Reviews

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang

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carebea1899's review against another edition

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adventurous dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

irislise's review against another edition

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emotional sad tense medium-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

4.75

mboard's review against another edition

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tense medium-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? Yes

2.0

I tried I really tried to like this book but the main character drove me absolutely insane. The entire time she’s all mad and spiteful towards the Romans taking over her world, using their “science” against her people, getting her family hooked on Opian but then she just trusts the price of the Romans after like 10 mins???? How does that make any sense. At all. They set up this character to be all guarded and hateful but makes her the most trusting person ever? That makes actually no sense.

The writing also started to really aggravate me. How many times could the author shove in our faces that it’s “magic vs science” and “science is bad”? Like 2-3x a chapter. I get the metaphor for colonialism and the consequences of weaponizing technology you don’t have to be that on the nose about it.

I wanted to DNF multiple times but I got the most gorgeous copy from Illumicrate so I felt like I owed it to the sprayed edges to finish. It was not worth it. The “twist” was actually so obvious it just made me more mad that Ruying our FMC didn’t see it 1000 miles away.

I will say that the magic system and the use of Chinese folklore/mythology made for an interesting idea it was just the execution that made me dislike this book as much as I did.

_fallinglight_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

2.25

The book had an interesting premise and Ruying's character as a concept could've been interesting, too, but the execution wasn't even middling at best. The writing was clunky, repetitive, and languid despite Chang's efforts to give it lyrical vigor and the pacing was stagnant. So many chunks of this book were just long expository dialogue chapters, and other multiple telling not showing paragraphs to the point I got increasingly unmotivated to pick up reading it again from when I left off. I also think the romantic angle from the Antony and Ruying relationship was unnecessary and the time spent on that could've been used on much needed actual character development shown on page.

Content Warnings