A review by speculativeshelves
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang

dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book has been on my radar ever since I first saw the cover/synopsis. Overall, I didn’t hate this, in fact I’m quite excited to see where the rest of the trilogy goes, but it also wasn’t as strong as a book as I hoped it would be. I usually don’t write such long reviews, but I have a lot of thoughts.

TL;DR for anyone trying to decide if they want to read this book:
  • To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods is what I would call an adult dark science fantasy story with some alternate history elements. It’s not YA (though apparently it’s being marketed this way in the UK for some reason and I would say it does have crossover appeal). It is also not a Romance/Romantasy (though it does feature a complicated romantic subplot involving the protagonist and a villain)
  • The writing style makes it very clear it’s a debut novel (lots of repetition, infodumping, telling vs showing) and the worldbuilding is rather vague and hard to make sense of
  • This is a character-driven novel featuring an unreliable morally-grey first-person narrator who makes terrible choices in order to protect herself and her loved ones which can occasionally be frustrating to read
  • The most compelling parts of this book are Ruying’s character arc, her Death magic, and her evolving relationships with Meiya (her twin sister who longs to be a revolutionary), Baihu (her childhood friend turned traitor with mysterious motives), and Antony (the secretive enemy prince she is forced to ally with)
  • It very much feels like a setup book for the next two books in the trilogy rather than a book that can easily stand on its own. I don’t think this is inherently a bad thing though because a lot of what I ended up enjoying about this story was how the elements setup here could develop over the course of the trilogy.

Full Review:

Writing Style:
This is the part I struggled with the most while reading. It is very clear to me that this is a debut novel. There’s a lot of infodumping and flashbacks (particularly in the beginning) and a lot of repetition. It’s also a book that’s full of telling rather than showing which is a bit frustrating - especially when there’s a six month time jump in the middle. In many ways it felt like an extended prologue for the rest of the trilogy - this book was full of set up in terms of world, character dynamics, and character development and not much plot. All that said, the writing style was easy to read, there were some really beautiful lines throughout, and the short chapters made this book hard to put down. Despite feeling like this book still needed significant revision, I was still quite invested.

Worldbuilding:
The worldbuilding is very vague and not enough information is given to fully make sense of it. The central conflict is between Pangu - fantasy China on a different planet (galaxy?) that is full of magic, and Rome - the colonizing empire (seemingly from an alternate/future Earth?) that comes through a portal in the sky bringing technology and scientific advancements. This creates some interesting concepts (the conflict of magic vs science, themes of colonization and environmentalism, etc) but they were not as developed as I would’ve wanted. I left this book with a lot of questions about the world that I hope will be answered in the rest of the trilogy. On one hand it’s understandable since this is a first-person story and our protagonist doesn’t have a lot of information herself. On the other hand it makes it hard to feel fully immersed in the world.

The magic system isn’t very complex but overall it was enough for me. I found Ruying’s Death magic to be one of the strongest parts of the book and I always loved the haunting way it was described.

Plot/Characters:
I went into this book expecting it to be more plot-driven but it actually is very much a character-driven story. Once I realized that, the elements of this book that didn’t work for me were less distracting. It’s a first-person narration story and the plot is Ruying facing significant moral dilemmas after being forced to become the private assassin for a Roman prince. There’s not a lot of action and if that’s what you’re looking for this story will likely not be for you. Instead this book relies heavily on internal monologues and conversations between characters as Ruying tries to sort out right, wrong, and the grey areas in between. While I think at times this grew repetitive and I felt the narration could be a bit subtler, I found that I really loved Ruying’s character. She stood out to me as a kind of fantasy protagonist I rarely see - she’s selfish (yet has a big heart for her family and friends), naive (in a way that feels like a coping mechanism - willful ignorance as a form of self-preservation), and realistically cowardly given her circumstances. It’s refreshing to see a fantasy heroine who isn’t naturally a bold revolutionary leader. She makes 100000 bad decisions throughout this book but her (albeit unreliable) narration always made me understand why - even if it was a bit maddening to be in her head sometimes. I enjoyed her character arc throughout this book and the ending sets up an intriguing arc for Book 2. I’m excited to see her journey throughout this trilogy as she has potential for some really great character growth.

Outside of Ruying, I found that the book particularly shined in scenes that were just conversations with various characters that were pulling her in different directions - Meiya, her twin sister who longs to be part of the revolution, Baihu, her childhood friend turned mysterious traitor, and Antony, the Roman prince with whom she forms a very complicated alliance. She is pulled quite a few different  I’m very intrigued to see how these relationships evolve over the course of the series.

Romance:
I think the most important thing to note about this book is that just because there is a romantic subplot, it does not inherently make this book a Romance/Romantasy. There are some mismarketing things that I think perhaps set up wrong expectations but throughout the book I felt that the narrative was clear on what the central relationship really was. It’s a slowly built and complicated enemies to “allies” to “friends” to “lovers” (sort of?)
to enemies
dynamic. I would also call it a “villain romance” so if that type of character dynamic is not appealing to you at all, you likely will not enjoy this book. Ultimately though describing it in terms of tropes doesn’t truly capture the layers of the relationship between Ruying and Antony. It’s a relationship built on an imbalance of power, manipulation, and many secrets. While there is a genuine connection (or at least what the two of them think is a genuine connection) their relationship arc over the course of the book takes a significant turn and I think it’s highly unlikely that this is a couple that will be endgame and I never got the sense that I was meant to be rooting for them. Also, despite the fact their relationship is central to the story, the romantic elements in this book are quite minimal - to the point a case could be made that it didn’t need to turn romantic at all. That being said, I think the romance adds an interesting layer to their dynamic to be explored in future books. If I had to compare it to another character dynamic I would say it’s similar to the Alina/The Darkling dynamic from Shadow and Bone.

There’s also another potential romance for Ruying that I do think will be endgame and the angsty slowburn potential of it developing over the course of this trilogy is excellent.