A beautifully written fantasy novel about morals, survival, and a love for one's homeland.

Ruying's world, Pangu, has been invaded by the Romans. While the Romans live a life of comfort, enjoying the food, culture, and resources of the Ruying's home City of Er-Lang, her people continue to suffer at their hands. But her people are not helpless. Among them are the Xialangs, or those blessed with magic, and Ruying herself has a unique gift. Her magic is the ability to cause death, a power she struggles with and must decide how to use. But when Ruying catches the attention of the Roman prince Antony, she has a choice to make: is her family's safety worth betraying her homeland?

Because I have seen this book referred to as a colonizer romance, I wanted to address that upfront. This book has a romance, but it is a subplot of what is, at heart, a fantasy novel with political plot lines. Many readers who came looking for an enemies-lovers-to-lovers romance have DNF the book at 50% because they had trouble rooting for a romance with a colonizer. Fair. Except, that's not really what this book is about in the end. By the end of the book, I did not believe the author intended this to be a colonizer romance but the setup for a bigger story.

What I loved about this book was how beautifully complex the characters were. Every one of them is very, very morally grey but in a nuanced and balanced way. The childhood friend turned traitor Baihu, the drug addict sister Meiya, Ruying herself, with the power of death, and the manipulative prince Antony. Antony's character shows just enough vulnerability and compassion—never enough to make you like him, the right amount to show that Ruying is unwilling to see him for what he truly is because she is so desperate to see good in herself. I loved how Rome and Pangu were both given such a clear identity in this struggle between magic and science. Rome, with its greed and science, driven only to consume, and Pangu, with its magic and poetic legends.

I did have a few issues with the book. I like Ruying, but being in her head can be.... tedious. Her thoughts are repetitive, with her obsessing over the same moral issues. I also think the book's basic premise could have been better explained. While I liked this civilization being called Rome because, you know, "Veni, vidi, vici" and whatnot, I would have appreciated a brief synopsis of who and what Rome is at the beginning. It took me a bit of time to realize the story takes place in another world, and the bad guys in the story are not historical Rome but are actually... us? I interpret Rome as the civilization that emerged from the future Earth, but I would have liked this to be spelled out better.

Who is this book for?
This book is for those who enjoy a political plotline in a fantasy novel and are not looking for a romance focus. It reminds me a tiny bit of The Cruel Prince. However, I would again caution that this is not a happy, fulfilling romance. Seriously, the guy is actually the bad guy.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Random House - Ballantine for this arc. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I’m going to review this one in a rather unconventional manner, but when thinking about this read and trying to organize my thoughts into my typical review style, I simply found it all to be too jumbled and all over the place. Moreover, many of my thoughts and feelings have to do with very specific aspects of the books and less to do with overall structure and form of the book.

I’ll give a quick overview here, however: I did not like this book. I thought the writing was incredibly choppy and stilted with broken up sentences galore, the characters largely unlikable and melodramatic to the extreme, and the plotting muddled, leaving readers unsure of what was going on in basic aspects of the world and how they were meant to interpret the actions and feelings of its characters. It simply failed to be a good read for me in almost every way. That said, as always, there are plenty of readers who may enjoy this more! Specifically, readers who focus less on world-building will likely not be as hung up as I was with much of this story. And those who really enjoy Asian fantasy (as I typically do!) might also want to read this. Now, for the rest of this, I’m simply going to label each section with the struggle point I’m going to focus on. First up:

The Author’s Note/Historical Inspiration

This author’s note was included at the beginning of the book, so it’s clear that the author and publisher intended for it to be read before the story itself. In it, the author writes beautifully of listening to her grandfather recount his memories of Unit 731, a unit of the Japanese Army in late 1930s, early 1940s, that committed horrific war crime experiments on the Manchurian people. Now, I always appreciate when author’s include information like this when they are writing a book inspired by true events, but in this case, it only raised more questions with regards to the decision by the author to name the colonizing force “Rome.” To draw attention to the atrocities of the past by creating a fictional version of the tale for modern audiences is a tried and true practice, and like renaming Manchuria or China “Pangu,” the Japanese forces could have similarly been given a fictional name. And with the inclusion of this author’s note, it would have been clear to everyone what was being discussed.

But to instead take a specific historical event like this that was enacted by one nationality and then write a book and attribute those actions to a completely different real-world country/people is pretty icky. I can’t imagine this choice going over well if something similar had been done with different historical events/groups. For example, writing a book about a colonizing group giving indigenous people blankets covered in disease but then naming that colonizing group, say, Brazil. Nope! Not great! It was also such an easy fix, since Manchuria/ancient China had already been given the fictional name of “Pangu.” Simply do the same and come up with some other fictional name! Not only would this have avoided the “ick” factor we have here, but it also would have made the reading experience more pleasant as a whole. The name “Rome” invokes a very specific picture in most readers’ minds, so to then write a book in which the Romans are zipping around on helicopters and whipping out guns all the time reads as strange. It’s distracting, at best. This lead’s me to my next point, which also starts in the author’s note but than moves into the narrative itself:

“Magic Vs. Science”

There were also some bizarre claims in the author’s note about “science” that really had me raising my eye brows. At one point, the author is reflecting on the past, about how China fought its Western invaders’ bullets with bows and arrows. Now…I’m honestly just confused by this. The note started off talking about Unit 731, so obviously references to bows and arrows make no sense in this context, not even getting to the fact that I don’t believe we’d call the Japanese forces “Western.” But if at this point in the note she’s instead talking about an earlier point of history (there is no indication that this is the case, however, because the very next sentence is again referencing her grandfather), I’m not sure it’s much better! China was significantly more advanced in science and technology than the West for pretty much all of history. It’s not only inaccurate to frame history like this, but almost weirdly offensive against China itself?? I really don’t know how to interpret what the author was trying to say. Maybe I’m missing something, and if so, I’m happy to be corrected, but as it stands this was bizarre to the extreme.

Unfortunately, this continued into the story itself. Ruying, in her overly melodramatic style, goes on and on throughout this book of the impossible power of Rome’s “science” and how Pangu has struggled against it for decades. Aside from the fact that just referring to this over and over again as “science” (“they came at us with science”) makes for a clunky reading experience, it’s also a strange choice. Don’t you mean technology? Saying that Pangu had no sense of “science” is like saying they have no understanding of gravity or of how the stars move through the sky. It makes Pangu and its people sound incredibly stupid, and I know that’s not what the author was trying to say! Beyond this, again, to write a fictional world that is based off ancient China and frame it in a way that makes the Chinese stand-ins repeatedly said to have no understanding of “science” is to downgrade China’s own history of actually being incredibly scientifically advanced.

Beyond this, from a fictional stand-point, we are told that the Romans invaded several decades ago. Again, unless we are to seriously devalue the people of Pangu, it belies belief that they would not be able to begin adapting and replicating some of the technology that the invaders brought with them. It’s simply hard to buy from a story front, and I was repeatedly thrown out of the story whenever this discussion of the “Romans and their science” came up.

The Romance

I don’t typically read many reviews of a book before writing down my own thoughts, but I did here because of all of the confusion re: “Rome” and “science” that I discussed above. And when I was going through the Goodreads reviews, I began to notice something strange. This book was continually being referenced as a “colonizer romance” with many readers enraged about the love story between Ruying and her Roman love interest, Antony. What makes this most interesting to me, however, is the fact that here is a real-time example of how either the times have changed or something else went wrong in the marketing of the book.

Readers of this blog will know that long ago I had a very bad “break up” with the “Shadow and Bone” trilogy, and this largely had to do with my dislike of the massive fangirling over the Darkling as a love interest. I was bewildered and put off by how so many fans of that series seemed to think that the Darkling, a literal psychopath and mass murderer, was a legitimate option as a love interest, to be held up right along side the heroic best friend, Mal. Well, low and behold, I think we have the exact same set up in this book, but for whatever reason (changing of the times, the type of fantasy novel this is with the focus on colonization), the pendulum has swung completely the other direction, with fans up in arms that this pretty terrible guy, Antony, is given so much time as a love interest at all! What is missing from many of these reviews is that this book, too, includes a very “Mal-like” character, the best-friend that, by the end of the book, seems to be fully brought forward as the true love interest. Frankly, I felt like the story was fairly clear about all of this. But if you just read the reviews, you won’t see this. For some reason, poor (not really) Antony didn’t see any of the Darkling love that a pretty similar character received in another YA fantasy story just like it!

Now, to be fair to many reviewers, I think there is a major disconnect from the story this book is actually telling and the type of book it is being marketed as. We’ve seen a heavy push by the publisher to label this as an “enemies to lovers” style romance. This would obviously set the reader up to expect Ruying’s primary romance to be with Antony, and indeed, much of the actual “romance,” such that it is, is focused between these two characters. But by the end, we see Ruying forced to grapple with the reality of Antony’s choices and who he is, much like we see Alina become horrified by the Darkling in book one and turn to Mal. I don’t think the marketers or publishers did this one any favors with the way they presented it to readers, and the confused Goodreads reviews prove my point.

All of that said, leaving the confused reviews aside, I did not enjoy this love story. Ruying was incredibly annoying through much of it, melodramatically info-dumping her way through what could have been compelling scenes. For a girl with the power of “Death,” we see practically no assassinations. And from a character that we’ve been warned by the author (again in the bewildering author’s note) to not judge harshly for her actions, all we see is a girl who judges others, doesn’t really kill anyone on page, and then the one time she does she breaks down about it. This is not the “morally grey” character I was promised. Instead, that morally grey character seems to be the best friend love interest who, low and behold, Ruying herself spends much of her time judging for his actions.

This has gotten incredibly long, so thank you for everyone who stuck with me through this messy, rambling rant of a review! I obviously had a lot of thoughts and feelings on this one, but unfortunately, none of it was positive. I don’t recommend you read this book, however, it’s also one of the more highly anticipated titles for the spring, so if you want to get in on the action, I guess give it a shot!

Rating 3: As a story it fails with poor writing, weak characterization, and a muddled plot. But on top of this, we had some really strange choices about how to re-imagine historical events in a fantasy novel that I think not only landed badly, but crashed and burned.

(Link will go live on The Library Ladies on April 20)

I loved the premise of the book as it's really similar to Chinese wuxia novels. The take of the worlds of Rome and China in one story is very intriguing. However, I felt that there was something missing in terms of character building, I understand that this first book is to pave the way for the future books but I also found the focus on Ruying and Antony's relationship not well portrayed. It's a lot of back and forth where it didn't make a lot of sense and also edged on Stockholm Syndrome. Despite Ruying also not being sure on what the truth is and which side she should be on, there wasn't a lot of action. I was hoping to see her grow (find the truth rather than just continuing on Antony's agenda) and harness her powers. Overall, there's a lot of repetition in the writing. This could have been used to flesh out the plot and character building a lot more. I am still looking forward to the second book in the series since it left on a cliffhanger but would really love to see some improvement in the writing.

This story was tough to finish since I saw parallels with the genocide and colonization actively happening in parts of the world 🍉.

The story centers around Ruying, a Panganese girl, whose home country is being exploited and colonized by a fictional version of Rome. Ruying’s home country seems to be a fictionalized version of ancient China. The magic I’m this story was cool, and some of it reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender! I wish the author had focused on more world building though - at one point I had to re-read a chapter because I didn’t realize the story was diving into the realms of science fiction. HOWEVER, this is not a standalone, and I will check out the next books in the series for the sake of learning more about strange fictionalized realm.

This was a very interesting premise. I will say it took me a bit to realize that it wasn't base on Earth but in a different world. I really did enjoy this book. The world building was great and loved the different type of characters in this story. I will say I was curious how this was going to play out, but I rather enjoyed the reading experience. I am interested on where they go from here.

I was provided a free copy of this book by NetGalley in return for an honest review

Ruying, our main character, is a Xianling, someone with magic abilities that, while making her powerful, cost her a portion of her life for every use. Ruying’s ability is a control over Death. Ruying’s people have been ruled by the Roman’s who came from another world, a dying world, through a tear in the sky. After making a poor decision Ruying is put in the line of sight of a Roman prince, Antony Augustus, who claims to want to use her abilities for peace. Ruying has to decide if she is willing to use her abilities to better her world.

I have complicated feeling about Ruying as, I believe, I am meant to. She is roughly 19-20 as well as Antony and in many ways this affects Ruying’s decisions. She is a result of her limited life and as she faces more situations she has never faced she is forced to contend with the idea that the world she knows isn’t the world that is. She makes some terrible choices that make me want to reach into the book and shake her. That being said, she has a clear character arc with growth that, sometimes being frustratingly slow, feels very real.

My largest criticism of the book is my lack of emotional connection with the side characters. I think seeing some of these side characters more would help establish them as someone important rather than just a glimpse every once in a while after which we are expected to care about what happened to them. I care a lot about Ruying, but not so much about her family and friends. I feel that this sort of emotional disconnect from the people Ruying cares about takes away from being immersed in the story and fully understanding the situations that she deals with.

I will definitely pick up the next book and I hope to see Ruying’s character arc develop further.


3.75/5

2⭐

Honestly, the first 40% of the book were pretty enjoyable, I had a good time. The concept seems interesting and I was genuinely intrigued.
But once I reached the middle, it became really repetitive, Ruy keeps rambling on and on and on about the same things and that's when I started skimming through. I honestly skipped a lot, I just couldn't make myself interested in the characters stories.

This had potential, I'm disappointed :( I really wanted to like it

This book was not for me. First of all, I have a really hard time with a book in which the colonizer is the hero. Maybe she is planning to swap things up romantically in future installments, but as it is set up, our MMC is a colonizer who has literally been torturing her people. I just can't get behind a romance like that - I can't root for that relationship to succeed. I also felt like the plot suffered from a lot of info dumping. It's a real art to be able to write fantasy/sci-fi in such a way that isn't info dumping, but those who can do it are able to seamlessly create a world, mythology, and society that feels real without blatantly spelling everything out for us. Maybe it's because this is YA, but if so, that seems like a cop out as teens should be given more credit for being able to read richly written worlds and not needing all their information poured straight into their brains. They can handle good writing, and they need to see it. I just felt like the writing was clunky, and the world building was done without much finesse.

I think a lot of people will dig this, but I didn't love this as much as I wanted to. I think this was a very promising start and introduction to this new world, but I didn't love any of the characters. I think this could have benefited from more chemistry between the characters, but I just couldn't connect with anyone, and it made it hard for me to root for anyone. The ending left a lot of open ended points, but I'm not sure I'll read the next one.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and the author for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was immediately drawn to this book by the gorgeous cover and description. The FMC, Ruying, is blessed, and arguably cursed, with the gift of death magic. Her people are those of magic, and the invaders are those of science. She is forced to use her gift by the enemy prince, the MMC Antony, with the hope that she will save her family and her people. However, the enemy prince has his own objectives.

Ruying's family members are addicted to opian. The author does a beautiful job of describing the tragedy of addiction and how it can tear a family apart. It allows the reader some understanding as to why Ruying takes certain actions in the book. It also plays into the wickedness her people have to endure at the hands of the invaders.

The book is written in Ruying's POV which I'm so used to dual POV books that I had to get my mind straight. Sometimes she was too much in her head and I wanted more action from her.

The book was lacking in romance. It honestly did not need it. There was nothing to really support Ruying and Antony's relationship outside of attraction to physical attributes and the "oh maybe he's not that bad because he wants to help me protect my family". In terms of Ruying and Baihu, they are childhood friends who might have been lovers had the invaders come. Baihu comes to Ruying's aid and shows her the disturbing reality of the invasion that Antony kept from her. If the relationship between the two blossoms further in the next book, I wouldn't be surprised but the book would be fine without the romance. At times like these, a strong FMC does not need a love interest.

Overall, a decent start to a series. Again, I don't think romance is a necessity for this book. I also want to see more of Ruying's powers because I know she is a badass and I just need to see it on paper.

3/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC.

Not sure how I feel about this...the premise was intriguing and the story had soo much potential but everything from the world building to the characters, fell kind of flat. Maybe the sequel will pull everything together but this sadly was a disappointment.

2.5 stars

DNF

I ended up DNFing this book a couple chapters in. I realized very early this was not going to be for me. While the description sounded great, it was hard to be invested in the story when the first three chapters lacked an active action to ground me in it. Rather, the first couple chapters was 98% the narrator info dumping and complaining. While I believe she is in the right since this is a story about colonialism, there was too much venom that I instinctively wanted to put distance between us. Sort of like having an angry customer come flying at you before you understand the situation and suddenly you don’t care why they’re angry in the first place. It made me not want to be invested in this character. And I’ve read excellent fantasy stories that tackle colonialism such as Spice Road, Forged by Blood, and even Iron Widow. And Iron Widow is the closest to this one because the FMC there is also bitter and angry. But in Iron Widow we immediately get active action scenes that allows the readers to understand and justify her anger, even when we don’t always agree with her decisions. Her bitterness was slowly given to us like spoonfuls of medicine. In addition, this was inspired by real events as the author says in her author note at the beginning, but I wish it leaned more into the fantasy. It was too close to reality for me to enjoy it. While Spice Road, Forged By Blood, and Poppy Wars are also obviously inspired by real events, they created a world and narrative and leaned more into the fantasy to not only make them feel original, but the lessons easily digestible. I think this will be enjoyed by others. But for me, I was turned off by the initial chapters that I had no desire to see if it got better.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

The idea behind To Gaze Upon the Wicked Gods is intriguing and I was interested to see how the world building played out. This one did not work for me in terms of writing style, lack of of character development and unclear world-building. 2.75 rounded up.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an ARC.

First, thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me with the e-ARC.
And I need to say it again: I NEED BOOK 2 and need to slap Antony’s face.

I started reading it before all the propaganda from publisher and author herself and to be honest, I think the marketing is giving out FAKE PROPAGANDA. because I got so confused when I looked at the tropes, some of which I didnt noticed in the book.

I took my time in reading it because the first part is all about MC explaing how her world (and family) ended up in the current situation. But it is kind of obvious what is going to happen next; one of the foreign princes is going to use her as a weapon while both of them spend more time together.

not going to lie. I really laughed reading how the foreigns, the people from the other world that want to set their own people there are called ROMANS. Rome was one of the greatest empires of all time, and of course, europeans. But the explanation about how people from Pangu thought these foreigners were gods, I was like “I read this story before… in SCHOOL”, as someone who grew up in Mexico, I read a lot of times the colonization of Mexico, of how Europeans arrived in Mexico and all indigenous groups thought the Spanish were gods because of how different they looked, and treated them like gods until they found out their true intentions and at the end, the spanish betrayed them.

So, MC, Ruying is all time thinking that she shouldnt be doing what she is doing because she knows the Romans are the enemy of her people. And Antony is falling in love with Ruying, but… is he? or is he developing an obsession over her and her power? I really doubt Ruying is in love, as a lot of people in other reviews are saying. you all need to finish the book! even the title of BOOK2 says all, big spoiler!

Also, there are details that are not well described but I think is because this is her DEBUT book. and probably I got used to the excessive details from other authors. I hope Molly grows her ability to write good stories and give us a great conclusion for this and better stories for the future.

This book had so much potential. The world, the rebellion, and the characters were all interesting. It is weird that there is a made up country vs. A real empire , but in modern day. The romance ruined it. I agree with the other reviewers that it is a colonizer romance. There are no redeeming qualities in Antony. He has the power to save her friend after she asks and he chooses not to; he is delusional about how his want for power is different than his family’s; he allows her to be harmed and suffer; he only sees her country as something to possess; he uses her over and over again for his own benefit; the list goes on. The only way it would work is if she becomes a villain as well. But the whole book has been building her up to not be the villain, it would be a complete change in her character. Maybe the sequel can redeem it by having them just be rivals and adding in another love interest that is Roman, but not with all the power and control.. It is also unbelievable that they have been colonized for so long and learned nothing of science. The two stars is for the potential it had.

2.75 stars
——————

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this one. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t do it.

The enjoyed the premise of the book, this idea of magic vs. science. But nothing about it felt unique when compared to other books that pit the same against each other. The plot was kind of slow to develop. There is a decent amount of world building that happens early on, which had its pros and cons. The world is well established, but it was a lot to get through with the already slow pacing of the book. There is a lot of telling and not showing when it comes to the action. When you hear magic, you expect a certain degree of action. But this one skims over the magic systems, making it hard to connect to the core of the story. Ruying is touched with the gift of “Death,” but her powers are glossed over and not explained well. It's frustrating, given how important her powers are to the overall plot. The writing was okay, but didn’t flow nicely.

The characters are hard to connect with. Antony was kind of mid at best, the quintessential villain in plain sight. I disliked how you knew what was coming from him, as it made the “twist” pretty predictable. Ruying was especially frustrating. She gives up all her morals and beliefs in a single chapter to work for the enemy under the guise of staying alive. But she is established as this strong, “death before all” type of character very early on. So her storyline felt out of place. I disliked her romantic feelings for Antony, especially, as they were extremely Stockholm Syndrome-y. She essentially fell for her captor/colonizer? Ick.

This was a high expectations book that just fell short. Probably won’t carry on with the series.

I’m not sure how I feel about the book. I feel like it has a lot of potential but im finding it hard to connect with the characters. I’m also not liking that there’s a romance developing between the oppressed and the colonizer. He may not be the main love interest but I’m not sure
I don’t think the book is for me but I’m sure many others will enjoy it

This dark fantasy captivated me with its morally gray characters and brutal world. Ruying's journey of revenge kept me hooked, even when the love interest seemed undeserving. I can't wait to see where the sequel takes this unique magic system and its consequences.

I'll admit, I didn't even need to read the full description of this book to be intrigued. Beautiful cover art? Check. Cool title? Check. Main character blessed by Death? I'm all in. Ruying's country has been in conflict with the invading Romans for her entire life. Her city is under occupation, and her people starve or suffer under opian addictions. After a chance encounter with Prince Antony Augustus, she finds herself captured as part of a city-wide roundup and forced to use her powers of Death for the Romans. The set up for the plot seemed to have a lot of dissonant parts (The Romans have planes and guns? Will there be actual gods at some point?), but rather than being off-putting, Chang's storytelling made me confident that all the parts would be woven together into something very new and very cool. There is so much tension in this book: Science vs. Magic, Peace vs. War, Roman culture vs. Chinese culture, and Doubt vs. Trust, and I really enjoyed how Chang used these conflicts to inform her characters' motivations and actions. Without getting into spoilers, I did feel like Ruying and Antony's relationship was a little forced (and not a little Stockholm-syndromish), but the nature of their relationship and how it changes over time is pivotal to the plot, By the end of the book, I still had quite a few questions (How did the Romans get there in the first place? Who is the Phantom?) and I'm hopeful that we'll get more backstory and more fast-paced action in the next book. I'm excited to see what comes next in the Saga of Ruying!

I received a copy through NetGalley for review.

Let me firstly say I could not finish this one. I think this might be the first time I had to actually stop, and it’s not for the reasons most others seem to disagree with it.

I made it through a bit more than 50%, but it was the plot, premise and pacing I have issue with.
Ruying is the MC, a young woman blessed with the powers of death, the ability to kill and absorb people’s energy into herself to heal in a fight.
Her parents are dead, sister addicted to Opian, a drug brought from another world, when the empire of Roam pierced their world through a portal.

It’s set in a version of the future where Rome was never defeated and died out, they are the main power in this the other plane, they are more powerful, ruthless and destructive with the reach of modern horrors as weapons. Which they already unleashed on this world for the most part.

The inhabitants of this world, some are blessed by magic from the gods, but those with strong powers are becoming less and less over the last generation. Rome brought Opian, an addictive drug that increases the power in those with them. But those who use their powers often shorten their lives to use the powers. She wanted to save her sister and protect her Grandmother.

Ruying gets rounded up in a raid and told to show her power to be useful or die.
She is claimed by the younger prince of Roam to be his personal Assassin.

One of the phrases that kept coming up was “guns are faster than powers” which doesn’t match up with any other series I’ve ever read that combines modern weapons vs. magic and it was driving me nuts.

And at 50% read and we’re just starting to get off the ground? There wasn’t much explanation of how Rome got there, nothing about their culture, or plane of existence. Why they were there. An occupied country for 20 years would know right?

There were just too many holes, maybe honing this or editing would have helped more to rein it in. I just couldn’t keep going, and I’d read almost everything.

It had potential, but fell really flat.