Scan barcode
A review by kaitlynisliterate
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang
1.5
If I can impart any single piece of information with this review, it’s this: do not read the author’s note until you’ve finished the book.
Usually, I wouldn't mention this since the author’s notes are at the end of the book but for some reason, this one is placed at the very beginning (at least in the ARC I read). (If I can speculate, I think the author’s note was placed at the start of the book to preemptively assuage concerns from the reader about the villain/protagonist romance.)
The author’s note mentions one specific historical event that will basically spoil the plot twist and ending of the book. It certainly did for me.
Now on to reviewing the actual book.
The worldbuilding in this book is pretty rough. There are huge info-dumps in the first few chapters and a lot of clunky expository dialogue where characters bring up things (eg: past history, in-universe historical events, etc) that they both already know and are aware that the other person knows too.
I found myself becoming increasingly irritated and annoyed by the main character, Ruying, as the book went on. Her thoughts are extremely repetitive and take up so much of the book. We almost never learn anything new about Ruying, about the world, about any of the characters from these internal monologues. That would already be bad enough but her actions also frequently and inexplicably go against her repetitive internal monologue that immediately preceded it. We will literally have pages of her thoughts (rehashing the same thing as the last chapter and every chapter before that) followed by her acting the complete opposite of how she was just thinking. This makes it feel as if her thoughts are completely irrelevant to the story and only there to fill space. For example, Ruying is given a “test” by Antony before becoming his assassin where she is required to kill someone without her powers. She has already agreed to be his private assassin in the previous chapter and we’ve spent pages upon pages being walked through her thought process in coming to this decision. We’re told again and again that she is willing to do ANYTHING to protect her sister and grandmother. And then when she is given the gun to kill this person, she just… refuses. The author knows that Antony is going to give her one more chance to prove herself to him because she’s writing the damn thing but Ruying has no reason to believe that. She believes that Antony is going to kill her on the spot for her refusal (and then kill her sister and grandmother) because that is what he has basically promised to do. So why does she refuse? WHO KNOWS because it goes against everything she has been thinking up to this moment. Ruying’s repetitive internal thoughts are only aggravated by the prose which frequently uses choppy sentences to emphasize things. Like this. And again. And again.
This book also has a pacing problem. Approximately 30% of the book occurs between when Antony first asks her to become his private assassin and her actually agreeing to it. It’s just pages and pages of her having the same circular arguments with herself, her self-hating internal monologue, and Antony repeating the same “just trust me, it’s for the greater good” line. And after all of this, once she actually becomes Antony’s private assassin, we don’t even get to see her first assassination and the aftermath of it. We don’t get to see the first 48 assassinations because they’re all glossed over in a single chapter.
Ruying is not a morally gray protagonist. She’s just a somewhat naive, vaguely stupid, and extremely self-loathing one. I was so disappointed by how the narrative bends itself backward to ensure that Ruying is never actually given a real choice and thus never makes the morally gray (or even outright horrific) choice. For example, we’re told early on that Ruying is scared of using her Gift because of a traumatic event from her childhood. Did she kill another child with her Gift because she was angry/upset and 7-year-olds don’t have impulse control and can’t comprehend the concept of death? No, that would be actually morally gray. Instead, let’s have another child literally try to murder her with their Gift and have Ruying act only in self-defense. But we’ll just make her hate herself for it and call it morally gray. Ruying’s Gift is literally the ability to kill anyone and she NEVER kills a single person before she is forced to. Before Ruying becomes Antony’s assassin and notwithstanding the childhood incident, she NEVER kills someone with or without her powers. She just temporarily incapacitates them. She never even wants to kill someone or thinks about killing someone.
Ruying is doing what I can only describe as a stupid version of Pascale’s wager. In this world, many people believe that magical powers (referred to as a Gift) are blessings from the gods and that emperors are descendants of the gods. Ruying basically alternates between not believing in these myths and following superstition “just in case.” It becomes clear that customs/superstitions are important to Ruying only when the plot needs her to not take the obvious course of action and are basically ignored when not needed as a plot device. It makes the world feel very fake and hollow.
The main tension in the story is this: Ruying agrees to assassinate members of the anti-colonial resistance to prevent a doomed revolution rather than have herself and her family killed. Has she made the correct decision?
The arguments made against Ruying’s decision (made by Ruying herself, her sister, Baihu, etc) are convoluted, contradictory, and laughably weak. Billions of people in the real world have lived under colonialism and imperialism at some point in time. There have been serious ethical and moral arguments made against collaborating with the colonial occupying power. The author chooses to have her side characters make none of them. Instead, they are portrayed as overly emotional, hysterical, borderline suicidal, and idealistic. In particular, the arguments between Ruying and her sister are ridiculous. I got the feeling that everything the characters say during an argument is written to lead to a pre-determined ending instead of attempting to portray real human interaction. I simply can’t believe that this wasn’t intentional on the part of the author to allow Ruying to wallow in self-pity while leading the reader to the conclusion that Ruying has no other choice. Ruying constantly berates herself for being a coward and a traitor but never ever tries to think of a way out of her situation. The plan that Ruying comes to at the very end of the book (after the plot twist) should have been one of the first things she (and anyone else for that matter) thought of. But the author goes to great lengths to avoid having any character bring up this option before that final scene.
I’m also not sure why this book was written as YA because I frequently felt that the genre was constraining the content/tone of the story. This is supposed to be an extremely violent and grim colonial/imperialist regime but so much if it is described vaguely or occurs off-page. Ruying is 19 years old, Antony is 20 years old, and Baihu is 20 years old. There is no reason why it couldn’t be an adult fantasy book.
Usually, I wouldn't mention this since the author’s notes are at the end of the book but for some reason, this one is placed at the very beginning (at least in the ARC I read). (If I can speculate, I think the author’s note was placed at the start of the book to preemptively assuage concerns from the reader about the villain/protagonist romance.)
The author’s note mentions one specific historical event that will basically spoil the plot twist and ending of the book. It certainly did for me.
Now on to reviewing the actual book.
The worldbuilding in this book is pretty rough. There are huge info-dumps in the first few chapters and a lot of clunky expository dialogue where characters bring up things (eg: past history, in-universe historical events, etc) that they both already know and are aware that the other person knows too.
I found myself becoming increasingly irritated and annoyed by the main character, Ruying, as the book went on. Her thoughts are extremely repetitive and take up so much of the book. We almost never learn anything new about Ruying, about the world, about any of the characters from these internal monologues. That would already be bad enough but her actions also frequently and inexplicably go against her repetitive internal monologue that immediately preceded it. We will literally have pages of her thoughts (rehashing the same thing as the last chapter and every chapter before that) followed by her acting the complete opposite of how she was just thinking. This makes it feel as if her thoughts are completely irrelevant to the story and only there to fill space. For example,
This book also has a pacing problem. Approximately 30% of the book occurs between when Antony first asks her to become his private assassin and her actually agreeing to it. It’s just pages and pages of her having the same circular arguments with herself, her self-hating internal monologue, and Antony repeating the same “just trust me, it’s for the greater good” line. And after all of this, once she actually becomes Antony’s private assassin,
Ruying is not a morally gray protagonist. She’s just a somewhat naive, vaguely stupid, and extremely self-loathing one. I was so disappointed by how the narrative bends itself backward to ensure that Ruying is never actually given a real choice and thus never makes the morally gray (or even outright horrific) choice. For example, we’re told early on that Ruying is scared of using her Gift because of a traumatic event from her childhood.
Ruying is doing what I can only describe as a stupid version of Pascale’s wager. In this world, many people believe that magical powers (referred to as a Gift) are blessings from the gods and that emperors are descendants of the gods. Ruying basically alternates between not believing in these myths and following superstition “just in case.” It becomes clear that customs/superstitions are important to Ruying only when the plot needs her to not take the obvious course of action and are basically ignored when not needed as a plot device. It makes the world feel very fake and hollow.
The main tension in the story is this: Ruying agrees to assassinate members of the anti-colonial resistance to prevent a doomed revolution rather than have herself and her family killed. Has she made the correct decision?
The arguments made against Ruying’s decision (made by Ruying herself, her sister, Baihu, etc) are convoluted, contradictory, and laughably weak. Billions of people in the real world have lived under colonialism and imperialism at some point in time. There have been serious ethical and moral arguments made against collaborating with the colonial occupying power. The author chooses to have her side characters make none of them. Instead, they are portrayed as overly emotional, hysterical, borderline suicidal, and idealistic. In particular, the arguments between Ruying and her sister are ridiculous. I got the feeling that everything the characters say during an argument is written to lead to a pre-determined ending instead of attempting to portray real human interaction. I simply can’t believe that this wasn’t intentional on the part of the author to allow Ruying to wallow in self-pity while leading the reader to the conclusion that Ruying has no other choice. Ruying constantly berates herself for being a coward and a traitor but never ever tries to think of a way out of her situation. The plan that Ruying comes to at the very end of the book (after the plot twist) should have been one of the first things she (and anyone else for that matter) thought of. But the author goes to great lengths to avoid having any character bring up this option before that final scene.
I’m also not sure why this book was written as YA because I frequently felt that the genre was constraining the content/tone of the story. This is supposed to be an extremely violent and grim colonial/imperialist regime but so much if it is described vaguely or occurs off-page. Ruying is 19 years old, Antony is 20 years old, and Baihu is 20 years old. There is no reason why it couldn’t be an adult fantasy book.