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yveseo 's review for:
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods
by Molly X. Chang
i wouldn't comment much about the controversy surrounding this book in terms of it being allegedly colonizer romance, but to give it the benefit of the doubt, all throughout the book it felt like whatever relationship antony and ruying has seemed to me like setting up ruying's arc—fmc meets villain, she has moral dilemmas over trusting him, she becomes this naive and/or manipulated character, something happens before she realizes how naive she was for 'siding' with the villain, and she overcomes that in the end. but the thing is, i hated having antony's pov because it felt like creating a sob story for this colonizer, so the reader could sympathize with him through the book's obvious lousy attempt at fitting into fantasy romantic tropes. IDK maybe the next book(s) will give a clearer picture as to where this relationship goes and whether the colonizer romance criticisms are real or not, but i generally didn't like how it was written. the premise was promising but because it wanted to satisfy certain tropes, the premise wasn't executed well.
ANYWAY, my main problem about this book is the writing. im pretty freaking sure that a huge chunk of these monologues could have been cut down and i wouldn't miss anything important bec my god were they dull and redundant, it's actually annoying. i found myself skipping sentences after sentences because they were literally just paraphrased versions of what I've read in previous chapters. secondly, these characters were underdeveloped and one-dimensional that i didn't even feel anything for them except for the vague sympathy i felt, in general, for the people who were being oppressed. (spoiler)ruying's turning point towards the end started with her friend's death, but i didn't feel the slightest sympathy for her because all i knew about her friend was a general picture of how she was ruying's strong, dependable childhood friend who didn't turn her back from ruying despite knowing her power.
it was also very weirdly paced because again, most of the time it just consisted of repetitive monologues of the mc about how she's so powerful but she doesn't want to be that powerful because she wants to be good but at the same time she STILL wants to be powerful because she has to protect her grandmother and her twin sister but her family must be so disappointed of who she has become like OKAY I GET IT the first or second time you mentioned it.
im so so bummed out because the premise was really promising and the history it is based on is something im interested in, but generally, to gaze upon wicked gods wasted pages on writing dull and redundant monologues, shoving cliche tropes down my throat (which, by the way, was badly written too because the romance's pacing was off), and whining characters instead of actually building upon the rich history it's based on & developing its characters' personalities.
ANYWAY, my main problem about this book is the writing. im pretty freaking sure that a huge chunk of these monologues could have been cut down and i wouldn't miss anything important bec my god were they dull and redundant, it's actually annoying. i found myself skipping sentences after sentences because they were literally just paraphrased versions of what I've read in previous chapters. secondly, these characters were underdeveloped and one-dimensional that i didn't even feel anything for them except for the vague sympathy i felt, in general, for the people who were being oppressed. (spoiler)ruying's turning point towards the end started with her friend's death, but i didn't feel the slightest sympathy for her because all i knew about her friend was a general picture of how she was ruying's strong, dependable childhood friend who didn't turn her back from ruying despite knowing her power.
it was also very weirdly paced because again, most of the time it just consisted of repetitive monologues of the mc about how she's so powerful but she doesn't want to be that powerful because she wants to be good but at the same time she STILL wants to be powerful because she has to protect her grandmother and her twin sister but her family must be so disappointed of who she has become like OKAY I GET IT the first or second time you mentioned it.
im so so bummed out because the premise was really promising and the history it is based on is something im interested in, but generally, to gaze upon wicked gods wasted pages on writing dull and redundant monologues, shoving cliche tropes down my throat (which, by the way, was badly written too because the romance's pacing was off), and whining characters instead of actually building upon the rich history it's based on & developing its characters' personalities.