Reviews tagging 'Genocide'

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang

21 reviews

corrinaababee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense

5.0

This book, dude. I did enjoy reading this book. The author writes beautifully and describes the cynical survival mind beautifully. I couldn’t understand why, the rating was a low 3, while reading. I thought maybe it would be probably boring, or hard to follow in the writing style but no. However, I’ve feel like it’s because this book isn't for the weak. There is a lot of cynicism, sadness, tense turmoil, inner turmoil, and towing the line between survival and heroism.

There is not a happy ending in this book. It’s scary how good the book is but there isn’t a happy ending. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Genocide, and War

lucien_png's review against another edition

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

2.5

I really liked this book's exploration of a colonial relationship between two nations. With that being said, I found the FMC really annoying, she was really self deprecating and that got old really fast. 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 an 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. I thought the fact that she gained feelings for him was kind of stupid.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Violence, Toxic relationship, Genocide, War, Torture, and Trafficking

jebecky's review against another edition

Ugh, I hated all the characters, the story felt really unoriginal, there was no character development. The reason I almost finished the book is because introduction by the author was so interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs, Torture, Drug use, Xenophobia, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Murder, Racism, Misogyny, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Death of parent, Genocide, Death, Addiction, and Grief

readwithsophsx's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Deportation, War, Blood, Physical abuse, Violence, Gun violence, Hate crime, Medical content, Death of parent, Abandonment, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Kidnapping, Torture, Drug use, Murder, Addiction, Body horror, Confinement, Grief, Death, Drug abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Injury/Injury detail, Domestic abuse, Gore, and Medical trauma

thewickermage's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Violence, Addiction, Colonisation, Murder, Death, Drug abuse, and Genocide

kbairbooks's review against another edition

I really wanted to like this book but at almost 60% I just couldn’t continue. I didn’t like any of the characters, the book was 75% inner dialogue and the rest actual things happening, I was bored, and found myself just trying to slug through it. I found this book to be affecting my mood anytime I read it and I wasn’t looking forward to picking it up. Im calling it quits with the hopeful thought that it will find the readers it’s meant for.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Colonisation, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Misogyny, Murder, Torture, Classism, Cursing, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Gun violence, Addiction, Confinement, Death, Drug abuse, Police brutality, Vomit, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Kidnapping, War, and Injury/Injury detail

kaylurzz's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

2.5

Ruying did nothing wrong!!!!

I'm so conflicted on this! There were parts and ideas I liked, and then parts not so much...

• I thought the world and magic system were interesting but why make the other world Rome? Why not another fictional place?
• The prose while beautiful at times just talked in circles and made it hard to follow.
• The time jumps were jarring and I wish we spent more time with Ruying AND Antony to see their "relationship" develop more.

These are my major complaints but I'm interesting in possibly the next book in the series....

Also

KILL HIM RUYING!!!!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Torture, Drug use, Genocide, Medical trauma, Colonisation, Violence, and Addiction

Moderate: Gun violence

booksalacarte's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

3.5

To gaze upon wicked gods- 3.5⭐️ .5🌶️

Fantasy

Dual POV

Magic

Eastern Asian influence

Colonized nation

Rebellion

Intrigue

Coming of age

War

The cover of this book is beautiful. Truly.

The plot was interesting, bringing up the question of technology vs magic. Whether the magic would stunt an empire from growing to their full potential because of the reliance in the mythical… and how it would hold up against technology and modernism. I found the call to look at the morality of power and what it means to different people to be a good topic to pursue. I appreciated the book showing the birth of a political assassin, even if it was really annoyingly that the FMC’s grandma taught her everything that she needs to know about fighting, stealth, knife work… a bit too conveniently.

The pacing of the book was broken up quite a bit by repetitive inner dialogue as well as for-shadowing mentioned multiple times, making the twists and turns fairly predictable.

The characters were fine. The FMC having her inner struggle of morality was interesting… both FMC and the MMC being morally grey was ok… but having feelings for the MMC with the oppression and emotional manipulation was icky. It gave Stockholm syndrome vibes and not necessarily in a good way. The book was mostly in the FMC’s POV, with a single VERY short chapter in the MMC’s POV. It almost felt like we were meant to sympathize with the MMC? While he was painted as a terrible person TO the FMC the whole time. Ugh.

Anyway… I wish things were a little deeper, when it came to the side characters. They felt very surface level. 

Over all, this book gave post-apocalyptic earth realm colonizing other realms. Finding a love story in the opposing sides is hard to empathize with. I think I want to know what is going to happen, but at the same time I hope this is just a duology.

Thank you NetGalley, Random House Publishing Group- Ballantine and Del-Rey for the eARC of this book. All opinions are my own.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Grief, Addiction, Classism, Colonisation, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Racism, Confinement, Gaslighting, Genocide, Death, Drug abuse, Gun violence, Misogyny, War, and Murder

book_gremlin42's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, War, and Racism

Moderate: Police brutality, Sexism, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Genocide, and Drug abuse

kylosten's review

dark emotional medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Gun violence, Colonisation, Genocide, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent