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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

rep// Asian MC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(DNF at 53%.)

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

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

This was one of my more anticipated reads for 2024 and unfortunately it fell flat.

The summary was intriguing and I was excited about the magical aspect. Any book that has death magic always piques my interest and I enjoyed the idea of the sisters having almost opposing powers, one that can kill and the other that can revive.

That said, the magic system felt underdeveloped and inconsistent. It’s repeatedly said using magic takes a toll on the user but that isn’t shown at any point. There also was almost no character development or even reasoning behind why Ruying makes the choices she does.

Beyond the plot and world building aspects, the writing made this a chore to read. It was flowery and metaphor heavy, overly descriptive and repetitive. I found myself struggling to finish largely because of the writing style.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an unbiased review!

For my first ever ARC, I hate to say that I was severely disappointed by one of my anticipated releases :( While I think the magic system was something that could have captivated me the most, I don’t think it was totally necessary to be honest. For the most part, we really only ever see Ruying use magic and it’s only ever talked about that other people have magical abilities that are unique to themselves. And while that’s all fine and Ruying is the main character, I felt that the magic system could have been fleshed out a bit more and not just used as something to explain why Ruying can do what she does. In my opinion, it was just a cover up for her to have an ability.

I also found the story to be incredibly repetitive. I think this could have been about 100 pages shorter and it took a very long time for me to get into. I basically forced myself to read it hoping it would get better but I hardly enjoyed my reading experience unfortunately. The first 100 pages were all an attempt at world building but I don’t think it was fully fleshed out and didn’t really make any sense to me. I initially thought Rome was just a city in a neighboring country, or even another country itself, but instead it turns out to be a potentially entirely different planet or dimension or something that is never really explained so I’m honestly not sure what it’s supposed to be. And while I read the authors note, I was expecting this to be a recount of a historical event, and some parts definitely read as such, but the majority of it did not follow that pattern. I was expecting this to be something following the 1800s or 1900s based on the explanation of the state of the advancements in Pangu, or lack thereof, but the advanced technology that the Romans brought contradicted this and made the timeline somewhat confusing.

And lastly, I found Ruying to be incredibly annoying and naive as a main character. She calls her childhood best friend a traitor and won’t listen to him, but when she gets captured by the enemy’s prince, she IMMEDIATELY accepts his offer and trusts him, and continues to defend him throughout the entire book! Even when her childhood best friend tries to confront this and explain the truth to her, she doesn’t listen and blindly follows a man she’s only ever known as her enemy and develops feelings for him and does his dirty work without even batting an eye. The entire relationship progression in this story seemed very forced and at no point could I ever get on board with the relationship as the prince is very much portrayed as nothing but an invader and Ruying is just too naive to see it until it’s slapped in her face.

Overall, there were still elements I enjoyed about the book, but I unfortunately cannot see myself continuing the series and am giving this a 2 star rating.

I just was not into this book at all. Im sorry. It just didn’t hold my attention.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey Publishing for providing me with a free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

This book got me into a reading slump…☹️
(DNF at 22%)

!!𝗜 𝘄𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗺𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝗴𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝘆 & 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗥𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗼𝗺 𝗛𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽 & 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿 𝗠𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗫. 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗰 𝗶𝗻 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄!!

3/5 Stars

I really enjoyed this Asian fantasy world! Set in a world who is being conquered by an enemy from another realm, the main character chooses to use her magic to fight.

There are a lot of awesome one liners in this book that I kept highlighting. I love the idea of the phantom, and Baihu’s character! The main character and the Roman prince were hit and miss for me. I feel like the ideas were all amazing, but the execution missed the mark.

It felt like the relationships were forced and very rushed. The main character gained feelings for people at the blink of an eye and was very indecisive when it came to choosing sides. I also felt like we were told about her fighting / powers far more often than we saw it, so I had a hard time imagining her as an assassin or body guard. The book is also marketed as adult, but reads very YA.

That being said, I would still recommend this to anyone interested in a light fantasy romance that is very politically powerful.

Hard pass on this book. It is so full of troupes, my eyes didn’t stop rolling throughout it. It has all the bad things of YA fantasy with very few positives. I guess the magic is kind of interesting? But we learn very little about it. It’s been awhile since I’ve had characters that I cared less about. This is one that I wish I had DNF’ed, but alas, I kept going.

To gaze upon a wicked gods

“I hate that he was right.
I was the girl blessed by death.”
“Waiting for someone to rescue me was useless. If I wanted to escape, I had to rescue myself.”

For our family to survive, sha had to sacrifice one granddaughter to save the other.

To save her sister for whom she would do anything and her grandmother, Yang Ruying makes a deal with her enemy Antony Augustus, if he wants someone to die she has to kill him. In the process they began to fall in love and I really liked their relationship.

I had so many expectations for this book but after 20% I got bored, many times I thought about putting it down but I wanted to read it at the end.

The story is good but it wasn't for me.

this book had so much potential to be great. the world building and magic system were fascinating and well done.

this book was marketed as an enemies to lovers and it’s not that. i feel like it’s more of a dark romance. if there was less romance and more political, world building it would be so much better than it is. the romance takes so much away from this. i think it’s romanticizing an abusive relationship.

magic system- incredible
romance- awful

thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Monsters & Demons: 5/5
Redemption: 1/5
Sacrifice: 100/5
Plot Twists: 3/5
Love: 3/5

Set in a fantasy magic-based world called Pangu, that has now been invaded by a science-based world Rome via a portal, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a tale of survival through war and oppression. I found the author's note relevant in explaining the inspiration behind the story as I had also grown up with similar stories about the war.

Ruying has an unusual magic gift that brings Death to anyone she touches. A gift that has always caused her to be shunned and feel like a Monster for killing. In the midst of her daily survival, she is noticed and eventually caught by a Roman Prince wanting to utilise her gifts to bring about a better society, and an end to the war. The choices she makes to protect herself, her friends and her family are nothing short of traitorous. To be put in that kind of position and situation, I believe would be difficult to turn down.

Antony is one of the three Roman Princes from the invading empire - claiming to be the better Prince who will finally bring peace and co-existence. Though to do this, he requires Ruying to assassinate all those that stand in his way and are against the side of peace. Her struggles with how she has always been perceived, make it an easy decision for her to choose to side with Antony, at the expense of her relationships with her childhood friends and family.

Key to Ruying's decisions are the friendships she has with Taohua who is fighting against the invaders, Bai Hu who is working alongside another Roman Prince, and her sister who is supporting the rebellion under The Phantom. I would put this whole book as completely morally gray. Ruying struggles a lot with figuring out who to believe and which side she should be on.

I wouldn't say there is a love triangle though Ruying struggles with her feelings towards Bai Hu and Antony - a traitor on the enemy side vs. an enemy on her side. It takes a lot of indecision and contemplation on Ruying's part before we get to the grand reveal of where everyone's alliances and fate lie, and to see who really is the Monster through it all.

Thank you Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine for the arc!!

I went into this book with such high expectations: magic vs science system, girl with death powers, childhood friends to enemies vibes, etc. But my expectations were brought down five chapters into the book.

First of all, the world building is super confusing. One part of the world building is called Rome and its citizens Romans which make me think of men in togas, but then they're described wearing suits and holding guns. Then we have the other part of the world called Pangu and its citizens wear traditional clothes. There are also hints at a substance used by the citizens called opian, very much described like opium, which makes me think of mid-19th century China. And I understand that in a secondary world fantasy novel it's a bit strange to use our calendar system, but still, I couldn't focus on the rest of the story as I was trying to figure out the timeline this book takes place in.

My other issue is on the fact that half of the empire, which is clearly supposed to represent China, is called something else, while the rest of the empire is called Rome. Why? According to the author, they are a "fictionalised" version of romans, but I really don't see that. If that was the case, then I think the name should have been something else and not Rome.

And lastly (which, again, ties back to the whole world building issue), in the author's note it's mentioned that the events in the story are inspired by real events that have happened in China during the Russian and Japanese occupation. I have to admit, I don't know much of China's history, it wasn't something I was even taught in high school, but I know about the Roman Empire and they're nowhere near each other historically or geographically. Again, it might have been better if the author had chosen a different name for one of the empires. It came off as slander towards the Roman Empire when the whole focus was supposed to be China, Russia, and Japan.

At this point I couldn't read more of this novel. I had to DNF on chapter 5. I am still intrigued by the plot, but I know my mind will be focused on trying to make sense of the world building and I won't be able to pay much attention to the rest.

I feel like at this point given the discourse around this book, and the many people who have dedicated valuable time to dissecting the book's flaws, there's not much I can add. However, I will try.

I really wanted to like this book. The magic system is fascinating, and I do enjoy a dystopian fantasy. I enjoyed the way the main character is pulled between these two plans to respond to colonization, and that there doesn't seem to be a clean right answer. It's something a lot of YA novels shy away from, and I'm glad this book does spend some time with the practicality of doing something evil for a very limited goal and with the thought it'll prevent a larger tragedy, but recognizing that helps people who are destroying you too.

That being said, I think this book needed some major help from editors, and it's disappointing that the publishers did not do more. This feels like something an editor could and should have caught. I echo the criticisms about the colonizer romance, which didn't feel fully necessary to be able to develop the plot. It's made worse by the fact that it seemingly occupies the bulk of the books, since the action plot doesn't really heat up until the later half of the book. This book easily could have been cut down and the next book incorporated into this one. That would have allowed for the end game that spoilers have been disclosing, and would have helped the plot's pacing as well.

Finally, while the author bears some blame, ultimately this book highlights the importance of having a diverse team editing books. While I understand not everyone will feel this way about the book, more diverse early readership would have helped so much to catch these things.

I honestly don't know what to rate this. I enjoyed elements of it much more than my other 2/2.5 star reads, but I finished it and felt kind of gross, so rating it 3 stars feels high.