Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

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To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang

3 reviews

bree_h_reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

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

2.0

First and foremost, this book is more of a victim of bad marketing than anything else. The book is not a romance; it includes a romantic subplot, and the intention is for the relationship between Antony (the coloniser) and Ruying to be toxic. However, that doesn’t absolve the books of all its faults.

I will give the book a few points in its favour. There were several moments where the writing really stood out to me. I was impressed and could see that Molly X. Chang has a lot of potential. I also think that the complexity and moral greyness of Baihu and Ruying was interesting. More focus and time should have been given to this aspect of the characters. It had the potential to offer a compelling commentary on what people do to survive colonization/oppression. It would have been captivating to compare and contrast them, to show them coming to understand each other, and to demonstrate how each has used their position to benefit those they care for. However, that didn’t happen. The repetitive writing gave the impression of inactivity. Additionally, there was a tendency to tell rather than show (I’ll mention this later in my dislikes).

Issue one and my personal biggest issue is that Ruying felt extremely stupid. Because there’s a six-month time skip, instead of showing us Antony gaining Ruying’s trust and isolating her and demonstrating to her why she should believe that he wants the best for her and her world, we’re told this over and over and over. And this isn’t emphasised for the reader. We don’t get demonstrations of him living up to Ruying’s view. We get Ruying questioning if she can trust him over and over before moving on like it’s not a big deal and him saying suspicious things. It’s fine if Ruying is an unreliable narrator, but I feel like the reader should either buy into or understand why she feels this way. It was something I couldn’t do. It just made Ruying feel like an idiot. Which ALSO emphasised a telling over showing issue because we’re told over and over how smart she is. Ruying was raised by the brilliant mind behind the country’s greatest general. She’s SUPPOSED to be smart. She’s SUPPOSED to know how to navigate politics and manipulate people. And she just doesn’t. That made the book far more frustrating in the end.

THIS NEXT SECTION WILL CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS.

Issue two, the sad kicked puppy coloniser prince, Antony Augustus. I found the book’s approach to Antony strange and dismissed it as Ruying being an “unreliable narrator.” This doesn’t excuse the issues. I was increasingly frustrated seeing this coloniser who is RUNNING human experiments framed as a sad boy who was just in a bad situation. He doesn’t WANT to do his experiments and kill people, but he needs to save his home world! He doesn’t WANT to kill the emperor of another kingdom, but he needs to ensure they won’t back out of their treaty. He WANTS to help Ruying’s people, but this can only be done by ruling over them. But that’s okay because he’s interested in their culture and the world! I couldn’t believe any of it, but Ruying did, so we had no choice but to watch this awful man be mooned over by his victim. All the language surrounding him was soft and gentle and traditionally romantic. If they had used more aggressive words to subtly convey a sense of unease, this would have been MUCH better. And it would have given the sense that deep down, Ruying knew something was off. Antony’s own POV chapter highlights this issue. The entire chapter focuses on making him a love-sick boy who’s dreading the heartbreak he’ll experience when his VICTIM realises that he’s been lying to her and experimenting on people like her. This cannot be justified by the use of first person or an unreliable narrator because the chapter, titled “Antony,” is written in third person. It also didn’t take much looking for me to find marketing for the book calling it “enemies to lovers” and stating it is “Zutara inspired”. And we can’t dismiss those as referring to Baihu. There was no romantic subplot with him in THIS book, AND a lot of that marketing EXPLICITLY referred to Antony.

SPOILERS END

Issue three, the writing was very repetitive. While I understand the repeating of ideas in a text, there are times where it’s too heavy-handed. While reading, I noted I was going to pull my hair out if I read “girl blessed by death” one more time. Multiple characters use that EXACT phrase and it felt tired. It was like the author was worried the reader would forget Ruying’s power. Not to mention the same ideas came up over and over and over for Ruying to angst over. Which CAN work, but outside of Ruying angsting I can’t provide a solid story of what happened in the book outside of the occasional assassination until you hit the last 20%. This repetitive writing also threw off the pacing. The book could have been great if it had taken more time to tell a story that delved deeper into Ruying’s angst instead of just paying lip service to it. Because the themes it wanted to tackle could have been interesting and complex and added depth to the story.

Issue four, setting the scene. This is the lesser of my issues, but it is the only other one to make this list. (As this review is already 1,011 words.) I found the writing to set the scenes the characters were in to be lacking. And while this was adequate when nothing was happening, I felt lost in action scenes. I found it surprising and disappointing that the author did not describe the settings in beautiful, flowery language, especially considering the amount used to describe Ruying’s inner turmoil. And as mentioned, since I had no sense of the space in action scenes, I felt so lost in what was happening. I don’t need every leaf on every tree described, it just felt lacking.

Overall, I think this book needed a few more editing passes done, a couple sensitivity readers, and better marketing. Molly X. Chang DOES have a lot of potential, her work just needs polish. I am currently planning to read book 2 after it comes out to see if the story improves, because I think it CAN be a great series.

Content Warnings

devynreadsnovels's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

savannnah_reads's review against another edition

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medium-paced

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

3.0

HEROES DIE. COWARDS LIVE.

I was promised an “epic fantasy” and even star crossed lovers but you know what I got? A COLONIZER ROMANCE.

The beginning started so strong. There were so many lines that had me giddy because I finally found another ARC that I could get into and was written well. Unfortunately, the threads of the story started to come undone around halfway through, and by the end, everything felt rushed and confusing.

We start with Ruying, a young woman in a setting that is basically medieval China (under a different name). She is very firm about (and repeats it every chapter) her willingness to do anything to protect her twin and her ailing Grandmother. Ruying also has powers like a small sub-section of her world, but no one knows where the powers came from or why each person that has them is unlike anyone else. Three people can have water powers, but one might have the ability to control bodies of water, one might control storms, one might be able to suck water out of the environment. Ruying’s power is Death as in she can suck the Qi out of anyone to the point that they die.

We kind of murkily also discover that her kingdom is actively being colonized by Rome (yeah, Rome, Rome. Why the author gave fantasy-China a different name and not Rome, I don’t know). But this version of Rome is set far enough into the future that they have guns, universal remotes, emergency room equipment, bulletproof glass, fighter jets, and nukes.

For 20 years, Rome has steadily invaded Ruying’s world through a portal we truly get no details on. It’s just a portal that showed up one day and never left; it just exists in the sky and is never mentioned again.

Anyway, Rome is colonizing book-China and exerting God-like authority over Ruyings people thanks to their “science” (a major theme is that the ever-lessening magical powers of this world can’t stand up to the “science” of Rome, aka progress/advancement/technology/weapons)

Ruying encounters a man named Antony (yeah.) that she knows is a villain, but surprise, he’s hot and she gets a crush while acting as his assassin under duress. The thing is, all the assassin-ing happens off page. We just hear about how randomly skilled she is for a 19 year old with no formal training or experience, but never really see it.

Things progress, betrayals are had, feelings go back and forth etc etc until some very predictable plot twists and a random chapter thrown in from Antony’s POV that spoils the whole “is he actually a bad guy? Or is he just misunderstood?” Question. Because honestly, for the whole middle part, I wanted to believe that he was secretly scheming for the good of both worlds in a way that would be revealed in grand fashion. But instead, it really is just a book about a girly falling in love with her oppressor. Even when he’s come close to killing her, forced her to kill people he admits are innocent, holds a gun up to her head,, tells her that he’s willing to sacrifice people for the “greater good” (which people’s greater good?) and only ever made weak excuses as to why he’s doing what he’s doing for his rickety-ass plan to “save the world.” She turns her back on the culture and people she says over and over and over that she’s wholly dedicated to and protective of.

My girl Ruying ignored every red flag that was slapping her in the face. She even occasionally snaps out of her lovesick puppy shtick, only to fall right back into it when Antony smiles at her with dimples.

I think this was an interesting (or at least a first, for me) examination of the messiness of interpersonal relationships under colonialism. Of the merits between honoring the past and those who have shaped history and forging forward for progress, but destroying your history. Of people trying to figure out if what they do as an individual matters in the grand scheme of things. If justifying some for the sake of the masses is justified. I also really liked the way Antony was a super villain but in a way that was carefully crafted; he didn’t just stomp in and crush people, he learned their culture and beliefs and language. To me, that makes him even more insidious because he knew exactly how to hurt people.

I just think it needs a few more rounds of editing, clearer and earlier world-building, and if you’re going to have the colonized fall in love with the colonizer just to have her be betrayed by him, it needs to be more drawn out and really soak in the feelings of disgust and confusion. And when she’s in that, keep her in it, harder to really drive the impact of the betrayal.

Another emphasis on needing more editing. I know this was an ARC, but there are lots of grammatical errors and the twist with the experiment gets ruined bc it’s confusingly accidentally revealed before the actual reveal of her name. And some of the dialogue was confusing in a way that it takes you out of the story. Things like characters supposedly in mideval times saying things like “is he going to be okay?” And “don’t paint me out to be the bad guy” plus their use of both gold coins AND pennies????

Things I wanted more of:

Baihu!! He was a really interesting and complex character and I was much more interested in his espionage between worlds
Ruying’s daddy issues; I wanted more about how they probably manifested in her speedy trust toward Antony; the need to belong and be taken care of!
Baihu eating Ruying UP about her naivety
The magic system. In this book, the only explanation for it that we get is “no one knooooows where it comes from! It’s just there!!”

Favorite Quotes:

“Heroes die. Cowards live.”

“To say Er-Lang Baihu was a villain would be a stretch. To say he was innocent was a lie.”

“Frustration was dark crimson. It tasted of ash when I tried to swallow, scorched my throat before clotting my lungs.”

“All heroes fail to pass the test of love.”

“I fear you the way mortals fear gods.”

“He pushed me away, loaded a bullet into the gun, and pressed it against my head this time.

‘Your power is exquisite—and you are beautiful. But there are plenty of pretty things in this world. Don't think for a second that I, Antony Augustus, am someone who sees a pretty girl and loses his head or grows soft. If I were like that, I would have been killed a long time ago, and Rome would never meet its greatest ruler.’”

“His eyes met mine, without fear. As if daring me to prove my words. I gripped the gun tighter. ‘Call off the snipers!’

‘Or what?’ ‘Or I'll show you how much of a killer I can be.’ ‘Do it,’ he whispered without taking his eyes off me, his body too close to mine in the confined space, his voice a taunting rasp.

‘Do it. Kill me. Pull the trigger.’”

Thank you to NetGalley and RandomHouse for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

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