Ultimately DNFed this one. The writing style just wasn't for me. I could see other folks connecting with this deeply, but I hope the text got a lot of copyediting clean-up after what was shared in the eARC.

Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for this arc.

I was excited to read this book because the premise sounded interesting and I always want to support debut authors. Now, this book has a lot of discourse surrounding it. I have decided to dnf this book for now. I am watching a lot of reviews and videos involving this book. So it has influenced my view of the book and I believe that some time away from the book will help me sort out my feelings.

I wanted to love this sooooo much. But there was just too much repetition and too many metaphors that it felt like it dragged the plot down. It could have been 1/3 as long and none of the plot would have been missed. It felt really like there were many plot holes and holes in the world building. The aspects of colonizer romance were also really quite gross. It felt like it just glossed over colonization of countries instead of examining or acknowledging that.

I understand the main character was doing bad things for a good reason but it just didn’t resonate. The motivations for her to do these things felt weak. If the main character had thought one layer beyond the surface at all it would not have made sense to do those things. And her behavior was very inconsistent.

“𝐓𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐬” 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

A Chinese inspired dark romantasy with death magic and enemies to lovers.

𝘉𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩, 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘦𝘴, 𝘙𝘶𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘪𝘨𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴. 𝘌𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘢𝘧𝘦.

𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘙𝘶𝘺𝘪𝘯𝘨’𝘴 𝘎𝘪𝘧𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦, 𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭: 𝘐𝘧 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘭𝘴—𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘧𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘻𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯—𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘥, 𝘱𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘰𝘧𝘧 𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.

Enemies to lovers, you say? Sign me up 😂 I really enjoyed this book! Part 1 started out a little slow for me but once it picked up I was hooked. Overall I’d say this was a strong start to a great new ya fantasy series I’m looking forward to continuing!

Thank you so much to @delreybooks for this #gifted review copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own. 𝐓𝐨 𝐆𝐚𝐳𝐞 𝐔𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐝 𝐆𝐨𝐝𝐬 is out April 16, 2024!

Thank you to netgalley and Random House for the gifted e-ARC.

Hmmm. Okay so I didn’t necessarily enjoy this book, but I think it didn’t play into the colonizer romance as much as I’d expected. The writing style started out kind of clunky and melodramatic but improved as I went along, to the point where I felt immersed. I think the magical system, worldbuilding, and politics were interesting. However, the characters were the part that really just didn’t read true to me. Ruying was one of the main characters that I just couldn’t gel with. Like two pages in to the prince being vaguely nice to her and she’s completely lost her morals. I just didn’t buy the pivot, and found it really hard to like her strange balance of believing she was being self-sacrificing while sacrificing others? I just found her annoying and not very smart. And if there’s something I like in a character, it’s cleverness.

Overall, I think this book does a better job of managing Ruying’s complicated feelings toward Antony than other reviews may suggest. However, I did find her changes to be a bit too fast, and the other relationships underdeveloped (e.g. her family). Still, I’ll want to see where this story goes in the next book.

This review will be cross-posted on goodreads when reviews for this title are un-blocked. I may also post this review on my Instagram in the near future.

I am going to try to keep this review spoiler-free and if there is anything that would be a spoiler I will give a warning!

If I had to rate the first half of the book I would give it 4 stars. It was intriguing and kept me flipping the pages quickly. The second half is where it lost me up until around 80% when it picked up again. The second half I would give 3 stars. The book had a lot of potential but it ultimately didn’t give me the feelings throughout that I was looking for. That’s not to say I didn’t have any feelings towards the topics discussed though which we will get into.

The book is told from one point-of-view and it comes from Ruying. She was born with a gift from Death and can steal life from anyone. I thought that she was a strong character. She didn’t want to use her gift for the wrong reasons and tried to remain anonymous in her city when those with gifts were being snatched from their beds on raids by the Romans. Obviously her plan doesn’t really go according to plan and I knew in that moment what was to come.

I would say that she has good relationships with her family, but there are only a couple scenes that involve her grandma or sister. The reader is to feel something that isn’t really there. I am big on family bonds, but this one lacked a lot. Ruying does talk about them a lot though and we do get the backstory of how the opian drug destroyed her family in more ways than one. I did feel for her situation and it made me think of The Poppy War. There are a few similarities between the two books when it comes to addiction and oppression.

There isn’t much to say about the other characters because they really were minor characters. The only one besides Ruying who wouldn’t be considered minor would be Antony and I can’t say I liked the guy. He may “try” to understand her and her culture, say nice things, and convince her that war is bad but he is a dillweed and just as cruel as those he says he doesn’t want to be like.

*Potential Spoilers Ahead!*There is a lot of controversy surrounding this book when it comes to their relationship. It can be seen on Goodreads. I really haven’t dove into those reviews so I can only speak on how I interpret the book. The author does give an author’s note at the beginning of the book as to what inspired her which included real life events. I wouldn’t say that these characters have an actual romantic relationship. There are clues of maybe their feelings changing, but that was stopped pretty quickly with the cliffhanger. I can understand why she would want to believe in Antony. Some of his actions can be good like with her first encounter of him. A lot of his actions are not though. He is a big manipulator and uses her family and those she scares about as bargaining chips for her to continue to work with him. It’s not really like she has a choice. It’s hard to understand why Ruying would want to save him. Why care for someone that is hurting your people each and everyday? I think that this is where the manipulation comes in. He is good with words. Wouldn’t you rather have peace than war? Her sister obviously disagrees with this and wants to see Rome burn. She wants to use every able body to bring them to their knees. I do understand both sides. Each side will have casualties regardless. Ruying just sees her “way” as the best one forward with less.*End of Potential Spoilers*

It’s interesting having magic and science be a big part of the book. The magic was cool and I liked learning about others abilities even if they weren’t always present. A lot of the action happens behind the scenes and it was frustrating at times. Why talk about her job as an assassin if we aren’t going to see anything?

The book is very repetitive and that is what made the second half hard to get through. It was the same things said over and over again. I just needed more from everything else!

Overall, this was good for the most part. I would consider reading the sequel but I’d wait to see what others have said about it first.

Unfortunately, I found this book needed more editing and development. It was incredibly redundant in the way it shared information and had big holes in its worldbuilding and the buinding of its characters. The repeititive and over-burdened prose made this difficult to read. The emphasis on tropes in an enemies-to-lovers kind of romance left the plot feeling overly-convenient and the characters feeling inconsistent. I don't think that tying this work to real historical events and then santizing the depiction of them to focus on a romantic relationship made this a positive or pleasant or additive reading experience.

Thank you Net Galley and publishers for allowing me to read this for an honest review of this book.

Overall this book had its enjoyable moments and I'll probably read the rest of the series cause cliff hangers, but it wasn't my go to type of book. It got way too political and war happy to me. One side of the war is overtaking the other and there's a love interest going on between the two sides that we're supposed to just accept? I didn't vibe with that too much. He's killing her people but she's just supposed to accept it and fall in love? It felt forced. I enjoyed the concept of magic vs science though, like who will win in this battle? Magic powers or machine guns and electricity. I do enjoy how the fmc is really strong and brave and is willing to sacrifice herself for her people. Goodreads won't allow me to rate and review so I give this a 3/5

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey (Random House Ballantine) for giving me an eARC of this title in exchange for an honest review!

I requested this book originally for a couple reasons: 1) because it’s next month’s Illumicrate book and I wanted to know if I was going to want to get the next crate, and 2) because I’d heard this was one of the books that had been “review bombed” a few months earlier, so I wanted to support it if I could. Well, I definitely got my answer to whether I want the crate or not— but that unfortunately means my review won’t really be supporting this book.

I saw reviews ahead of time saying that this book was a “colonizer romance,” but given what I knew about the review bombing I wanted to give it a chance anyway. Unfortunately, all those reviews were exactly correct. This was absolutely a colonizer romance, and it wasn’t until the last maybe five pages, that the protagonist, Ruying, grew a brain and a spine and decided to turn against the invading empire and the “man she loved.” That’s really the only reason I gave this book two stars rather than one (that, and the writing was, in general, technically sound).

In general, Ruying’s motivations were confusing at the best of times and downright nonsensical at the worst. She says that everything she does is for her family, and then blatantly turns against everything her family believes in. I know that she was supposed to be an unreliable narrator, but in reality she was more of an “impossible to follow” narrator. There were so many sections that I had to reread multiple times to get a sense of what she was trying to convey— and even then I’d roll my eyes and ask myself what on earth she thought she was doing.

No book deserves to be review bombed. But, I’m sorry, I spent ten days slogging my way through this novel and I can’t bring myself to give it more than two stars.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a strong debut featuring a unique cast and magic system. I really enjoyed the debate between the two overarching view points presented. The magic system, particularly the powers of the main character, highlight this divide.

The plot is focused on the dichotomy between magic and science. Those with magic are citizens of the Er-Lang empire. While those without, are citizens of a new age Roman empire, that value science over magic. Our main character, Ruying, is a citizen of Er-Lang living in the remains of Er-Lang empire's controlled half of Jing-City. This side of the city has turned into the slums, as a result of the Romans overtaking the other half. We watch as her circumstances back her into a corner and force her to choose a path forward that goes against her core values. Citizens of Er-Lang are looked down upon and treated as less than human by the Romans.

There are fantasy, science fiction, and YA elements to this story. Along with themes of survival, oppression, and loyalty. The narration is primarily from Ruying's POV.

Ruying is a very lovable character. So much so, that I found myself crying when she was going through something particularly painful. I also thoroughly enjoyed the star-crossed romance in this story.

I loved this book and am extremely excited for the sequel!

*Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.*

I was given the opportunity to read this amazing book and I must say I could not put it down. The world that unfolds before you comes alive. When I first started to read this book I feel like it had a bit of the “Poppy Wars” vibe, however; “To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods” took this to another level and became its own tale. I will definitely be picking up this book when it comes out in a physical print. Also thank you to NetGalley one again for letting me dive into this amazing piece.

If you have enjoyed any of the Asian mythology inspired books that we've seen in the last several years, you have to try this one. The author does a great job with the worldbuilding and the plot drove all the way to the last page. I was rooting for out fmc the whole time, but some chapters I just wanted to shake her you know?? Anyways this follows the story of a girl who has the power of death and the impossible choices she makes to try and save her loved ones. I cannot wait to pick up a physical copy of this one.

I had high hopes for this book. Sadly, the book gets off to a slow start with more world building than plot. I was never able to feel immersed in the world and quit reading halfway through.

First of all, I just want to say that I am willing to give badly written books good reviews — I do it all the time — as long as I’m having fun. Unfortunately, I was not having fun! The writing, the side characters, and the pacing are all pretty bad, bordering on unreadable.

Ultimately, I just have no idea what was going on in this world, beyond the repetitive, surface level descriptions of it, and I’m not sure the author does either.

Spoilers below:
There’s a little romanticizing Stockholm Syndrome here and a lot of weird power dynamics there. The writing is very stylized but I would rather her just say the words. You can have really short, dramatic sentences for impact, but you can’t do that on every single page. It’s repetitive and occasionally feels like things come up just because the author suddenly remembered them. I’m not sure if she doesn’t trust us, as readers, to have understood the plot from the first time she said it, or if she keeps writing about it so she doesn’t forget.
There are side characters, but barely. We don’t see them very often and each of their motivations are confusing, at best. The only character whose motivations we really know is the main character and that’s because she thinks about them constantly — it’s incredibly repetitive.
The pacing is weird. The first day takes place over multiple chapters where the main character has to explain the past 20 years to us multiple times. There is SO much exposition which I just hate. I’m a “show, don’t tell” kind of person through and through. Then, 6 months have suddenly gone by. Our main character rapidly goes from being offered her assassin job to having killed 40+ people, being very good at using her abilities, and mentally coming to terms with her new life, even feeling like she’s doing the right thing, for the greater good. I hate that we don’t actually get to see this character arc and understand how she might get to this point mentally (like we do in Dark Heir or The Poppy War), we’re just thrown back into her head 6 months later.
The ending is fine, but it doesn’t really feel like an ending. With a half decent editor, this entire book could have been half as long and served as a Part 1. Remove the entire dark romance plot line with Antony, take out all of the repetitive paragraphs, and set up a plot two focusing on MC + her childhood bestie (friends to lovers?) and that could have been a good book.

Thank you to NetGalley & Del Ray for providing me with this e-ARC.

I really liked this story, and I can’t wait for its release!
I think at first I was a little worried about how this romance happens, but as I read on, it made more and more sense.
Antony is terrifying when we first meet him. And after reading the entire book, I’m still wondering if it was all for show, or genuine his intention to be terrifying.

I was a little disappointed that there is a time skip. We miss the parts where Ruying and Antony really soften to each other and then we’re just there.
I’m not sure why people are saying the things they are about this book considering how it ended.

Ruying clearly felt like she was manipulated. I kinda feel like that was the whole point. I’m very eager to see how this plays out in book two, and I’m very excited to own this book.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, and Del Rey for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Overall Rating: 1 Star

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods opens with a lovely note from the author about her family history and how the stories passed down through generations helped inspire this book. It was a strong start that had me super excited to read the actual story, but unfortunately I am sad to say it is the only good part of this book. On paper, this story should've been my cup of tea: An assassin with dangerous power, Fantasy meets Sci-Fi was such a fun concept, and enemies to lovers romance to top it all off. I'd like to breakdown what fell flat for each of these for me:

An assassin with dangerous power, our MC Ruying. She is cautious, she puts family first, and she is ultimately a coward. "Heroes die, cowards live." a mantra she often repeats. I'm confident this was the character arc the author wanted Ruying to have, a coward that may ultimately decide being a coward is no longer worth it, but I felt no desire to root for her to win. Ruying was fairly one-dimensional for the majority of the book. She wants to save her family and would do ANYTHING to make sure they're safe, and I mean ANYTHING. I wasn't shocked when she made bad decisions, and when she came close to making a better decision, she'd always change her mind and do something that would make me roll my eyes. To touch upon the writing a bit as well, this story is written in first person from her point of view. We get to see the decisions she makes and why she makes them, and for most of this book that is all we see. I would guesstimate that roughly 60% of this book is monologuing in between things actually happening.

Next, Fantasy meets Sci-Fi. While I think some things could've been done differently to make this concept more interesting, it wasn't terrible and I still like the overall concept. What I don't understand is why Rome was chosen? Multiple Roman characters were named off-shoot names of real world leaders from the Roman Empire, but Rome in this book was presented as much closer to modern day with guns and planes and other technology that certainly was available during the Roman Empire's time. It felt like certain things were pulled as inspiration 'just because' rather than pulling inspiration more directly from the stories that this novel was based on, or making something entirely new up.

Last but definitely the least, the romance. I don't think a romance in a book has ever made me so uncomfortable, and I say that as someone who is an avid reader of horror and other 'dark' genres. This is the story of an oppressed woman being forced to become "allies" with her oppressor, and for some reason catching feelings for each other. He holds a gun to her head, he uses shock bracelets on her, he is the one in charge of experimenting and ultimately killing numerous people from her country. Even if this trilogy ends with them never getting together and Ruying realizing she was wrong for ever having feelings, it was romanticized for far too long.

Overall, I don't and cannot recommend this book. The writing is slow and heavy with long monologues, the characters are uninteresting, and the romance was just...awful. I will not be finishing this trilogy.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the arc. All thoughts are my own. Where to begin here?

I love the concept. The entire world and the premise of them getting invaded was interesting and quite relevant to today's world. I thought the world building was really good. You saw how people were affected by war. You saw the struggles people faced and how others prospered off their backs. The culture was another thing I loved. I don't know a lot about Chinese mythology, but I really loved it here. I loved hearing Ruying talk about her gods and the ancient proverbs passed down through her people. And as someone who is native, it really hurt to see how a lot of that culture was fading or wiped out in some cases because of the Romans.

I wasn't a fan of the writing style. It got repetitive at some points and Ruying was constantly echoing the exact same statements that she had said maybe a page before.

The romance...oh boy. Others had stronger feelings about this one, but by the end I felt like the problem was solved for the most part? If she ends up going back to him in a later book, yeah I'm gonna probably hurl the book out a window. She let him pull her in with his honey sweet words and his tender touches and she fell hard. She was weak as hell even when she talked about how strong she was. By the end she FINALLY saw who he really was and the only end to their relationship that I will accept is her killing him. I'm so serious. I don't even want him dying to save her in some type of final act of redemption. This man needs to suffer and pay for what he did and she better never ever feel what she once felt for him. I read that the love interest is actually someone else, but I don't think this story needs a romance at all. That's just my two cents.

The other problem I had was how flip floppy she was. Not even in a manner you'd see with victims. I mean, she was a different person at some points. I loved her in the beginning. She was oppressed. She was a victim. She hated the Romans for what they did. All she thought about was how she wanted to see them fall and how she wished she could be the one to do it. Then we get the one intimate scene in the glass cage and suddenly Antony is sweet and nice and good and she has learned to trust him. Cause of his tragic backstory? Ruying stand up!!! So many times I was losing it because this girl was SO blind. And it's not like she was completely in the dark. She knew what Rome was doing. She had suffered by their hand. But Antony tells her a sob story and then says he wants to fix everything and she trusts him just like that. She doesn't trust any other Romans, but he's somehow fine because he has pretty green eyes. No. No no no. We're not doing this.

It is insane that she remembers him putting a loaded gun to her head and her next thought is how she wants to fall into his arms. Ruying...please.

The end of this book gave me hope. She finally opened her eyes and I need them to stay that way. She needs to remember what is really important, her family and her world, because she said that the entire story and yet she was actively working against them all because of one man's lies that she believed way too easily. I'm really excited to read the next book and I can't wait to see Ruying as more than a puppet. We also have yet to see the him, but I fully expect Cassius to be the worst of the three brothers. I'm talking full on Nero or Caligula.

Thank you so much to DelRey books for my digital ARC!

I really wanted to love this one so badly, I tried so hard to push through it but unfortunately I had to DNF it at 50%. I would like to start off by saying the world and the premise sounded really promising but for me personally it failed in execution because of how overly complex it was made to be

What worked for me: Apart from the stunning cover, the premise sounded so interesting to me. I love Asian world inspired books, they genuinely fascinate me. The interesting blend of sci-fi with fantasy had my attention when I learned about it,I also loved the concept of Gods that left the world and their progeny being gifted with magical abilities. This book definitely is an ambitious debut that fell short in the aspect of execution as I mentioned earlier

What didn't work for me: The writing is my primary issue, it felt choppy and extremely redundant whether it's the descriptions of the horrific world MC's live in or the constant monologues of FMC. I was on ch 7 when I noticed nothing significant happened other than the same facts being narrated over and over. It was tiresome and overwhelming to keep going, on other hand the world itself quickly became really confusing to me. It looked like it is set in Ancient China where the ways of people are said to be archaic, however the oppressor is Rome that enters the FMC's world via a portal from the sky and they seem to have advanced technology. So the world kept throwing me off as I was unable to place it in a time period that made sense, if it is a fantasy world, why does Rome tend to be realistic? Maybe this is a problem just for me. It made it hard for me to stay captivated

Another major issue was the character development and the romance. I think both Antony and Ruying were meant to be morally grey but they weren't convincing at all and the romance between them felt so abrupt and unrealistic. A girl who wants to save her world willingly falls for the opponent party? I just couldn't buy it. Overall I had a rough time reading it even though I wanted to like it badly.

This one is tough.

I had high hopes, when I first started. I thought it was really beautifully written. But I felt like as the story went on it felt like the writing style changed, and not for the better.

The FMC is hard to like. The decisions she makes are questionable, at best. She does a lot of fighting with herself, to just make the same easy/wrong decision over and over. She's also SUPER judgemental, and I know that's intentional, but it grinds my gears.

The love story subplot seemed forced and unnecessary. Just, why?

I enjoyed the world, and the magic, the traditions and the folklore. I appreciated the responsibility Ruying felt for her family, I just wish she wasn't so naive.

The beginning and the end saved this book, for me. The middle was just meh, but I'm hoping the ending means we'll see some (read: TONS) of character development from the FMC and maybe get a glimpse of this world from a different perspective.

I'm going with 3.5⭐s, for this one, I think. With hopes that the next in the series will see it full potential.

I always read intros/prefaces/forwards on books b/c it gives me a feel for who the real person behind the book is. I barely made it through the Author's Note since it blatantly informs me that this book is going to be nothing more than another Grrrl Boss Activist Manifesto.

Well, this BIPOC Grrrl is sick of this muck. My ancestors walked The Trail of Tears. I was taught from a very young age that I cannot punish my contemporaries for the sins of their ancestors. The horror inflicted on the Nations that Andrew Jackson and Co. drove out of the Carolinas and onto the concentration camp known as Oklahoma will never lessen in scope or severity. I hope Jackson was ground up and fed to his dogs after he died. What I'm not going to do with that sentiment is bludgeon my readers with the long nightmare of how NDNs have been targeted by government-sponsored genocide just to make the descendants of the perpetrators wallow in guilt.

Anyone who was taught WWII hx in a cogent and thorough manner knows that the war really started (years before Hitler's invasion of Poland) when Japan started carving out parts of China to fulfill their vision of empire. A story set against this backdrop has all the potential to become a new literary standard if executed well. However, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is going to ape so many of the tropes of this era and ultimately be little more than a VENGEANCE fantasy.

0/10 if that was an option.