This was absolutely fantastic! And I am beyond grateful to have received an ARC from Netgalley.

Molly spun a world of magic reminiscent of the cultivation novels I've learned to love and twisted it to give readers a taste of dark Asian history.

Ruying puts her family's lives above all else and ends up using her gift of Death to work for the enemy. But along the way, she unintentionally puts her heart on the line, thinking that she has found someone to love her despite all of the secrets between them.

And she's not wrong. We get a small glimpse of Antony's perspective and he is proving to be an epic villain that will burn the world for the woman he loves.

It's a star-crossed romance that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time but was still filled with a full story that could stand on its own feet if it had to. I can only imagine how much more twisted the story is going to turn out in the next book. I have a feeling that the rebellion is going to make things even more twisted than it already is.

Please, please, please go read this book. It's now one of my absolute favorites!

I don’t like to not finish books when they are arcs, but this one was very hard for me to get into and not one that I see myself finishing anytime soon. The book cover art was absolutely beautiful and I had such high hopes from the description, but I was pretty much let down from the beginning. The world building was hard for me to grasp in a way that brought the book alive for me and the characters were difficult for me to connect with and care about their development and storylines. I’ve seen some amazing reviews for this book and I’m glad that others are enjoying it. Unfortunately it was a miss for this time but I’ll be checking this author out again for sure!

This is the the writing style and the story telling wasn't for me. DNF at 41%

I thought this was an amazing idea and thought the whole magic of death and such was intriguing. I read so far into the book because I was invested in Ruying as a character and wanted to see how she develops in the story. But this sort of fell through for me.

The best way I can describe this book that made it hard for me to read is the over describing of everything and not enough character emotion and inner dialogue. There would be a sentence from a side character, then we go into a long back story into that character. Some action is happening, then the whole story stops and something else is described in detail. I never had a book where I read so much about the world but still didn't understand how it works.

Then world is painted to be very poor and primitive. Then randomly, a hand gun will show up, then a randomly a gadget will show up. Then it really lost me when they were in a car. There was a lot of story set up in Ruying world but there was no story set up in the dark prince's or the Roman world. Who are these Romans, the ones who conquered these people. How do they do it, where did they come from and why do conquer the way they do? What is their motivation? So many unanswered questions and just saying that they are Romans and they are bad isn't a good enough explanation for me.
The Romans also mentioned science created certain things. I love the idea of magic vs science idea but this didn't really dive into it as I hoped. You just have to assume that they defeat magic with science because they said so.
<spoiler>You find out maybe 38% of the book that they are kidnapping these people that have magic and using them for there own gain. It would have been nice to have a little more story set up. </spoiler>

This story started with the opian drug that Ruying sister is dealing with. Her family history of getting addicted to the drug. Who else got addicted to the drug. Her short dialogue with the guy who was giving it to her. Her marriage prospects and why she needed to get married. It was long. An extremely slow start to the story but I wanted to hang on just in case it just got better. It didn't for me unfortunately. Apparently, a rebellion is mentioned. Didn't go into that.

What really finally just caused me to want to put this book down is Prince Anthony. He was painted to be this kind, different than the other brother character. Green eyes and such. But as soon as we get one on one with him, the character just fell flat. Had a 180 on his personality, his actions were opposite to how he was built up, and became just unlikable immediately. As some would say in reviews, felt like a cardboard character. Sort of reminded me of Erin Warren in Shatter Me series and I am like "I am done."

I was let down because of the beautiful cover and the wonderful premise. It didn't execute for me that I have hoped in this story.

This was not good, and the marketing seems off with this one. The colonialism in this is also not okay.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the e-ARC of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, set to publish April 2024. I give this a 3.5/5 starts. While the overall premise of the book was very interesting for me, the execution felt lacking. The writing style was not my personal favorite. This book had so many metaphors and so much repetition that it created a bumpy read for me. Ruying is a young woman who is trying to save her family from the roman colonizers. She also has the touch of death as her power but does not want to use death. There is a lot of talk about how ruying is but not much show. It felt sad because she is a victim of her shitty circumstance and power-hungry men she's surrounded by. This is a colonizer romance and did not come off as a morally gray/enemies to lovers story. Antony is psycho but hot, however with him being a colonizer and ruying being the oppressed, this just missed the mark and felt kinda ick. That being said, this series has a lot of potential and could be done so well. I will read the second book when it comes out. I did not hate this book and i will read the second, but it was just missing something, I don't know. Hence the 3.5/5 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this novel. 3/5 stars.

I will begin with that I am biased in this review. I saw a video on Tiktok from Readers for Accountability that went into the problematic elements of this book BEFORE I read it, so it did give a lens to read it through. Saying that, this is a colonizer romance and no amount of morally grey/evil is okay when you're doing it for a reason can condone this.

Now, I think if someone read this without prior knowledge, it would be an okay read (minus the problematic colonizer romance). But, it still wasn't great? I was only hooked in the story to see how Ruying and Antony were going to continue to "develop."

A couple of major issues: the world building, the fact that it's Rome....but coming from a Portal? The fact that Ruying is blinded by her own ambition the whole story (like, y'all, she ignores Antony literally saying they've experimented on her people), the weird power and technology imbalances, etc.

I should have read this sooner, because I am now going to be stuck with a special edition from illumicrate (fairyloot?) and I don't think I want it.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods explores the life of Ruying, a woman who lives in the land of Pangu, a fantastical version of China. Pangu has been colonized by a group of people called the Romans, who have subjugated the people of Pangu with science and technology. At the start of the book, the Romans and the people of Pangu seem to be on the brink of war. Some who live in Pangu are blessed with powers, but they have been dying out. Ruying has the power to take the life force from people. She gets kidnapped by a Roman Prince who discovers her gift and forces her to be his assassin in order to protect her family and save their worlds.

~

This book tried to talk about several different things and I am extremely uncomfortable with how it handled all of it. I do recognize that I was gifted with an advanced reader copy and there will be some differences between this version and the formal publication version. However, there were many issues that should have been picked up on at this stage in the process. This book needed an editing team that could not only handle the craft of the writing, but also the content of the writing. The writing was riddled with metaphors and repetitions to the point that reading certain scenes felt disjointed. There were many holes in the world building, so much was going on. I can understand that the intention here is to create a series, but we need enough cohesion and background to be able to follow the plot of the first book.

With regards to the actual plot, I think a lot of the issues are based in how aspects of the book were marketed and how those aspects were actually written in the book. This book is marketed as an "enemies to lovers story." The focus of this book is the relationship between a colonized woman and one of the leaders in the oppression of herself and her people. The book starts off with a lengthy discourse about how Ruying despises the Romans and details their crimes against her people. So it is jarring when Ruying decides that the Prince is the solution and this is the correct way to go about fighting this battle for freedom, even when she is offered other pathways by so many others that don't involve completely abandoning her personal beliefs. The book starts with an author's note that there are no expectations that you will like Ruying, but maybe you will understand her motivations. Her motivations are very surface level. She wants to protect her family, but her actions really don't protect them anyway. Ruying is constantly so romantically poetic about the Prince even as he physically and verbally abuses her and the people around him. There is no reason to love him, so it is so bizarre to watch Ruying do so. This is not enemies to lovers, this is not morally gray.

I may seem circling in this next section, but I don't want to give spoilers. There are things being said to or happening right in front of Ruying that directly state what is actually happening secretly in this world and she doesn't engage with any of it until the climax of the book. At the climax, Ruying acts like the deep dark secret is new information. It's directly mentioned before the reveal. The author also mentioned in promotion that she took inspiration from her family and some horrific historical events that they lived through. To see the events that transpired in this book knowing what they are based on was awful, especially after reading reviews from people who shared cultures and family histories with the inspiration. These are horrible acts of violence. The only problem that Ruying has with these events is not that they are happening, but that they are happening to her friends and supposedly without her knowledge (it was stated in front of her.) Ruying does not come across as morally gray here. She comes across as just a bad person. And as the reader without having a stake in Ruying, her motivations, her world, it is hard to want to stay with her on this journey.

I was very excited to read this, because the plot summary sounded incredible and the original review bombing of this book was absolutely unfair. But once I started, I was very tempted to DNF. But I wanted to contribute an honest review.

~

Because of all the drama that has surrounded this book, I feel that I have to just underline the following points. The bullying of authors or reviewers is never okay. Threatening anyone over a book is wrong on so many levels. But also, I am a firm believer that once a work is public, it is open to honest critique, which is what I and several other reviewers have tried to do here. because these are important issues to discuss

~
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC; all opinions are my own.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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