**Thanks for the free ARC. This review is my own opinion**

I love me some enemies to lovers, but this book did NOT do it. Romance between the horrible, abusive oppressor, and the person who becomes enslaved? No thanks.

This was a highly anticipated read for me this year, and now that it’s a month out from publishing date I figured I’d get my review up with my thoughts.

This book has now garnered mixed attention online for the second time, the first time being of no control of the author’s own. But seeing how the situation was handled the second time has definitely left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Reviews, at their core, are for readers. They are not for authors. Everyone is allowed to form their own opinions on a book regardless of the negative or positive reviews associated with it. I certainly didn’t let the negative reviews sway me from picking up my arc.

That being said, this book desperately needed more attention in the editing process. To prevent sounding like a broken record and mimicking other reviewers, I’ll just say that the author’s note is misleading and taints your view of the book before experiencing the world that the author has created. Which is really unfair for everyone involved, including the author.

Our two main characters needed some time away from the page to grow. And unfortunately, reading the story of a kinda sorta colonizer isn’t exactly my preference.

I’m sad it didn’t work for me, but hopefully my review gives perspective into why it didn’t!

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for the ARC!

3/14/2024 Completed reading but Goodreads won’t let me write a review so I looked it up and saw all this controversy.

I went in blind..did not look up the author on Goodreads or read any reviews until I competed reading it.

This is a story about Forbidden Lovers, Literal Enemies to Lovers.

My dedication to Ruying and Antony.
The Vibe this book gave me.
Sia: Alive
https://open.spotify.com/album/2eV6DIPDnGl1idcjww6xyX?si=0Bd_hkpWSFGQ2KXpFCWSog

✨There’s a lot of introspective thoughts from Ruying. Some of it was repetitive and drawn out in the first part.
✨When we get to chapter 8 we finally get some action.
✨Part 2 kicks off strong. I am really getting into it now.
✨@50% I’m wondering how the Romans got to Er-Ling still.
✨The author writing style and prose was distinctively noticeable in the beginning of the book and as I read it, it got better and more fluid and I started to enjoy the writing style. It wasn’t bad it was just very flowery. I’m not sure how to word it. It was beautiful but sometimes overdone?
✨Oh. Boi Chapter 43 we get Antony’s POV…

Over all 3.75. Maybe a little more character development and more chemistry and angst between Antony and Ruying would have made it more…more everything. I love the antsy reads.

Ok I did not like the ending …. I left it open. Freaking cliff hangers. I will be reading book 2…and ordering the April Illumicrate SE box of this book.

It was not perfect but what is? I enjoyed it end that’s what matters.

I went into this book with somewhat high expectations and they were somewhat met. This book is alright. Not amazing but still, pretty good overall. I enjoyed it, despite her flaws.
Ok the strengths, the writing was good. There were some lines in this book that were pretty good. It wasn't amazing writing but it was still intriguing enough that it was hard to put down the book. Ruying's character was really interesting and well done. I liked her. I liked watching her story unfold. The world and the magic, while not perfect, were also pretty well done. The only reason this book gets a 3.5 instead of a four stars is because of the elephant in the room, the colonizer romance. I couldn't past that even though I'm pretty sure, judging by the title of the next book, the ending and read with Rachel's review that it's not gonna stay that way. Which thank God if that's the case because this book was really good and overall I'd recommend it. I just wish it didn't have that aspect to it, although I somewhat understand why it's there. Overall, 3.5 stars. I'd recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the digital ARC

I really wanted to love this book. The beginning was a little hard for me to get through; however, the middle did pick up, and the ending was good. It does end with a lot of unanswered questions/cliffhanger to set up for the next book. I loved the magic system, Ruying's power, and the lore about the gods. I was not crazy about her relationship with Antony, and I wanted her to do more toward the end. Hopefully, she will grow more as a character in the next book.

I wanted to enjoy this book, but often times just couldn’t. The characters fell flat and I didn’t truly care for any of them, especially Antony. The world has a unique element to it, but it was hard to understand at times. There are guns but only on half the town and electricity but not…. I wish maybe it had been a bit more descriptive.

As a debut maybe it just needs more polishing, but was a miss for me as is.

Another contender for "amazing cover, great concept, too bad about the absolute mess of the execution".

Look, some people have genres they're really good at and genres they're really bad at, and that's fine and normal and human. Molly X. Chang is not good at political worldbuilding or treatises about morals during war and unfortunately she has made that such an integral part of this novel that everything else suffers for the sake of trying to make it make sense or have impact. Characters go on long monologues or repat themselves over and over. The amount of telling instead of showing is truly impressive - take the grandmother, for instance. We are told over and over (and over) that she was her generation's most brilliant strategist, that she taught Ruying and Meiya all sorts of skills (that we can only assume she taught herself in secret (again, how), since one thing we're never told is how she herself learned these skills in a society that balked at teaching women anything non-domestic), that she is their fiercest protector, but what we see of her is her doing absolutely nothing except crying and trying to arrange a marriage for Ruying. She misses that Meiya has become addicted to opian, that suddenly the trades she was doing (also ??? what trades? is there a futures market???) are much more lucrative, that there are Roman guards watching their house, that Ruying has also watched their house at times. She never passed down any strategic gems of wisdom or had anything to say about their current political predicament that Ruying could parrot or think about at the right moment. All definitely behavior a genius strategist who taught herself to survive in a world against her would exhibit. And that's just a very small, very contained example, but it's the same pattern that shows up for every piece of worldbuilding and character backstory.

Add to that just how overwritten the prose is. Not a paragraph goes by that doesn't have absurdly exaggerated phrases for the sake of impact that convolutes what it's trying to say or flat-out contradicts what the story has said earlier. In one chapter, at the beginning, we're reminded that Rome opened the portal two decades ago. At the end of the chapter, we're treated to "we can't turn back time and reverse our ancestors' mistake of trusting them." WHAT ANCESTORS. The ones still alive? Ruying is 19 years old, born just a few years after the portal and the one-day conflict where Rome completely overpowered the pangulings. She is almost as old as the conflict; it's certainly not something "age-old" or from her ancestors' time. There's a certain impact these sentences are trying to evoke from the reader with the way they're phrased, but they also seem to rely on the reader having absolutely no continuity of plot. Which might explain why circumstances and feelings are told over and over, because we as readers aren't really intended to hold more than a few minutes of memory. Which is fine for some styles of storytelling, but once again, not one that relies so heavily on political worldbuilding.

Another few examples: "I hated their ignorance about everything their debauchery and reckless joy were built upon: the blood and bones and intergenerational trauma of my people." (That's just its own trauma, Ruying, unless you're talking about the trauma of being female with a destiny in a society that would ignore you otherwise, like your grandmother).

[after the Sihai Emperor bows to Antony] "If even the royals of our world lowered their dignity for Rome, what did this portend for our future?
For a fleeting moment, I understood why people rallied behind the Phantom, why Baihu risked his life for a dream of revolution, why Meiya painted posters and snuck out at midnight, willing to die for a flickering hope.
Maybe Baihu was right.
Maybe I was on the wrong side of this war. A thought that gathered pressure behind my eyes until I blinked them away." [AND THEN SHE NEVER THINKS ABOUT IT AGAIN]
Out of context, this is almost good (aside from the really choppy sentences and one-sentence paragraphs that constantly plague the novel). In context, she's already seen her own Emperor bow to Rome. Multiple times. We don't get a sense of why this time is different, much less why this time, out of all things, would inspire revolutionary thoughts when she's had many chances before. Despite all of her constant monologuing about wanting respect and safety and peace and the text telling us how conflicted she is, we never actually see her convincing herself that her actions will have the outcome she hopes for. We never actually see any of those arguments from anyone else, either. This is a novel that wants to have a lot of thoughts about politics and war and oppression and live in the grey area of choices between survival and dignity. But, Chang doesn't have the chops to pull this off. Every time a mental conflict arises, the text tells us; we never feel Ruying's conflict, we don't get a sense of the pressure she's under any one way, and we certainly don't know where her ethical code comes from (much less what it really is; the book wants us to think that she'll do anything for her family, but she often stops far short of that when the choice is before her, so what we're left with is a confusing mess). This is just a book of lines that sound good out of context, snappy quotes and highlights, but all together in context are just convoluted and weak.

Speaking of convoluted and weak, then there's the romance. "Romance". Much like the politics, we have no sense of why Ruying likes or trusts Antony. Or why he likes her. It really seems like he just holds her as she cries after killing someone and then suddenly she's like "maybe he's not that bad", compounded by his telling her that he wants peace (and her never, ever questioning that or what "peace" means to him). And then she learns he grew up a poor street rat and is immediately like "oh he's broken and sad and has experienced pain, so he understands and definitely wants the same as me". (regardless of the fact that he also tells her that he shot his entire family at like. age eight (there's at least three counts of children under ten killing someone in this book) for the opportunity to be a prince of Rome, and she's totally cool with this, and not in a "I understand he's a murderer, but I can't help but be drawn to him" way but in a "I have literally no thoughts about this, good or bad" way). He also straight up TELLS HER that the xianlings have been experimented on (and implies that he himself has seen the results and experiments and possibly had a hand in it), and it goes right over her head. If you're going to write an actual war criminal enemies-to-lovers romance, endgame or not, you have to actually engage with the fact that he's done some shit. Even beyond the experimentation, at basically their first meeting, Antony puts a gun into Ruying's hand and expects her, with no training and from a window in a tall building, to shoot a man in the street. And instead of actually contending with the tension and political sides and arguments that should ensue from such a relationship, we timeskip six months and suddenly Ruying trusts him and is drawn to him and never asks him why she's assassinating the people she's killing. We go from enemies to friends in the blink of an eye and it's dizzying. More than that, it's boring.

I could keep going and cover Baihu and Meiya and Taohua and get further into the worldbuilding and how even beyond the politics it doesn't make sense, but really, at the end of the day, everything about this book is fascinating in concept and absolutely toothless and boring in execution.

I think this is the first book that Molly Chang wrote and I am excited to read more, I was a little disappointed with this book. He character build up took to long for me in the beginning. But in the middle it did pick up pace. Oh and the cover of the book is phenomenal! Great graphic of the cover and oh the blurb sucked me in I do hate cliffhangers cause I want to know what happens next. Maybe he 2nd book will explain more?

So, again I firmly believe there are no bad books and every book is a huge labor of love. There’s just books that fit or don’t fit us and for me, it just didn’t fit unfortunately

This one sits at a 3.5 out of 5 for me. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

I have mixed feelings on this book...

I honestly thought the concept of the world was really interesting, where you have magic and science coming head to head. It has the potential to be a great story about colonization and revolution but it does fall a little flat. It also doesn't help that the colonizers are a reimagining of the existing, supped-up version of "Rome." I think the story would have benefitted by giving the colonizing world a name based on the fantasy rather than basing it off a real world empire, but I do also understand why the author did so. By choosing to name them "Rome," it allows us as the reader to better insert ourselves into the story and make it feel somewhat realistic.

The "romance" subplot in this story did make me a bit uncomfortable, nor did I find it relevant to the story. This sort of colonizer romance just did not feel believable to me and to be honest it drew away from the main character. You can respect and admire someone without falling for them.

The writing at times is a little choppy and rambley, which meant I had to go back and re-read passages to make sure I knew what was going on, which I normally don't do with books. But I do think the bones of a great world are here and I will pick up book 2 to see where the story goes (since MC makes some choices at the end of the story that will really propel stuff forward).

To be honest, I almost DNFed this several times but wanted to write my review having read the whole book. There are minor plot spoilers in this review, after the comments about the writing style.

So, the writing style - it's extremely choppy; the author often uses single sentence or sentence fragments as separate consecutive paragraphs. The intent appears to be for dramatic effect, but given the frequency this construct appears, it serves only to annoy. Literally, an except from about 15% in:

But not in this life.
Not when I had a grandmother and sister to protect.
In this life, I sought no glory.
Only survival.
For myself, and those I loved.
Still, something unpleased brewed in the pit of my stomach.
Envy.
Hate.
Feelings I was ashamed to feel.
We'd both dreamt of becoming heroes as children.

Additionally, the text frequently uses Chinese characters (as in, it's written like 漢字 and not transliterated hanzi) generally to share a Chinese idiom which is then followed by the English translation....but why? What is this adding by having these characters pop up every other page? If the author is trying to create an atmospheric effect and drive home to the readers that this isn't taking place in a Western country and they're not speaking English, it's a clunky and distracting way to do it that also does a disservice to the readers' intelligence (not to mention that other Chinese words are left transliterated).

Plotwise - this is very simplistic and at its core is a fairly unoriginal "girl with special powers must rise up against her oppressors" plot. Despite its marketing as adult, this reads like a young YA (it mostly reminded me of a less compelling, poorer written Graceling).

In terms of setting, this is very bizarre. The main world is an analog for China where the people have magic and apparently hadn't gotten around to inventing gunpowder (which was developed in China in like...the 8th or 9th century), but still use the exact same language and alphabet. They've been invaded by the Roman Empire coming to their world through unexplained portal magic/technology, which then goes on to conquer and subjugate them because the Roman Empire has technology and notChina only has dumb magic (these Romans are also able to control and block magic with their amazing technology, which is never explained). But also, this can't be our world's Roman Empire, because you find out later that this Roman Empire came to this world to find a new place to live because their world has basically been destroyed by global warming and natural disasters. So if it's not even the Roman Empire we know, why bother calling it that and not just have a Roman Empire-analog from the same world, with superior technology and no confusing space portals? Again, it's like the author doesn't trust her readers to pick up on any nuance.

Speaking of nuance - so there is sort of a romance between the main character Ruying, who is one of the oppressed, and her captor/enslaver Antony, one of the Roman princes. And at one level, I really want to believe that this is set up as a Stockholm syndrome-type of romance, and that we will see Ruying come to realize this. But this also very hard for me to buy, because 1) the author has not shown that she can handle anything with subtlety or nuance, and 2) about 85% in there is an absolutely unhinged chapter coming out of nowhere from Antony's POV, where he waxes on about how much he loves Ruying and would start wars for her, she is his sun, his moon, his starlit sky, etc. And is this meant to be....romantic? I can't even tell because the author has not earned any trust with me in the previous 85% of the book. Also these two are both such non-entities to me I don't even care?

Overall, do not recommend and I will not be picking up the sequel.

DNF. This book, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly Chang, sounded so good, and it had an amazing concept, but it was not well executed. One the major problems I had with this book was the inclusion of technology and advanced civilizations. This would havd been so much better if it were more high fantasy than dystopian fantasy. I also was expecting this would connect more to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria than the Romans colonization of Middle Eastern and Asian countries, as that is what was alluded to/mentioned in the authors note at the beginning of the novel. I also not not particularly enjoy the colonizer/colonized romance dynamic. On top of all of that, the pacing and worldbuilding seeming really rushed and horribly put together. Enough about the negatives though. A few positives about this book include its writing, and that stunning cover. It's a shame I didn't like this, because I would love to display it on my shelves.

I received an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am going to be truthful, I did not like this book. The world building was very subpar, almost none. The characters were not like able, even the main character. It was really a struggle to get through.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc of this book.

I was provided with an ARC by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

DNF book. As excited as I was to read this book, I can Review a book where there is controversy that Reviewers are being harassed and doxed.

Thank you to NetGalley and DelRay for this e-ARC.

Unfortunately, I DNF’d To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods at 15%.

Molly’s opening note and the personal message in it was touching and appreciated. The story is there, I can see it. But the writing is exceptionally hard to read. I don’t know how else to describe the prose other than just “weird.” I had to reread several paragraphs over and over again to understand what I was reading. I love intricate, rich story telling, especially in fantasy — but this felt a little.. try hard?

My hope is that these issues get ironed out before the book is published — I’ll be giving it another shot then because I desperately want to support Molly.

This book is now in my top 5 for the year of 2024. That’s how good this book is.

The characters are well written along with the world, background, and plot of the story. Every chapter draws you in and you don’t want to stop. There’s one thing that I love about this book is that there will be Japanese writing in it, with English translations and to me, that really drew me in. I love when books have quirks like that.

Overall, this book is fantastic and I highly recommend it to anyone!

The only issue I had is that Chapter 16 was missing…

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for the e-ARC!

I want to begin this review by saying that this was a highly anticipated book for me. I fell in love with the cover and thought the premise sounded promising. I was more than disappointed once I started reading and had finally come to the decision to DNF at 50%. The overall plot of the story wasn't bad and I think the magic system could be really interesting but the thing that really killed the entire book for me was the writing style. From the first chapter, there was major info-dumping that made it hard to dive into the world that was being created. The narrative also felt extremely juvenile which hurt the overall likeness of the main character. The clunkiness made the story so hard to get through especially when there was no redeeming elements from the characters or romance.

Arc received by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Molly X. Chang and Ballentine.

I am sorry but I cannot get passed 'Rome' in a made up fantasy world. Colonizer romance is already borderline weird enough without the colonizers being named after a real-life empire, now I don't 100% believe this will continue being the romantic interest but the marketing has been unfortunate. I could not root for this romance at all because even thought I generally have no qualms about enemy empire prince romances our mmc Antony was just an awful person. and to top it off our fmc Ruying becomes an assassin for our him. Btw spoilers, but he is not some misunderstood prince like other colonizer-esque romances where they're secretly <i> NOT </i> doing heinous shit instead he is fully, with full agency, committing actual war crimes lmao. The think that is worrying even with the direction the ending/plot twist took is that marketing the book as a "romantasy zutara on steroids/enemies to lovers/double villain/love-triangle" etc adds the potential of Antony getting a redemption arc. Had the book not been marketed the way it has I would have looked at the toxic relationship as exactly that toxic and not a potential end game serious love interest-- which is a part of what affected my enjoyment (the other part was how much Ruying's actions angered me, I wanted to shake her or slap her out of it so many times. She does however have immense potential to grow in the future??? Ultimately I do not think this was a bad book by any means and if anything I liked it enough to consider reading the sequels.


ALSO I AM SORRY, AGAIN, BUT EVEN WITH THE AUTHORS DISCLAIMER ABOUT NOT JUDGING RUYING TOO HARSHLY BUT I AM AND I WILL... she's also incredibly stupid. Anyway unless she outright sticks a spear through Antony's throat and heart in the next book I'm not so sure about this series.
I will maybe look into if book 2 somehow redeems this book.

Thank you, Random House for offering this digital e-ARC via NetGalley.

I have mixed feelings about this. The cover is beautiful, the setting intrigues me and I like the story idea and the type of magic found within the novel. I have no complaints about the technical aspects of the writing.

However, the negatives outweigh the positives. There are way too many long passages of the MC conveying character backstory and world set up. And there are too many interruptions in the conversations filled with paragraphs of her thinking and going through the process of making decisions. I don't think it served the story because it made it drag to the point that I wanted to skim through scenes.

So, interesting idea, technically good, but the writing style made it difficult for me to immerse myself.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for an advanced copy of this book for review!

1.5⭐ I unfortunately had to DNF this book at 40%. I tried to finish it but I found myself losing interest after 10 min of trying to read. I think the idea is fantastic and the cover art is breathtaking but the execution of the story left much to be desired. I couldn't get myself to be invested in the plot or the characters at all and it kind of throws me off that this book is technically a fantasy but the antagonist group is the Romans/Roman Empire that have guns and tanks and other machines. Overall, I think the pacing was also very slow considering I stopped reading at 40% and only one significant thing happened. I truly wanted to love this book but in the end, I just was not able to continue.

I am not able to post my review on Goodreads due to ratings and reviews being limited. The book's idea is actually interesting, but the way it was brought to life was what I did not like. The story was extremely slow paced with nothing happening in the first 25% except characters ranting about the same things over and over and over again. The conversations were odd as rants would be inserted when characters were asked a simple question; I attributed this to the author's personal views being portrayed in the story. After the 25% mark, the story picked up pace which made me interested in the plot, but the writing was filled with endless descriptions and lots of telling instead of showing. I ended up skimming many long-winded passages and the never-ending rants since they brought no relation to the story except repetition of things already stated back in the first chapter. I also was not a fan of the colonizer romance, or it wasn't really a romance, more like an infatuation mixed with a drop of instant love. I understand that a layer of manipulation was involved, but for a main character who absolutely abhors the Romans (and tells us this through endless rants), she instantly becomes attached to Antony and becomes gullible to whatever he says. Thank you NetGalley and Edelweiss for an ARC.