I was incredibly excited to read this book, the cover was exceptional and I loved what it was trying to accomplish. Enemies to lovers. morally grey characters, the fight between magic vs engines/electricity? I wish I could have fully grasped those themes while reading this. Unfortunately, like another review I'd read, if Ruying's multiple monologues were cut from the book, it would be half the size. I reached 15% into the book and realized our main character had only accomplished doing 3 tasks, the rest seemed to be world building filler and monologues repeating the same things over and over again.
I tried to continue this book, I really did.
Maybe I will give this another shot at a later date and maybe the ending will redeem the long drawn out beginning but I was not excited to pick this up and continue reading.

I'm not really sure how to feel about this book. I enjoyed the writing at parts but felt that the dialogue between the characters was somewhat unbelievable and I didn't feel like any of relationships between any characters were particularly strong. I enjoyed the world building and magic system, but the characters were rather frustrating to me. I especially found our main character to be very frustrating and hypocritical at times, and while she acknowledges this I still did not think her actions matched with her character. I think the ending really saved the book because I was not a fan of the direction it was taking at all. I would be interested in reading the second book just to know what happens.

I didn't get far, but I think that's for the best after reading what other people have said about this one. 😂 I reached about 15% and didn't feel invested enough to continue and the writing style bugged me too. I also kept getting distracted that the other faction was just straight up Roman.

i really wanted to like this book, because it seemed like something just up my alley, but i am disappointed with how the plot was executed. i think other readers might enjoy it, it simply wasn’t the book for me. the cover is absolutely gorgeous, which is a big reason as to why i requested it. in hindsight, maybe i should start considering my request a little more.

one of the big issues i had with the book was how repetitive the writing was. i understand using metaphors to make a point, but when most of the story is an awfully long monologue in which we’re told everything, it makes for quite a boring read. if we cut off ruying’s rants about rome and her people, the book would’ve been half its size. most of the book is made out of info-dumps about the same information, over and over again, to the point it made me consider skim-reading, because there was nothing new. yeah, your world sucks, rome is a colonizer state, and what else? i grasped that info from the first time it was presented, there’s no need to whack me over the head with it 15 more times.

the writing style itself was good at times, even if it leaned a lot into purple-prose. for half of the story, there isn’t much happening and we’re just stuck inside ruying’s head, which isn’t a very nice place to be. i wish we’d got more showing instead of telling, but alas, it’s a 1st pov and the mc doesn’t know everything.

the dialogue was also quite repetitive, which made the mc seem quite one-dimensional, since she has quite the one-track mind. the other characters’ lines were a bit better, but still not enough to save the story.

the whole book is written from ruying pov’s, which is fine. it’s in first pov, by the way. towards the end of the story there’s a random chapter added that’s in 3rd pov, which is a peculiar choice to make, as it doesn’t really add anything to the story. it takes the reader out of the story, if anything. i understand the point of it was to make the reader root for one character, but i think it severely missed the mark.

sometimes that also made me question the writing were the chapters that are a few choppy sentences long that, i think, were supposed to make the readers see how deep ruying is. i didn’t really understand the point of them and sometimes they were borderline cringe.

ruying was a frustrating character - she’s marketed as this morally gray, almost villain-ish characters, but she’s constantly doubting herself and her choices. she’s also very naive and foolish to trust someone that kidnapped her, tortured her and manipulated her into becoming a killer. it’s like she’s just a puppet without any resemblance of a spine. the second he’s a tiny bit nice to her, she’s completely enamoured with someone that literally put a collar on her (to shock her when she’s not behaving). i get enemies to lovers, but this is just not believable at all.

anthony was exactly the typical villain romance protagonist - completely evil and vile, but not to the MC <3. the book tries so hard to make him seem more dimensional, especially by adding that chapter towards the end from his perspective, but i don’t think anyone would really buy it. he’s constantly lying to ruying and she blindly believes him, which is just insane, because it’s so obvious what his plans are and yet she never questions him. she’d rather trust this guy that’s clearly the enemy than her childhood best friend, whom she knew since she was a child, going as far as considering him a good person. the guy that, again, was part of the enslavement of her people - a good person.

the romance was severely underdeveloped - if i can call it a romance, because, to me, it seemed like she’s just coping with the situation she’s in. there’s not much chemistry between them and, because of the time-skips that are added, we don’t really get to see their relationship develop. towards the end there’s a reveal that makes it so much more unbelievable that this is marketed as a romance, because the power inbalance is just uhh, not that easy to ignore considering everything.

her family, who is the main reason she’s betraying her people, was severely underused. i wish we’d gotten more of them, especially her sister, since she’s part of an important to the plot group of people, but nope. they’re just mentioned a few times, to justify ruying actions and that’s it.

i would love to talk about the worldbuilding because the setting seemed really cool, but it took me a really long time to understand what was going on. maybe i’m just slow, that’s very possible, but there are two planets and a portal and rome is the modern one that works on science and pangu, a chinese-inspired world, works entirely on magic. other than that, there isn’t really much worldbuilding done, which sucks. it took me a little to grasp the fact that there were two planets, so you can imagine how well eveerything is explained. the setting really had potential and maybe there will be more fleshing out in the next installment, but so far i’m left with a lot of questions.

the plot itself was also quite confusing as there are time-skips and we just get mentions of things that seemed really important to the plot - which are just briefly talked about. we just jump from one scene to another and from one place to another, which didn’t help the story at all. there’s no reason for certain plot-points and no explanation behind some of the choices the characters make.

i fully understand what the book tries to accomplish and i do think it’s important to have more stories that focused on these harder subjects, but i think this needed a bit more polishing, overall, as it felt messy at times. i do think the series has potential, but it simply missed the mark for me. the world needs a lot more explaining because we’re just dropped in the middle of everything and expected to grasp what’s going on as we read. i’m not really interested in continuing on with the series at this point and maybe i simply am not the audience for this story. give it a try if you think this is a book you’ll enjoy, as i’ve seen plenty of good reviews.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a high action fantasy YA novel by author Molly X. Chang.

This novel of war touches on the lasting harm of colonialism in a magical fantasy setting. Ruying just wants to love and protect what's left of her family, and her resilience is inspiring and makes you want to follow along on her journey.

The magic of this world is really original, and the villainous princes were well fleshed out. The pacing was a bit slow at first though.

Overall greatly enjoyed this magical YA fantasy!

I honestly would love to give this book 5 stars for the vibes, but the book doesn't have an adequate conclusion. Reaching the end felt like reading the last chapter in an unfinished fanfiction that hasn't been updated in a year or so. Obviously being the first book in a trilogy you know there's going to be some business left unfinished, but by the end of the book nothing has been accomplished and all of the revelations made by Ruying were obvious in the first few chapters of the book. It would probably be better to read as a binge series once the rest of the trilogy is out.

once again we romanticize colonizers and I’m not here for that so I won’t be reading it. Thanks to all the reviewers who did make it through and brought that to my attention via their reviews. I was really looking forward to this and wanted to support it especially after Cait Corrain, but uhhhh, this is not a book for me after all.

Thank you Random House and NetGalley for supplying the ARC.

First off I have to say that the cover art is beautiful and would make a lovely book to have on display. The concept of a character having powers relating to death is pretty cool and looking forward to how it would be handled.

Unfortunately this book was so difficult to get through. I’ve sat here reflecting on the book, trying to think of what I was going to write in this review but I don’t really have anything to say. From the start I knew I would struggle with the writing because there was so much telling, so much information dumped onto the reader that in order to absorb anything, I had to reread a few times. And then the main character would repeat things over and over. Girl, we know your dad is dead and your sister is dying. We. Get. It. The writing didn’t leave room for the reader to infer or speculate on anything. It also was filled with endless platitudes and cliches that I rolled my eyes so many times I thought they’d get stuck! I wanted to DNF the book within the first few chapters but I pushed through and at no point did it captivate me.
I’m not interested in reading the sequel and learning more about these characters. The plot left much to be desired and the world was lackluster. I wish I had more positive things to say. The author’s note was sweet and hopeful… and the ending was promising but not enough to make me want to continue on with the story.

Also why did a chapter end with “but…”? Why did we get a random pov from another character near the end of the book AND it was in a different pov tense? This book feels like a draft that needs to go through a few more revisions because reading through this narrative voice was like chewing on leather.

First, I’d like to thank NetGalley for approving this book for me. I really enjoyed it! The author has a loving writing style, her words dance on the page. I found it a little repetitive at times, but it didn’t take away from the story. A few grammatical errors which I’m sure will be caught in the final stages before released to the public. Look forward to checking this author out in the future.

This book had me gripped from the first sentence, Ruying is auch a good fmc and I loved the sibling bond and friendship bond . The aspects of the royals having Godly blood was interesting twist that I enojed . I am also ping there is a sequal as the cliffhanger has me wanting more of Ruying and Baihu

Overall really enjoyed this one. Though it took a beat to settle into this world, and there were some moments where the pacing lagged for me, I enjoyed it and this really unique setting and story! A wonderful debut

I thought this book was very well written. I love the plot of Ruying controlling death. I found her powers to be interesting. I love the Chinese mythology inspiration used through the book. I like how Molly really captured the internal and external conflict war brings. While I found Antony’s character revelation to be slightly predictable I still enjoyed it.

I would definitely recommend this book and will be picking up the second.

Whew do I have feelings about this book! I was hooked from almost the very first page, drawn in by Ruying's struggle for survival under the yoke of Rome. I liked that while Chang's use of Rome as the colonizing power provided some potential familiarity for the reader, this was still something new and different from the world we know, just with enough similarities for us to recognize certain elements. Also the magic system was so interesting, especially Ruying's magic. I can't wait to see what comes next in the rest of this series.
Ruying was such a tough, damaged heroine just clinging to the barest chance of survival for herself and her family. The dynamic between Ruying and her grandmother (though sparing in the course of the novel) is so beautiful and sweet and sad all at the same time, and the dynamic between Ruying and Meiya was heartbreakingly full of misunderstandings and an unwillingness to listen to each other (I mostly landed on Ruying's side in their arguments but that's likely because I spent all my time in Ruying's head rather than Meiya's).
Now onto the meat and potatoes of the book: Ruying and Antony. I will admit that the blurb for the book is a little misleading and gives the impression that this relationship will be a romance. But it became very clear to me early on that what was between them never could be a romance because of the vast power imbalance between them and the ways in which Antony manipulates Ruying throughout the book. <spoiler> There were certainly times when these scenes threw me for a loop, when Ruying's desire to believe Antony was telling the truth and actually was as good as he purported to be. It wasn't until almost the end of the book that it hit me why that affected me so; those scenes and Ruying's desire to believe him were giving me flashbacks to my own childhood and my desire to believe my dad despite suspecting he was lying to me. I had wanted to believe in my father's goodness just as much as Ruying wanted to believe in Antony's and sadly with similar end results (well, not as drastic obviously, but it still hurt). Throughout most of the book, part of me was hoping Antony would turn out to actually be a good guy while in the back of my mind I suspected that he was just as evil as everyone else kept telling Ruying. And the blow when she found out how right they all were, oof that hurt and brought up a lot of childhood feelings all over again. So thanks, Molly X. Chang, for taping into the deep well of my childhood trauma with your anti-colonialism story about a girl with the power of Death. Also I do think Antony has convinced himself that he does love Ruying, but he doesn't actually love her, because people like him can't really love anyone. They can't let themselves be the kind of vulnerable that love requires to exist. I think he believes he loves her, and I'm scared to see what he might do due to that belief in the next book, but it certainly adds a juicy twist imo. </spoiler>
This is definitely a book that will stick with me for a while and will also leave me wanting more, which sucks because it'll probably be a while before the second book comes out. But either way, if you want to try a new and inventive fantasy brimming with magic, betrayal, manipulation, anti-colonialism sentiment, and a prickly heroine who can suck the life out of people, give this book a try.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me early access to this book in exchange for an honest review. I really enjoyed it.

In a war between science and magic, who would win? It turns out the answer is probably science. Ruying spends the first half of the book raging about the tragedies brought upon her people. They have been colonized and opressed under a fictional Rome. What originally brought me to this book was the promise of a grand, starcrossed lovers romance, but what it actually was was a romance riddled with a gross unbalanced power dynamic between the prince of Rome, and Ruying, who he is obviously manipulating. The topics presented in this book should not have been handled without any mention of this romance. There were also several time skips that seemed to be in the wrong place, and added more questions about what was going on. The book is on the surface, very shallow, as these time skips skip pivotal information and events during them. A few redeeming qualities are the beautiful cover and the remergance of an angry, driven main character near the end. Thank you to publisher and Netgalley for an arc in exchange for an honest reveiw.

I went into this book thinking this was supposed to be a fantasy with romance. It's not. It's certainly not a romantasy. What Ruying feels--even romantic feelings--are all a product of the situation in which she is placed. They are a part of the choices she has to make and the new beliefs and feelings she has about her world and its oppressors, caught on the brink of war. I think some reading this book misunderstand the romantic elements in this book to be part of a love story, but to me they feel more like part of Ruying's personal journey toward the decisions she makes at the end.

Prior to reading To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, I saw reviews that called out the book as problematic because of a romance between an oppressor and the oppressed. Now that I've read the book, it's not the book that is problematic, it is the romance. The romance is meant to be problematic. Ruying knows it is problematic. That is made clear from the start. We hear her thoughts about her feelings throughout. These are feelings she does not want to have; feelings she believes she should not have. It would follow that the reader should be feeling that too. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods does not romanticize colonization or colonizers. What it does do is give us a window into the mind of a young woman who often feels outcast and unworthy and who is undergoing severe trauma and trying not to lose her humanity in the process.

Given all that, there are some things I believe could have been done better. The worldbuilding doesn't feel complete. Why is "Rome" a power? Is the realm Rome exists in like our own, some future time period, or entirely different? I would have liked to have a more thorough description of the magical realm. We know it has multiple empires, has gods, myths and religions of its own. but I couldn't get a true feel of its scope or politics.

Additionally, most of the action was off page, especially once Ruying is taken into custody by Rome. We hear Ruying's thoughts about things that she did, but we don't actually see her do them. Even her feelings towards Antony often seemed to grow and change off page rather than through interactions that we actually get to see. As such, the book felt insular and slow-paced at times. The pace didn't speed up until the last quarter of the book, when most of the important action occurred.

Overall, I admire the complexities To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods sets upon the reader. The horrors of war; the inhumanity of occupation, the degrading allure of power, are all woven into a story that has magic, but feels all too real given the world we live in today. 3.5 stars.

Molly X. Chang's gripping story "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" takes place in a universe where magic and technology clash and revolves around power struggles, sacrifice, and moral quandaries. Ruying, the main character, is a fascinating figure whose internal conflict between morality and duty propels the story along. Chang creates a vividly detailed world that feels both familiar and foreign in her colorful and engrossing prose. Thought-provoking topics like loyalty, treachery, and the nature of power are explored in the novel, and the moral ambiguity of the characters gives the plot more nuance. Particularly fascinating is the relationship between Ruying and the Antony, which blurs the boundaries between betrayal and trust and friend and foe, enemies to lovers! All things considered, "To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" is an engrossing book, if you enjoy fantasy and political intrigue this book is for you. This book stands out in the genre thanks to Chang's deft narrative and nuanced characters, and I'm excited to read more from this gifted author.

ok so this was really good.
but also I really disliked the romance?

Kind of a toss up really. If you're uncomfortable with the romance, you might still love it.
I did not like how romanticized the MMC and their love story were but the FMC and world building somewhat made it up for it.

But the cover is gorgeous!

I was seriously blown away by this book. Like I’m still thinking about it a week later 😳

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang is a powerful story about Ruying, a young woman with the magical power over death. In a world where her land is colonized by the Roman Empire, she learns what freedom really means and what she is willing to do to protect those she loves.

I’m EXTREMELY picky about YA books (I blame my slow descent into becoming a crone). If you are like me and feel like you are slowly aging out of YA fantasy, you need to read this. The themes, the worldbuilding, the characters are all so profoundly created that it delivers the high stakes of an adult fantasy. The story is heartbreaking but in such an amazing way - you see how Ruying grows and how, despite her many flaws, she does her best despite the circumstances. You can’t help but feel for her as she reconciles her feelings and existence with the greater picture of calamity around her.

This story has many themes about colonization, racism, class, and gender. These topics were expertly woven into the fabric of the story and were all the more poignant because of their delivery in the plot. I think this is one of my favorite anti-colonialism books of all time: Ruying really has a deep moment of reflection at the end of the story which will hit home for anyone who has had to realize the dire nature of their circumstances and the need to rebel as a matter of survival.

My only critique is that the pacing was slightly off, and that the romance wasn’t as strong as it could’ve been (although I’m sure we’ll see more in the next book that may develop it further).

All in all, this is a must read for every YA fantasy lover - run, dont walk, to preorder this!

3.5 stars

This is a book that made me so uncomfortable and I was so tempted to DNF. But I’m actually really glad I stuck with it because the very end was worth it and I think the next book should be really powerful.
These characters are not easy to like. I’m not entirely sure we’re supposed to. Ruying is in an incredibly tough position, choosing/being forced to work with the enemy doing bad things to protect those she loves. And we dance on the edge of a knife the entire book with the potential for a romance with Antony, who is essentially her captor. And let me tell you I did NOT want a romance to develop. I was tense the entire book over it.
This book really explores the devastation of colonialism and what the colonized peoples do: do they rebel, do they submit, do they collaborate? And when their lives and the lives of those they love are at stake, can we truly blame them for whichever path they choose? I mean yes, obviously we do blame them, but aren’t the invaders ultimately who we need to blame. And is peace at the cost of freedom really peace?
So, super complex feelings to sort through. But like I said, the end opens it up for what I think will be a book I really want to read. So I will absolutely continue the series.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the preview. All opinions are my own.

There are two worlds: Pangu, a world of magic based on the mythology and beliefs of China, and Rome, a world of science, dying of its own waste products - until a scientist finds a way to create portals from Rome to Pangu.

Yang Ruying is a native of Pangu, a Xianling, possessed of magic - in her case, a magic that allows her to drain the qi of those around her, killing them in the process. Antony is a prince of Rome, devoted to his mission, which is to find a way to use the resources of Pangu to save Rome. The two meet by chance, and Antony learns is Ruying’s power - and conceives a plan to use her to help him, willingly or not. As their two worlds collide, each works with the other to their own ends. Recommended for teens and adults.

I voluntarily read and reviewed and advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.