for her abuser thing is awful. I hope not to run into a third book of hey, fall for this abusive ass. You can fix him!
And if you’re someone who needs to hear this get out. Dump them, you don’t deserve it and you can do better.

I can honestly say I didn’t like this book. The first third drew me in just enough that I was semi interested in what was going to happen to Ruying. I felt like the book could have potential and then it lost any hope. Once Ruying joins the prince everything just died. There was very little happening of interest. She kind of kills and moves on. While I read it all I can not tell you what really happened because it felt like Ruying lost herself and just became a tool. Which technically she did. Yet I have read other books along this line and the characters still have growth and ownership. Ruying has none. The last couple chapters do end the book where it might draw readers back in, but having to muddle through two thirds of a book to get to that part I think will be the real challenge.
Thank you to Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine, Del Rey and Netgalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this book.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a unique fantasy with elements of science fiction, romance, and a strong message of anti-colonialism.

Ruying is citizen of Er-Lang, a land that was recently conquered by an invading force, the Romans, who have taken over the region through violence. While the Romans have advanced technology and weapons, Ruying and others - Xianlings - have magic, power the Romans are both wary and envious of. After a chance encounter in the streets, Ruying grabs the attention of Prince Antony, the second son of the Roman kingdom and younger brother to the vicious Prince Valentin. But when Antony discovers her gift - Death magic that can kill even without touch - he seeks to use Ruyang to advance his own agenda. Can Ruyin trust the Prince of the Romans, the very people who have destroyed her world? Can she trust that he is different, and also seeks a better future and peace between Rome and Er-Lang?

I really enjoyed this book. The message of anti-colonialism is clear throughout the book. The Romans are an invading force who disregard the citizens of Er-Lang and use violence to control the masses. The worldbuilding is good, and while complex, it was not difficult to follow. The budding romance was also an interesting angle, as Ruying is forced to confront what she wants and how she feels about caring for a true enemy. I did enjoy seeing Ruying reluctantly embrace her magic, and deal with the consequences of using magic in a world where magic comes at the cost of years off one's life. We also see the effects of colonialism through the lens of Er-Lang - people are forced into poverty, those who wish to survive often making hard choices, and those who try to resist and oppose the occupying forces. The characters are all morally grey - making difficult choices among a series of bad options where sometimes there is no right way. The side characters are great as well, I especially enjoyed Baihu, Ruying's childhood friend who made choices to ally with the Romans and advance his own position at the expense of the Er-Lang empire. There is a bit of a love triangle, but not really, just a super slow burn with what I think is a clear direction, but we will see how this develops in the next book.

Overall I enjoyed this book, and I look forward to the next installment in this series.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and to Random House Publishing Group for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

3 stars

After the author's letter at the beginning, I was mentally preparing myself to be wrecked by this book.

For a fantasy book, I don't believe there was a lot of world-building happening. We learned bits about the past war over magic users and the one-day war of the invasion. Otherwise, it felt like we barely learned of this content. The book takes place in the Er-Lang Empire, a part of Pangu. There are five countries on this content (or world). All of the countries are living under the turbulent peace of an invader. Twenty years before a portal opened above Jing-City in Er-Lang and Roman planes entered Pangu. In this timeline, the Roman Empire never fell but controls a large portion of our world. It appears to take place in a modern-day timeline as they have technology and the Earth is dying.

One of the big concepts of this book is magic versus science. Due to the world of Pangu having magic they never really explored the developments of science. All of the science (read mostly technology but some medical) is brought by the Romans. Their advanced weapons allowed them to hold dominion over the people of Er-Lang. It is interesting that even though of course they would not want the natives to have science no one was curious enough to try to make anything their own.

The magic system is a very versatile kind. Not everyone is born with magic, those who have been are known as Xianling. Even though some powers can be similar, like the ability to control water, no two powers are the same. Such as one might shape water whereas another could turn it into ice. Our main character has a very rare gift the ability to cause death itself. She can do this by depleting a person's Qi. Magic does not come without consequences though, to overuse it taxes the body and depending on the powers causes early death.

Ruying Yang only wants to help keep her family alive. Her whole life she has lived in fear; of her father's drunken anger, of the Roman soldiers who look on her people with disgust, and of her sister dying to the same drug as their father. Ruying is willing to trade her happiness for the lives of her sister and grandmother, as she believes any daughter would. So much of Ruying's actions are focused on either what is the honorable thing to do (for her family, not the world) or what she believes to be the cowardly thing. All the burdens she shoulders even from the beginning make her incredibly lonely.

Ruying is the girl blessed by Death. When an enemy prince discovers this fact he makes her an irrefusable offer. Prince Augustus offers protection for Meiya and their grandmother. All Ruying must do is use her gift to eliminate those who would stand in Augustus' way for peace. Though Ruying feels she is betraying her people she will do anything to keep Meiya alive, even if it means killing her people.

There is a subplot of, longing might be the right word. I wouldn't even consider this a slow-burn romance as there isn't romance. Ruying has been mostly alone for a very long time, outside of her family and two childhood friends most people would shy away from her gift. Then when working for the prince she loses contact with everyone. Her only source of comfort for the awful things she is doing is Augustus. He is mostly kind, doesn't see her as a monster, and doesn't mind when she challenges him (well mostly). Through this, it leads to affection from both sides not just Ruying. That is all that is realized in this book though, is a longing for connection with anyone. Is Ruying being completely in denial sure but she is young and utterly alone.

I did enjoy part of the book. However it never fully gripped me like I hoped. Thankfully it was not nearly as devastating as I feared either. While the things happening to the people of Pangu were awful the point was being driven too hard with the same words. A subtle style could have had more impact. This could become a good series with serious thought and attention paid to character and world development.

I really wanted to like this book and was super excited to receive an ARC, but it just didn't live up to my expectations.

I ended up DNF the book about 25% of the way in because it was just the same repetition of "I am a girl, I am so oppressed, I have to marry someone to help my family because I am a girl, I am so oppressed" over and over. Like, the main characters internal monologue just shifted between "I am an oppressed girl" to "the nation is oppressed" to "my family is struggling" but no real development beyond that. Also, for 25% of the way in, the plot had barely begun.

I usually try and finish all ARCs out of fairness to the author and am upfront about when a book is just not written for me, but I do not think I am the problem when it comes to this book for once. The author has an amazing premise, but it reads like a 2010 "I am not like other girls" book and I am so tired of that. Give our female characters motivation beyond their sex! It is a fantasy world, you can make sexism not a thing. I am all for female empowerment books (Priory of the Orange Tree, Throne of Glass, Nevernight) but this didn't read like female empowerment at all.

I do appreciate being given this ARC as it was one of my most expected reads of 2024, but I can't in good faith leave a review where I am not honest. If you want great female empower and Asian Rep books, check out Priory of the Orange Tree or Daughter of the Moon Goddess.

I don't know if it's unfair to review a book I didn't finish, but I made it 60% of the way and just couldn't go on. The main problem is the wordiness and repetition - practically every chapter rehashes everything that's gone on before, including history and family trees. Meanwhile, not much happens. With rigorous editing and pruning, this could have been a decent novella, as the fantasy world is somewhat interesting.

I won't post this review to any other sites, since I didn't finish, but I do hope the author finds a good editor before the next book.

Ruying was born in a world conquered by invaders from another world who arrived with science and weapons and decimated her country's magic. All she's ever known is lying low to survive and do all she can for her sister and grandmother. But Death blessed her with powerful magic she's been told her whole life she must not use for any reason. But a desperate act puts her in the sights of those with power and all she ever thought about herself and her world are challenged as she gets close to one of the most powerful invaders. Will her heart guide her true as she bows and obeys in hopes of saving her world, or is it all in vain?
The basic plot is super obvious to the point that I knew every single revelation that was going to happen way before Chang got to it, but the characters and world are so well-written and fleshed out that I don't care. Ruying and her world practically breathe within the pages to the point where it's impossible to care about what's happening.
It's a book that hits you hard with the colonialism and culture eradication elements. Even if you have no idea of the horrors that native people in colonized areas had to endure, the fact that the author mentions in the beginning that it's inspired by stories her grandfather hinted at makes it hit even harder. It kind of gave extra gravitas to a story that is full of predictable elements and helped it stand out.

Very happy thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the most excellent read!

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a debut novel from Molly X. Chang about Ruying, a girl who has Death magic and ends up being conscripted by the invading Roman army to work as their assassin. I'm a sucker for a good Death magic story and the way that the magic works in this world is extremely interesting, so learning more about it was a fun time for me. I loved the world-building that we got as the magic system for Pangu and the technology for Rome and how they interact with each other set up a compelling conflict for the story.

I think without the romance subplot, this could've been a masterpiece of similar caliber to The Poppy War as the overall plot was extremely intriguing. The aspects of Ruying being forced to be a soldier for a foreign empire made her a compelling character and made her struggle against said empire and desire for peace for her people to be something that I was really rooting for her to accomplish. But the way the romance was executed felt a little out of place and wasn't developed in the way that I would've liked to see in a romantasy book. There's also the added aspect of it being odd that Ruying is falling in love with Antony, a prince of the enemy empire who is colonizing her people while he's actively using her as a weapon and a soldier. The book overall was still entertaining, and I'm intrigued to see if in the future Ruying realizes that Antony isn't all she thought he was and breaks free from him. I'll probably read book two because the world-building was very interesting to me and I did like Ruying as a character...but I'm not necessarily rooting for the romance set up in this book.