Reviews

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang

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zobird's review against another edition

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challenging dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

babiefats's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Do stand alones not exist anymore?

I found this interesting to a point. I enjoyed the world, the history, and the lore—I did not enjoy all the twists being info dumped at the end of the novel to continue the story.

I may just be bitter because my only qualm is this era of series and not so much the book itself.

sophielaura1's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

3.25 stars ✨

This was a bit of a weird one for me. On one hand, it was relatively enjoyable and well written, but on the other hand, there were some bigger issues that cannot be ignored.

I’ll start with the things I liked. I thought that magic system was really well written (although I was slightly confused when it came to the Gods and deities). Also, for a book one in a series, it was definitely a solid foundation.

To contrast, I found that the sci-fi elements (essentially the science aspect itself) were severely lacking, considering how detailed and cohesive the magic was, it was slightly disappointing. Towards the middle of the book, I was skim reading. It was just too slow for my taste. I’m normally one to defend the FMC to the end, but Ruying just made far too many bad decisions. Like girl, come on!

Now to the bigger issue, the coloniser romance. I picked up on this whilst I was reading and my view was confirmed when I read other people’s reviews. Honestly, I’m not really sure if it’s my place as a white woman to label something a ‘coloniser romance’, especially when it’s written by a POC author, so I’m not going to, I’m just going to say that those were the vibes emitted. However, it could also be argued that it wasn’t a coloniser romance, but the romanticisation of a coloniser.🤷‍♀️

sabrookes's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book is so close to amazing, yet falls just short due to her younger sister’s stubbornness despite being a drug addict - maybe that’s my own frustration. However, some of the other interactions felt forced to me leading to a 4 star experience as opposed to the 5 star it could have been.

megana's review against another edition

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dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

What I got out of this book was that the main characters believe peace is worth any price, even if the price is genocide. But we’re supposed to empathize with them because they believe they’re doing the right thing and they genuinely love each other. Except one half of the relationship has no agency and is basically enslaved. It just felt really manipulative and abusive to me and not something I enjoyed reading.

riverlloyd's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

lucien_png's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

I really liked this book's exploration of of a colonial relationship between two nations. One thing that was annoying to me was I felt like the author over explained things and tended to repeat things just a few pages apart, though this became less of a annoyance after the first part.

Spoilers for the book

I feel like Ruying was too quick to trust Anthony, and took too long to lose that trust. I understand why she helped him but I was surprised that she basically lost all skepticism towards him and his actions.

Content Warnings