"To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" provides an interesting perspective, in a fictional setting, on colonialism and the subjugation of those deemed “lesser” by those who have the power to claim to be greater. The magic in Er-Lang and neighboring kingdoms on the continent of Pangu has been fading and was no match for the might of Rome with its scientific and technological advancements, especially after Rome got the people of Er-Lang hooked on opian. It is interesting how great a gulf the author creates between the knowledge and power of the two groups. The Er-Lang Empire is portrayed as in essence an Asian nation. However, Er-Lang also appears to exist on another planet (maybe an alternate earth) accessed through a portal. Rome needs what Er-Lang has because the people of Rome have ruined their own world through greed, polluting their own lands and suffering the ravages of climate change.

In Er-Lang resides Ruying, one of Xianling or Gifted, who possesses the power of death, which makes her feared. However, it is a power she is loath to use and has not been taught how to properly harness. She hates the Romans because opian addiction caused the death of her father and could cost her sister's life as well. She is determined to protect her sister and grandmother. She has no interest in the brewing rebellion being led by the mysterious Phantom, convinced that war will just lead to the destruction of their country. However, an impetuous decision will bring her to the attention of Antony Augustus, one of the Roman princes, and force her into a situation where she has to use her power to advance his agenda, which she only partially understands. She will discover how much she does not know and understand about the Romans, the actions and inactions of the Er-Lang Emperor, and why Rome is so interested in the Xianlings — those with magical abilities. Antony is an enigma -- he has learned the Pangu language and has some knowledge of Pangu culture, and he claims he wants peace between Rome and Er-Lang and neighboring kingdoms, but he is hiding lots of secrets from Ruying and the actions he expects Ruying to take are not necessarily ideal for creating a lasting peace. The story ends at a crossroads for Ruying, as the true nature of Prince Antony has been revealed to her. I look forward to the sequel.

This dark fantasy inspired by the plight of Manchuria during the early 20th century is an interesting mixed bag that’s worth a read.

I was instantly hooked at the beginning of the book. The story pulled me in, and it never dragged. I was intrigued by the world and was left wanting to learn more.

Important to note: this is not a colonizer romance. Antony instantly came across as a manipulative creep and was almost cartoonishly villainous. It was clear Ruying was suffering from some sort of PTSD when she viewed him with twisted affection. This was not enemies to lovers, and there was no spice. This was not a case of “morally gray” characters; Ruying was obviously good, and Antony was evil, and that’s not a spoiler.

The writing was easy and poetic, but it was very repetitive, with short, choppy single-sentence paragraphs that were there for unnecessary emphasis. This reminded me of Kindle Unlimited books with padded pagecounts. More editing could help condense this. Also, the dialogue felt unnatural at times.

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, #1)
by Molly X. Chang
A fractured history, a story that embraces history but adds to it. The story reflects the nature of European expansion and the manipulation of the far east. Exchanging the characters of the British empire, with the Roman empire. The use of opium, to control the population for economic manipulation by the British has been changed. The Roman conquest of this new world uses a drug to change the people, make them dependent on the concurring and dominating the country.
The beautiful magic, and society is corrupted by drugs, and economic domination.
It shows the conflict between cultures because of cultural norms and stories change the viewpoint of the people.

Oh, how I wanted to love this book. The combination of fantasy (magic!) and scifi (Romans traveling through time & space to steal from the magic people!) was totally fascinating. I appreciated how easily parallels were drawn to our climate crisis, and the themes of who owns what, and who has power, and what that power means. Is it possible to colonize another people, or exploit others for their resources, and not be morally wrong is a question that pops up over and over again.

Unfortunately, the protagonist of this book takes the entirety of the book to decide how she feels about that question. And the powerful character she's drawn to isn't quite richly developed enough or compelling enough for me to want her to choose him. And the end of the book, with clear implications about what her decision is but no details about how it turns out, was incredibly frustrating for this reader.

I loved the setting, enjoyed seeing how Molly X. Chang discusses the consequences of magic. The various lands the characters travel through seem like they'd be worthy of their own explorations in more detail. I could have used much less internal turmoil and more decisiveness from the protagonist before the final chapter.

This book put me through a whirlwind of emotions. Chang ripped my heart out, stomped on it, dusted it off, replaced it and then stabbed it, and twisted the knife. Then Chang leaves the knife there after I finish the book with a cliffhanger ending. I need the other book. I need to know how the story ends.
I was immediately drawn into this book when I realized the subject matter she was tackling (opium crisis). This is a historical event that has always bothered me, and I was interested to see how Chang would address it in a fantasy setting for this age group (YA). She does an amazing job of showing addiction and the hurt it not only causes the individual but the family members involved. I do think this is on the far end of YA leaning to Adult. Though the character development and the decisions our MFC makes, I feel that it keeps it in YA.
As readers, we have no idea who we can trust, thus making us feel just as unsure and backed into a corner as our MFC Ruhying. I have never actively disliked so many characters, and Anthony gives a whole new name to morally grey, but part of me is still unsure if it applies to him or if he is straight up just the villain?
In war and situations that Ruhying is presented with, it's easy to understand how tough it is to make decisions doing what is morally right and what must be done to ensure survival for oneself and those we love. We follow Ruhying as a young adult, having to make decisions she is not ready for nor wants to make for self-preservation and is constantly questioned for them. It forces her to choose what she feels is right even when others are apposed. She has to trust herself, and as a young adult, that is hard. When you have the put aside noise of parents, friends, teachers, siblings, significant others, and whoever else feels that their opinion matters.
The magic system gives you enough to understand, but I hope that with further installments, we are able to get more information. I liked how Ruhying's death magic is explained and how there is a more visceral reaction to taking a life. It really makes the reader see how tough that should be and a decision not made on a whim.
I found myself, though, getting annoyed with how much she repeated, needing to protect her family and do the right thing. I know it shows her struggling to stay afloat, making her own morally grey decisions, but it felt like we were hearing it on every page. It wasn't till the last 20% that she dropped talking about what was wrong and what was right and saving her family, and she started being more confident in her decisions. The last 20% of this book was absolute perfection. The pacing was perfect. We had a lot of plot and character development. So I hope the second book continues this pacing and plot building storyline and leaves the repetitive inside Ruhying's head, thought patterns behind. I like that she is constantly at war with herself, but we need to phrase it differently.

3.5 stars!

I love stories that have such diametrically opposed elements as Wicked Gods has... The science of Rome, the magic of the Xianlings. The traditional roles of men vs the traditional roles of women. The wealth and privilege of the conquerors set against the poverty of the conquered. It creates such a sense of conflict in me as I read. And it's uncomfortable! But in good ways, because it forces me to learn more about the atrocities humanity is capable of.

The magic system (and subsequent revelations about qi-cells) was fascinating - I would have loved to learn more about it, but hopefully we'll see more of that in the next book. And Ruying was such an interesting protagonist - I found myself alternately rooting for/sympathizing with her and then wanting to figuratively shake some sense into her. Honestly, I have very complicated feelings about nearly all of the characters at this point!

And all of this conflict/complication set against a visually striking backdrop... Definitely a book that paints a clear mental picture of it's environs.

What was I missing? I personally could have used more context in some areas and less in others. I *think* some of that will resolve in the coming sequels - and I get it, you don't just info dump all the details straight into book one. But I do think some of Ruying's inner conflict could have been trimmed and additional info provided to flesh out other areas of the story.

Can you read the story without reflecting on what the colonization of Manchuria meant to the native people? Can you read without reflecting on the ongoing disparity between traditionally recognized gender roles? Sure. But I think taking the time to reflect on and learn a bit about the history that informs the fiction adds a level of nuance that enriches the story. Plus, the state of the world today.....do we really want to continue these patterns of behavior?

All in all, an enjoyable book regardless of how deep you want to dig. Will I read the sequels? Yes - I'm a sucker for the end of the story.

It was a great book. I could really feel the anger, the sorrow of the protagonist Ruying. I loved the enemies-to-lovers approach where prince Anthony took over her world. Also, a love triangle with Baihu would be interesting. I have to say the content shows a view of a dark romance-type fantasy, considering the power inbalance so far. Maybe we'll see more positive power balances.

This book was great. The story took so many turns and the romance wasn’t too heavy, it was sprinkled right in there perfectly. The only complaint I would have is the writing style was a little too flowery and over descriptive for me personally. I still really enjoyed this book and would recommend this to everyone.

I would like to thank Random House Publishing, Del Rey, and NetGalley for providing me with a copy to review.

I really wanted to find something I liked about this book but it was a slog for me. Very slow - themes, thoughts and feelings are so over-repeated by the protagonist that I quickly lost interest. I couldn't find any characters likeable and Ruying herself is morose and whiney. If this was not a YA novel but an adult one it would be better - there's nothing as a teen I would have been interested in here either but diving deeper into the mature themes could help carry things along. The world could be interesting but the two cultures aren't dived into deep enough - it's dark but not dark enough and there's little hope for conflict resolution between the two sides. It's hard to tell what this novel wants to be and some ideas from other books are played at so it doesn't feel new or exciting for me.

This Asian inspired fantasy will have your heart racing. I am absolutely a sucker for books like this one and it's such a wonderful read. Highly recommend!

In a world invaded by Romans, we meet Ruying, a girl with a deadly gift from Death itself - the power to drain life. Captured due to her power, she's forced to ally with Antony, a mortal prince, in a bid to protect her family. The narrative unfolds slowly, heavy with information and repetitive thoughts.

The romance between Antony and Ruying feels forced. He's her captor and tormentor, making their supposed love hard to believe. Ruying's sudden affection for Baihu, a symbol of her oppression, is equally perplexing. Baihu is part of the Roman Empire, the very force brutalizing Ruying and her people.

"To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods" is a stark exploration of heavy themes. That takes a look at Magic vs Science. Overall I wanted to enjoy this book more than I actually did which is unfortunate because I was excited to read this.

This was SO good. The ending was *chefs kiss* I loved the dynamic between the main characters. I loved the world building and the culture. I loved the magic system. The only thing I need is more!!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc!
⭐️2.5

I was excited to read this book as soon as I heard from it, it looked like something I would love. And I really like the idea, I loved the idea of magic versus science, thought it was interesting the themes about enviroment, imperialism and the moral dylemma if peace is really always the best option. But overall I had problems with the execution.

- The writing: It was fine. Easy to read. I think my biggest issue was the info dump at the beginning — thought it didnt bother me that much I think this could be an issue for someone else, since fantasy is a genre that its a bit harder than usual to get into.
- The characters: I found Ruying to be too naive and her refusal to kill even in life or death situations its something I find tiring to read in higher stakes stories. I understand when using her powers but even when shes not using it not so much. I think she could have developed more (overall) in this book but theres room for that in the next one.
I Loved her sister for the little we saw of her — I wish I could have seen her more.
The others are fine, Not sure what to think of Anthony as a character yet,
- The romance: I think this was my biggest issue in this. I can love villain romances, enemies to lovers, or any kind of relationship similar. But I dont like any character that just fits in the two boxes, I nedd for them to make sense to be together as individual characters (in any relationship, of course, but specially these ones) and I dont think this was the case. Specially by how fast I thought Ruying started to trust Anthony. I probably would have enjoyed the book more if there was no romance at all and it focused more on the main characters' dilemma of war x peace. Her feelings having any influence in some of her decisions felt silly.
Also, I think its worth mentioning: I have seen some reviews mentioning slowburn. I dont know where people are getting this so Im not sure if its the books' fault, but if slowburn to you means "slow development of feelings" and not just "how long it takes for them to get together" you could be disappointed by this. Specially when there was a bit of time jump not long after they met and we miss some early development that I think it was important to see.

Overall I can see a potential, I think i could enjoy more depending of the direction the story takes, but Im not sure it it could go to a direction I want, so im not certain I will pick up the next book.

This book made Molly Chang one of my auto buy authors! I loved this book. Such a fast pace read. I haven’t read a book this good in a while.

My hopes were sky high stumbling upon this cover and description. Truly one of the most beautiful covers I’ve seen in awhile. I really try to seek out asian authors and settings, I’m filipino so I love any asian representation is something I gravitate towards.

While the cover invites you in, I found the writing style a bit brash. There was lots of telling and not enough showing. What really did not sit right with me is the colonizer love interest. The romance was toxic & I just could not get passed it. In ways I felt like this book’s premise was striving to be on the same plane as The Poppy War series. There simply wasn’t enough depth in the characters for such heavy subject matter, and the world building wasn’t executed strongly in my opinion. Unfortunately the lore and history was so far off that it was hard for me to fully immerse myself.

I was looking forward to this one so much but unfortunately it fell short for me :/

As always these opinions are my own, and thank you kindly to Netgalley and Del Rey for the advanced copy.

1 star, five words: fuck this colonizer apologist bullshit.

Let's start at the beginning. This book is ostensibly inspired by and meant to honor the author's grandparents' experiences during the occupation of Manchuria. But quite honestly, I find that hard to believe. Firstly, I'm not sure how any of this book speaks to the historical occupation of Manchuria. The fantasy China in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods (called the Er-Lang Empire; the wider world is called Pangu) seems more based on ancient China, as evidenced by the author's claim that "we fought their science with bows and arrows," which worries me - does the author genuinely think that the armies of China, the culture that invented gunpowder, were fighting with bows and arrows in the 1930s? The naming of the colonizers as "Romans" adds to this confusion; certainly Rome was not invading Manchuria in the author's grandparents' memory, and in a fantasy world where all the names of every other real-world analog was changed to "Er-Lang" or "Pangu" or "opian" (seriously), the choice to transplant "Romans" from the real world is a bit jarring. Very little of the world or plot in this book speaks meaningfully to the real history of the occupation of Manchuria at all.

Secondly, if the author wanted to honor her grandparents' memory and intergenerational trauma from the occupation of Manchuria, she never would have written 368 pages of the most colonizer-sympathizing, Stockholm-syndrome bullshit I have ever read in my entire life. The main plotline of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods follows a romance between Ruying, a "Xianling" (her world's name for those born with magical powers) blessed with the powers of Death, and Antony, the younger prince of the Roman Empire. From the outset, this set off alarm bells in my head for what I think should be very obvious reasons. And as I read, those alarm bells only started ringing louder and louder. Antony literally kidnaps Ruying and forces her to become his personal assassin, or else he'll kill her and her entire family. I'm really not quite sure how this is romantic, but apparently it's supposed to be, because all it takes is Antony telling Ruying she's special and she conveniently forgets that he's one of the colonizers oppressing her people and actively enslaving her. She spends the next 20 chapters or so parroting Antony's colonizer rhetoric ("it's for the greater good!"), "looking at him from under her lashes" (*gags*), and killing her own people to serve his ends (which she never seems to question until literally the last few pages of the book). There's a lot of words I could use to describe Ruying, some of them more polite than others, but some of the first few that come to mind are: naive, willfully ignorant, and self-serving. And those are just the nicer ones. I could not bring myself to care about Ruying, Antony (don't even get me started), or their relationship whatsoever.

Now to be clear, I don't think it's inherently wrong to write about a toxic or abusive relationship, but to romanticize it - and I'm certain that the author meant for the readers to find it romantic - is. Nor do I think it's inherently bad to write a flawed character who, in the words of the author, "makes all the bad decisions," but when those "bad decisions" are aiding a colonizer in the oppression of your own people, I think that as an author, you have the responsibility to engage those issues meaningfully and thoughtfully (lest you become a victim of Poe's law). And I don't think the author put any thought into Ruying's actions other than "this will make her seem morally gray!"

Speaking of moral grayness, the author could not seem to help reminding the reader every other page that everyone in this book is sooo morally gray. The author could definitely benefit from a few more classes in "show, don't tell," because tell, tell, tell is all she does. I can't count how many times the actual words "[this character] wasn't black or white, but a shade of gray in between" were used to describe characters in the book. In general, the prose read like a first draft written by a writer who just took their first creative writing class - pages of infodumping, repeated sentence fragments, purple prose, and way too many grammatical errors even for an ARC (seriously, did this book get edited at all?). At one point the author literally uses paraphrased Taylor Swift lyrics (yeah, I noticed) in - what else - a single random chapter from Antony's POV:

"Now, in this bed with Ruying beside him, Antony finally understood what his grandfather meant when he said love was a weakness.

Why they fought the wars.

Why poets dedicated their lives putting this feeling into words."


File this book under "comedies" because reading those lines and realizing they were literally lifted from You Are In Love was honestly one of the funniest moments I've ever experienced while reading a book.

Narratively, the worldbuilding was weak and the motivations of the characters questionable at best. "Rome" and "Pangu" apparently exist in two different worlds that are connected by a magical portal - something that is never explained and doesn't really add much to the narrative. Ruying's main motivation for her questionable actions is supposed to be her love for her family and dedication to keeping them safe, but we hardly see her relationship with her family before Ruying is kidnapped and all she can think about is Antony, Antony, Antony, which it makes it difficult to sympathize with the idea of her betraying her people for them. The romance, colonizer/colonized issues aside, is barely developed; it's marketed as a "slow burn" but this is just categorically false, unless by "slow burn" you mean a six-month timeskip during which we are told Ruying and Antony apparently magically developed feelings and started calling each other "my love." The mysterious rebel group led by someone called "the Phantom" is first characterized as a bunch of ragtag nobodies who are completely ineffective against Rome's "superior technologies" and then suddenly appear 75% of the way through the book as a highly-trained, powerful force that have been secretly thwarting Rome at every turn. Ruying's people are supposed to have no knowledge of the Romans' science and advanced technology, yet she switches between being mystified by "tablets with ever-changing surfaces" and then casually recognizing "computers" pages later. Never mind the ever-present characterization of "science" as some sort of monolithic evil unknown, a rhetoric that I have always had issue with.

This book wants to be The Poppy War so badly, but the difference is Rin would beat Ruying's ass for the bullshit she pulls in To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods. This book could never be The Poppy War for a lot of reasons, but to bring it all back to what I said at the start of this review, the critical one is that The Poppy War is firmly anti-colonialist and To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is a poorly-written, barely-edited, thoughtlessly researched (if at all, given *gestures to the review above*), colonizer-sympathizing "I can fix him" fantasy to an embarrassing extreme. All I can really say, at the end of this review, is this: Girl, please stand up.

The country of Pangu has been invaded by Romans, using their advanced technology to subdue their magic. Ruying is a xianling (magic user) with the power of death, and is captured by a prince of Rome and given a choice, die or serve him to help him in his plans to bring peace between their worlds.

I have some issues with this. There was a lot of repetition needlessly with Ruying just repeating the same things over and over. A colonizer being a love interest is so bad. We also get very little explanation about the relationships with Baihu and Meiya. Furthermore, the fact that this Rome is from our world was really weird to me. If the author wanted to use Rome as the conqueror from our present day world we should have more descriptions of what the rest of that current world is like except for just “the world is dying. “ In the foreword it’s mentioned that this is supposed to be at least somewhat inspired by the century of humiliation in china - when exactly in china? We get no real description of the city except that there are food stalls. I feel like I barely know what anyone or anything looks like in the story. All that said, the concept and the plot were really interesting. I think with more work this could be a really excellent series.

Unfortunately this one was a DNF for me- while I loved the premise and it seemed to have all the elements that would make me fall in love (slow burn villain love interest? tell me more!) the choppy dialogue-focused writing style and pacing that got in the way of deep characterization kept me from being immersed. I might come back to it if I am in the mood for something in this style as I really enjoyed the creative worldbuilding, and I think this will appeal to fans of fast-paced, tropey YA in an Asian setting, but it wasn't for me.

Is it okay to sacrifice the few, to save the many? 🤔

This is a story that had me in my own head. It’s a story of self discovery, and introspection. This story contains a cast of morally grey characters fighting for what they believe in. The FMC struggles to decide who she is, where her loyalties lie, and ultimately where does she draw the line between what is right, and what is wrong? Whose side is she on? Should there be sides at all? The poverty, colonialism, the war, the addiction, mirrored our world so completely it had me deep in thought throughout the book. I changed my mind many times. What was okay? What wasn’t? The FMC didn’t know who she was, and I felt like I was trying to figure out who I was, right along with her. I was glued to this book from the beginning.

The world building was interesting, and easy to follow. I found the translations throughout the story really helped me feel connected to the heritage, and culture of the FMC. I really enjoyed that touch. The romance I found to be a little lacking, but the overall story made up for it. This is a true enemies to lovers romance. I enjoyed the evolution of their relationship, although I wished for a bit more interaction between the FMC and the MMC. The majority of the book is the FMC thinking about things that happened, versus actually experiencing them, which I’m not sure how I feel about. There is no spice🌶️ in this book. I found the FMC’s relationship with her sister to be extremely frustrating as well. Her sister was horrible to her, and the FMC’s unconditional love drove me insane. I understand it’s her sister, but I don’t agree with her enabling her sister, nor putting up with her sisters blatant disregard for the FMC’s feelings.

Overall, I’m glad I read it. The story is entertaining, and unique. I think it’s a great start to a series, and I’m interested in finding out what happens next.

Thank you to Netgalley, and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

unfortunately, i did not really enjoy this novel. i was promised a morally grey female protagonist, but she was anything but. from the beginning we are repeatedly told that ruying is willing to do anything for her family, yet we never actually see this. also the romance was a bit iffy to me. it very much read as a colonizer romance, because that's what antony was to ruying, and that made me feel odd all throughout, to the point that i got to about 70% through and i decided i could not keep going.

thank you to netgalley and random house publishing for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review. the review will be posted on my goodreads page closer to the publishing date.