Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the arc. I was really looking forward to reading this book and I’m sad I can’t give it a higher review. First off the cover is gorgeous and definitely pulled me in.

Second I really enjoyed the writing style of this book and found it really easy to read. However, the world building at the beginning was not as detailed as I hoped it was so I found myself confused many times while reading. I found the setting really interesting and wanted to learn more about the lore and the magic. The magic system is what drew me to want to read this book, but I found myself asking more questions than the answers I was getting.

Out of all the characters Baihu was my favorite, he was a well done morally grey character. I was sad I didn’t connect with Ruying more, I found myself encouraging her to take action throughout the book. I thought Antony and Ruyings romance to be very rushed. I felt like she only liked his eye color, it was hard to feel her growing feelings. I love a good enemies to lovers, but this didn’t feel like that. I had a hard time finding any connection or interest in Antony as a character as well.

The pacing for this was both slow and fast. At times I was bored and had to push through while at other times I found myself lost. I thought Antony and Ruyings romance was very rushed while the political storyline was too slow in comparison. I thought this was an enemies to lovers romance, but the colonizer aspect threw me for a loop and made it hard to support and cheer on their relationship.

3.25/5

Overall, I really enjoyed the story, but a couple of things left me a bit unsatisfied.

Starting with what I liked
- The writing style was great in my opinion. I really enjoyed being in Ruying's head and found the writing to flow well.
- The setting was super interesting and I wanted to know more about the lore.
- Baihu, I can gush on and on about how much I love Baihu but to keep it short, he's a great morally grey character.
- The ending was so good and promised a lot for the next book which I am very excited for.

Now for some things that I disliked
- The world-building was pretty weak in my opinion. Maybe it just went over my head, but I didn't realize that the Rome in which the colonizers came from was our universe Rome. I thought everyone was from one self-contained universe
- Anthony and Ruying's romance is so underdeveloped + it's a colonizer romance. Now, I don't automatically hate enemies to lovers (albeit I am much more of a friends-to-lovers type of person) but it has to be done well. I want to see development between the characters and I feel like we got none of that between these two. Whenever they were together it was just Anthony gaslighting Ruying and her thinking about his beautiful eyes. This would be fine if the romance was onesided with Ruying liking Anthony because her views of him are very skewed, but there is a section where it switched to Anthony's pov where he thinks about how much Ruying has gotten under his skin and honestly feels very OOC of him because it comes out of nowhere. Like homie up to that point has only treated her like a tool and now all of a sudden they are in love??? I am definitely rooting for the other ship -- though maybe my bias toward friends to lovers is clouding my judgment.
- Ruying was not morally grey. I saw this being marketed as a morally grey main character, yet I feel like Ruying is not morally grey at all. She seems to have a firm set of morals and only starts to go against them once she is manipulated into it all while condemning herself for doing those things.
- Most of the killing happens off-page. We just learn about it in passing :( I was promised an assassin story, so that was a bit of a letdown.

Despite all of that, I enjoyed my time with the story and am eagerly awaiting the second book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Del Rey for the arc.

I really wanted to like this book, it was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024. This made it even worse when I realized the book was bad.

As stated in the book, the story was inspired by her grandparent’s experiences during the occupation of Manchuria. Which made the fact that the main character fell in love with a colonizer shocking. Throughout the whole novel you see Ruying (MC) adopt the ideology of the colonizer love interest, which is just wild to see. I think if the author wanted to honor her grandparents she wouldn’t have written something that so heavily sympathizes with colonizers, when she knows the damage and effects it had on her grandparents and other people. Besides this I found the writing repetitive which brought me incredibly close to DNFing the book.

“Courage in boys was bravery.
Courage in girls was foolishness.
From this day forward, I wished to be foolish.”

Inspired by Chinese history, this transcendent story touches on ancestry, family, hardships, colonization, wars, love, loss, magic, science, the search for self-confidence, and so much more.

Told in first person point of view, we follow Ruying who possesses magic from her tribe and homeland in the manifestation of death. She struggles to learn the truth of why Romans invaded her land decades ago and how they can stop impending war from beginning.

Throughout the story, I really felt the internal conflicts Ruying faced with who to trust, what side is right, and familial struggles. I had trouble figuring out who to trust even through the ending, but I think that makes the characters flawed and genuine. Real people are comprised of touches of evil and good, so to wholeheartedly know someone and their intentions is impossible. So, for this alone I feel like the characters were strong and relatable.

The conflicts really helped progress the story forward creating a steady pace for the plot line. I did feel like there were certain phrases that were overused like “once upon a time” and the mention of every time Ruying clenched her hands into fists until her nails bit into the palms of her hands. Also, there was a bit more info-dumping in the first third of this book than I typically like, but the magic system and cultures mentioned are so unique I was invested in learning about them.

This book contained political intrigue, rich cultures, a war between magic and science, friends, family, star crossed lovers, feminism, and enemies to lovers.

It touches on heavy subjects as well, like addiction, depression, abuse, racism, prejudice, sexism, death, and more.

I think this is an amazing beginning to what looks to be a trilogy.

It releases on April 16, 2024, so don’t miss out on this amazing story!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Del Rey for this ARC.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!

The premise of this book was extremely interesting, and I wanted so badly to like it. Unfortunately, it fell short for me - while Ruying was a good character in her own right, I didn’t feel like the male lead developed at all, and the colonizer romance aspect left a sour taste in my mouth.

This book was very hard for me to get into within the first 100 pages. The main draw for me was the magic system. I usually enjoy a woman with an interesting power, however, it felt quite slow to get to this in the book.

The cover is absolutely gorgeous and I love the artwork, however, this book was just hard for me to get into in the beginning and to stick with it. The writing style was also a little hard for me to follow.

Overall, the main female character was interesting but the main male lead fell a little short for me. I did not love the colonizer aspect of the character, and he did not have very much development or change in his ways.

I will be reading book two!

Thank you for supplying the arc :)

Cool idea and the characters were interesting. I do feel that it could have used more world building and more showing the assassinations but this was pretty good. Thanks for the arc

The cover of this book is what caught my attention, it’s beautiful and so interesting I had to read it! I was so happy when I received this arc, and I was beyond excited to read it!

Unfortunately, I have a love hate relationship with this book, some of the world building is good and it has lots of potential but, having her fall in love with the colonizer was such a disappointment. I hoped it would be revealed that he actually was part of her world or something but alas that did not happen, at least she finally comes to her senses at the end.
And I was honestly incredibly surprised to find out that they’re quite literally from different worlds, it’s briefly mentioned quite a ways into the book but that’s so far into it, it would’ve helped if it were explained much Much earlier in the story.
Honestly, I was itching to pick up and continue reading the book but, only because I needed to make sure she finally realizes she was wrong.

The one Antony chapter threw me off as well, in a good way at first as I thought it’d reveal something huge about his past, but it just touched up on something you could read from context clues. I felt that if there were to be Antony point-of-view chapters, there should be more than one, perhaps one at the beginning and end as well.

There are a lot of mistakes in the writing that broke my focus and took away from the book, but this is an arc so that may just be that.

All in all I rated it 2 stars for the cover and some of world-building but the plot was just, not it.

But if I'm being honest, I would tune in for the second book so,, 3 stars ….

Thank you so much to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book early!

A riveting fantasy that throws you into a world experiencing an ongoing physical and cultural genocide by invaders from a dying world.

Ruying is a girl who has been blessed—or cursed—by death and can kill anyone with a thought. When she is coerced into becoming a colonizer prince’s assassin or lose her family, she doesn’t hesitate. She is no stranger to the hard decisions one must take to survive, but she knows that her people will never forgive her.

This engrossing book delves into the brutal realities of colonization, resistance, and what it takes to survive—and whether your own personal survival is worth your culture, your people, and your world.

This for the people who really mean it when they say she should've ended up with the villain. This book features some representation- bipoc and queer and a plethora of tropes to pick from
Enemies to lovers, love triangle, slow burn. It's based in Chinese myth and culture. This is definitely YA and I'm falling out of that genre lately so it wasn't as for me as it could've been but it's still a fun start to a series and I'm open to seeing where it goes!

3.4 stars

'Stay within the lines this world has drawn for you, stay quiet and careful'

'Progress is difficult to make when humans are too busy drowning in fears of their own potentials'




This one really got me hooked from start to end. Enemies to Lovers is one of my besetting sins. To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods really made me want to keep reading it non-stop until I know how Ruying's and Anthony's relationship would develop. It could have been really good if it were not for some bumps along the way.

I did have issues on the plot though, it felt like it progressed too slow at the same time too fast. To slow in terms of the political plans & promises of the prince to the point that I think it only revolves around killing a lot of unmentioned characters and I can't see any differences it made for the situation of both Pangu and Rome. The state of affairs of both empires were still the same despite the plans and killings of Ruying and Anthony.

The plot was too fast when it came to the romance story of the protagonists. I kept looking for those small/big moments they have had that lead them to having intense feelings towards each other . It was progressed in stages like 'they were enemies'-'they bargained a deal'-'they started killing unmentioned characters'-'then they're willing to kill or go to war for one another'. I mean, THEY ARE the main leads, the protagonists, not some side/supporting characters in the book for their story to progressed that way.

I hope they could emphasized or include some romantic scenes in the story to indicate how Anthony and Ruying developed their feelings to that level. Either that or add more plots in the political side.

Another issue for me in the writing was how redundant the thoughts and emotions of Ruying were. It's like Chang wanted to convey the emotions and feelings of Ruying, but ended up describing just one point repeatedly in every sentence in a one whole paragraph using deep synonyms. And that one point would be described again in two or three paragraphs in just one scene. If not for my excitement on how their love story would progressed, this redundancy would probably have annoyed me to death.

Thank you to the publisher and net galley for the ARC of this book. all opinions are my own.
I absolutely loved this! It was fantastic and I can not wait to see what's next! The character development, plot, and story were so well developed. I loved it.

"To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" by Molly X. Chang delves into the realms of science fiction, fantasy, and the harsh landscapes of colonialism, weaving a narrative that hints at power struggles, sacrifices, and political intrigue. Despite presenting a compelling premise, it unfortunately falls flat, leaving readers yearning for a more robust exploration of its themes and a more impactful execution of its narrative elements.

I was so excited when I was approved for this e-arc, but unfortunately, it just did not deliver.

I think it had some interesting ideas and concepts, like the idea of interdimensional(?) traveling, climate change, colonization/cultural appropriation, but the problems just overshadowed what these could have been, and the discussions that could have been had.

Plot-wise, it's not exactly unique: girl with powers ends up working with the enemy to protect her family, believing he will bring peace. She becomes an assassin for him. She falls in love with him. She has angst about her feelings. Repeat.
Ruying doesn't really... kill people on page? We don't get to see her become this heartless (but not really) assassin. We get like two short chapters of that development. One of which is from the perspective of Death. It's hard to sympathize when we are unable to see her inner struggle. Ruying is also touted as being morally gray, but what she should be labeled as is a hypocrite. She has morals and will do extreme gymnastics to justify why her actions actually defend these morals, but she only comes around when Antony's lies directly impact her and a promise he broke that was made to her. A lot of my notes on Ruying are "Girl, stand UP! OPEN YOUR EYES!!" Because Ruying, bless her heart, cannot see the forest for the trees. Even when people she cares/cared about tell her to her face and try to lead her to the right conclusion, she refuses to believe them. It would be one thing if she saw these things and rejected them for her own good-that's morally gray!!!!-but another for her to be obstinate that the colonizer can't POSSIBLY be evil, he made a promise!!!!

Now let's talk about Antony. I hate this man. I hate their relationship. I hate everything he stands for. I did not realize I was getting into a colonizer romance, but here we are. The issue isn't necessarily that he's done terrible things (including threatening her family), but that throughout the relationship he holds all of the power, not to mention he's purposefully continuing to colonize and wreak havoc on the Pangulings in the name of "peace". He's a smarmy, backstabbing, self-righteous jerkface. While he claims his feelings for Ruying have changed, he continues to force her to murder her own countrymen, holds her family's safety over her head, takes no steps for peace, and disrespects her culture and beliefs--belittling it in front of her. He's the reddest of red flags.

Now, Pangu definitely has its roots in Confucianism (or a Confucian-like structure, as this takes place in a different world), and Ruying has some conflicting thoughts on it. I actually liked this (even as a documented Confucius hater) because it's real and brings up questions about which parts of culture are heritage and which should be overturned in the pursuit of equality. A+ on this.

Speaking of Pangu, the worldbuilding is quite confusing and unwieldy. It's not made clear until much later (with some subjective extrapolation) that the Romans are from our world, and have invaded Pangu in another dimension/realm via a portal. Why they are called Romans? I'm not sure. I thought maybe it had to do with the Roman Empire, but they have technology the Ancient Romans never had? I saw some reviewers say that it's like the Roman Empire never fell but everything else in the world is the same, but I should not have to look at other reviews to get basic information about what's going on in the book.

The cover is beautiful. I think this book has potential, but not without some substantial edits. And maybe, just maybe, murdering Antony the first time he opens his mouth. That would make me happy personally. NO MORE COLONIZER ROMANCES.

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this e-arc in exchange for my honest review!:)

I love a good Asian inspired fantasy book and this one was pretty good and I overall did enjoy this read a lot. It may not have been a five star blown out of my mind type of a but I did really liked the purpose of the story, and I was immersed into the world.

DNF. I really liked the premise but the writing did not work for me at all. It wouldn't be fair to the book if I finished reading and gave it a low rating.

Please note: I prioritized reading this after the reveal that this was a book that was review bombed by Cait Corrain. My rating is immediately after finishing this. I gave this a fair shot, bc this is a novel that got review bombed by a fellow author who perceived it as a rival, and that is going to be hard enough for Ms. Chang to overcome. The problem is… this isn’t that good of a novel, unfortunately. Ms. Chang tries to do a morally grey romance but unfortunately her characters are overwrought theater kids and everything is so over the top black and white morality that the effect is completely lost. The naming conventions are lazy at best and laughable at worst (opian! Roman Empire!). The writing also zags between sparse and ridiculously overwritten. There’s a solid idea here; it just feels like it needed another few passes through editorial before it was actually published. Also this is supposed to be a trilogy, apparently. Additional spoiler comment in the thread for the ending of the book.

I was very excited for this book, but it did not live up to the hype in my head. First, the writing felt simplistic and info-dumping in a way I was not expecting. Then, the content was... rough. I don't like being told that someone is a tremendous badass, but never actually seeing them doing anything remotely in line with their supposed prowess. The romance gave me the ick, and the worldbuilding was confusing.

I want to preface this last bit by saying that having multiple books cover the same topic is a good thing that I fully support. However, it does invite comparison. If you market a book as a morally grey heroine in an alternate history China, it is going to remind people of The Poppy War. And with that mindset, I was left feeling disappointed. The book in my hands read like wishy-washy YA romantasy, rather than the epic fantasy with grit that I thought I was being sold.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC copy.

This historical fantasy is set in a land invaded by the Romans. On one hand is Er-Lang where magic is bestowed by Gods and on the other hand are the Romans, with their technology and arms. It is an interesting premise with inspirations and similarities drawn from real world experiences and the author does a great job of weaving them all together.

That being said, we don't quite get to understand the details around how this invasion has been possible or what's to come next. The world building, while refreshing, leaves a lot to be desired. Besides this one aspect, this book is a good read and will leave you wanting to know more about how the story progresses in the next book.

As a lover of Asian inspired fantasy books, I had high hopes for this one. But man did it sadly disappoint. Dnf at 20%. The writing was clunky and very info dumpy at the beginning. And yet, I still feel like I had no idea what the back story was. Then later on a portal is mentioned randomly and thats how the "Romans" got there. Unless I missed the mention of it before. Had no idea it was going to be sci-fi as well.

Another thing that bothered me was the way Ruhing dealt with her sister who was addicted to opian. As someone who has experience with a sister addicted to an unhealthy substance, there is no helping someone who doesn't want to be helped.

In the end, I read some other reviews that helped me in my decision to dnf that I too would find problematic later on. Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.