#to gaze upon wicked gods

[brehaaorgana]

2024 is not looking good for reylo writers (or just marketed for reylos?? I don't know if the second one is also a fandom reylo) trying to publish their romantasy like:

On the one hand, Cait Corrain (who is white) got their entire book torpedoed because they used sock puppet accounts on Goodreads to 1 star review bomb a ton of almost entirely poc authors with books also releasing in 2024.

On the OTHER hand, one of the YA books that Cait reviewbombed, To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by debut author Molly X. Chang (who is 1st gen Chinese American), is now getting serious advanced reader copy reviews with 1/5 stars for being an "enemies to lovers" romance that actually involves the main character falling in love with a genocidal colonizing prince who has her kidnapped, bound, and blackmailed. People are mentioning a shock collar??? MULTIPLE people in good reads reviews mentioned parallels to the atrocities of Unit 731 enacted by Japanese forces during WWII being committed by the supposed male lead in this romance?????!!!!

And NOW she's attempting to doxx reviewers??

This shit is W I L D

[icedsodapop]

Nahid Pekoe on review of To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods on Goodsreads is iconic:

Like what I'm getting is, hoo boy White man's dick will totally rearrange your brain chemistry!

[edwinspaynes]

going through all of the books that cait corrain review bombed and most of them sound super good actually. this one looks especially phenomenal

can't wait for it, i'm going to preorder it now.

thanks cait corrain for giving me a perfectly-curated list of authors of colour that had books good enough for you to feel threatened by! really enhanced my 2024 TBR for sure.

[eulaties]

im fucking crying. we are in the goddamn end times why are people defending that one unit 731 romance book

[shxpeshifterr]

[azure-arsonist]

Hot take based on the Zutara and To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods situation* right now.

I genuinely don't think you can really pull off a zutara esque romance in a stand-alone book. (Or expect one to be pulled off successfully)

What makes Zukos arc so impactful is that the narrative gives him time. He has time to fuck up, he has time to learn and question what he thinks he knows about himself, about the war, about the other nations. He has time to redeem himself and endear himself to the audience n small ways (zuko alone, basically all his time in ba sing se, his arc in book 3). He has time to backslide and question what he really wants and he has time to earn the gaang's trust. Redemption is not the flip of a switch its a painful labor. It's not supposed to be quick and easy. It's work.

Also the thing about Zutara is that despite Zukos status, he never has any power over Katara. (Colonizer accusations aside) Other than like maaaaybe the situation with the pirates he's never in any position of power or authority over her. Yeah sure he's the crown prince of the fire nation but frankly katara doesn't give a shit. (It's just another reason to beat his ass to her) That's part of why their enemies to lovers narrative works so well, they're on pretty equal footing. Once you change that, you alter their dynamic fundamentally. While that's not inherently a bad thing, it is different and that's something to be mindful of.

Disclaimer i haven't read the book I'm basing this on the current discourse and what information I've found online. This also isn't an attack on the author either.

[lesbianamalvada]

First ARC I ever received and it was straight ass. I get dark romances and enemies to lovers are hot, like I get it. But I'll never understand writing a fantasy story based on THE WORST atrocity that ever happened to your people. Probably up there as one of the worst atrocities of all time. And you make the main character a spineless pick-me traitor who falls in love with a colonizer prince who commits the fantasy version of Unit 731. 0/5 stars.

[tagapagharaya]

I have not read To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, so I cannot speak about its contents.

I can, however, speak about the utterly vile way people are talking about Molly X. Chang, a Chinese woman.

Can someone explain to me why they think calling a Chinese woman a comfort woman as an insult makes them the morally upright party in this situation?

The way this person, and others who echo this line, is using the term comfort woman as if it means traitor — in particular, a woman who betrays her own people to demean herself for the pleasure of their colonizers — is abhorrent and ahistorical.

Let me set the record straight: A comfort woman is a woman (or a girl, some as young as twelve-years-old) forced or tricked into sexual enslavement by the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces in occupied countries and territories (e.g. China, Korea, Taiwan, Burma, Indonesia, the Philippines), and even Japan itself, before and during World War II.

These women and girls were kept in "comfort stations" where they would be raped, physically abused and tortured by as many as 40 Imperial Japanese soldiers in a single night. Every night. For what reason? As "stress relief" for the soldiers.

In the mornings, they were forced to do backbreaking domestic labor for the Imperial Japanese garrisons, and at night they would be raped, beaten and tortured. They were given little food and kept in unsanitary conditions. Venereal disease was rampant. Many comfort women became infertile because of sexual violence and venereal diseases. Many women became pregnant during their enslavement, and were still not exempted from the nightly rapes. Many women miscarried and were not given medical attention.

I would remind you that the term comfort woman includes girls, some as young as twelve-years-old.

The level of dehumanization was so extreme that they were treated as inventory.

Comfort women are victims of colonial violence.

To this day, the Japanese government denies that the comfort women were sexually enslaved. Thousands of comfort women never received justice or reparations for the physical, psychological and emotional suffering they were subjected to.

The narrative that comfort women were volunteers or professionals, that they were treated well and compensated fairly, that they got rich from it, is historical revisionism peddled by the Japanese right-wing to deny its war crimes. This exact narrative is used to deny the victims of colonial violence justice.

So to see the term comfort woman used as an insult against a Chinese woman (of Manchu and Hui descent, no less) and to pretend it means she's "in love with her ancestors' colonizers and betrays her own people because of it (through her writing)" — an "Imperial Japan dickrider," if we're being crass — is vile and disgusting.

What do these people think they're accomplishing exactly? How are they criticizing an alleged "colonizer romance" novel by parroting the misogynist and racist historical revisionism of a real life former colonial power to demean a woman of color?

[geekynerfherder]

'To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods' by Sija Hong.

Cover art for the novel, 'To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods', written by Molly X Chang, published April 2024.

[reblogalanaartdream]

If there is any writer I’d recommend you follow on TikTok I recommend the writer/ author for Iron widow (not only is the book is awesome I’ve read it; my sister borrowing atm to read it but I may have to get the book again being as she’s taking so long with getting around to read it)

They are also giving us all the tea about Cait corrain drama and what they’ve done but they also recommends we give the victims of this drama books a chance

Witch is why I have a list of some of them here that sound interesting to me so I’m gonna try and check some of them out once I have some money again being as I have pre ordered to gaze upon wicked gods book and had to get some Christmas presents this month as well as been busy with work so I’m making my book list a a goal for 2024 so I can give these writers a chance (plus also some of these books sound like good reads so I might really like them)

[luminouslumity]

If you're still unfamiliar with the Cait Corrain situation, this video explains it! Under the cut are the blurbs for books of the authors Corrain targeted.

VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED by FRANCES WHITE

For a thousand years, Concordia has maintained peace between its provinces. To mark this incredible feat, the emperor's ship embarks upon a twelve-day voyage to the sacred Goddess's Mountain.

Aboard are the heirs of the twelve provinces of Concordia, each graced with a unique and secret magical ability known as a Blessing.

Except one: Ganymedes Piscero - class clown, slacker, and all-round disappointment.

When a beloved heir is murdered, everyone is a suspect. Stuck at sea and surrounded by powerful people without a Blessing to protect him, odds of survival are slim.

But as the bodies pile higher, Ganymedes must become the hero he was not born to be. Can he unmask the killer and their blessing before this bloody crusade reaches the shores of Concordia?

Or will the empire as he knows it fall?

MISTRESS OF LIES by K.M. ENRIGHT

FATE IS A CRUEL MISTRESS

The daughter of a powerful but disgraced Blood Worker, Shan LeClaire has spent her entire life perfecting her blood magic, building her network of spies, and gathering every scrap of power she could. Now, to protect her brother, she assassinates their father and takes her place at the head of the family. And that is only the start of her revenge.

Samuel Hutchinson is a bastard with a terrible gift. When he stumbles upon the first victim of a magical serial killer, he's drawn into the world of magic and intrigue he's worked so hard to avoid - and is pulled deeply into the ravenous and bloodthirsty court of the vampire king.

Tasked by the Eternal King to discover the identity of the killer cutting a bloody swath through the city, Samuel, Shan and mysterious Royal Bloodworker Isaac find themselves growing ever closer to each other. But Shan's plans are treacherous, and as she lures Samuel into her complicated web of desire, treason and vengeance, he must decide if the good of their nation is worth the cost of his soul.

TO GAZE UPON WICKED GODS by MOLLY X. CHANG

In this magical epic fantasy, a young woman cursed with the power of death must decide if saving her family is worth betraying her country—the first installation of a gripping new series.

Heroes die, cowards live. Daughter of a conquered world, Ruying hates the invaders who descended from the heavens long before she was born and defeated the magic of her people with technologies unlike anything her world had ever seen.

Blessed by Death, born with the ability to pull the life right out of mortal bodies, Ruying shouldn’t have to fear these foreign invaders, but she does. Especially because she wants to keep herself and her family safe.

When Ruying’s Gift is discovered by an enemy prince, he offers her an impossible deal: If she becomes his private assassin and eliminates his political rivals—whose deaths he swears would be for the good of both their worlds and would protect her people from further brutalization—her family will never starve or suffer harm again. But to accept this bargain, she must use the powers she has always feared, powers that will shave years off her own existence.

Can Ruying trust this prince, whose promises of a better world make her heart ache and whose smiles make her pulse beat faster? Are the evils of this agreement really in the service of a much greater good? Or will she betray her entire nation by protecting those she loves the most?

SO LET THEM BURN by KAMILAH COLE

Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland.

Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance to her neighbors.

When she’s forced to attend an international peace summit, Faron expects that she will perform tricks like a trained pet and then go home. She doesn’t expect her older sister, Elara, forming an unprecedented bond with an enemy dragon—or the gods claiming the only way to break that bond is to kill her sister.

As Faron’s desperation to find another solution takes her down a dark path, and Elara discovers the shocking secrets at the heart of the Langley Empire, both must make difficult choices that will shape each other’s lives, as well as the fate of their world.

"By turns hopeful and devastating, So Let Them Burn is a masterful debut with a blazing heart. I was captivated from beginning to end by Cole’s sharp, clever prose and by her protagonists—two remarkable sisters with an unforgettable bond." — Chelsea Abdullah, author of The Stardust Thief

THE POISONS WE DRINK by BETHANY BAPTISTE

In a country divided between humans and witchers, Venus Stoneheart hustles as a brewer making illegal love potions to support her family.

Love potions is a dangerous business. Brewing has painful, debilitating side effects, and getting caught means death or a prison sentence. But what Venus is most afraid of is the dark, sentient magic within her.

Then an enemy's iron bullet kills her mother, Venus’s life implodes. Keeping her reckless little sister Janus safe is now her responsibility. When the powerful Grand Witcher, the ruthless head of her coven, offers Venus the chance to punish her mother's killer, she has to pay a steep price for revenge. The cost? Brew poisonous potions to enslave D.C.'s most influential politicians.

As Venus crawls deeper into the corrupt underbelly of her city, the line between magic and power blurs, and it's hard to tell who to trust… Herself included.

And because Corrain went after him as well...

DRAG ME UP

They say he’s a myth...

And Hades prefers it that way. He may do all the work, and Zeus may get all the credit, but at least it allows Hades to preserve the one thing he truly cares to have: his solitude. The mere mention of the Wraith of Khaos Falls is enough to keep order, and he is rarely forced to leave the shadows of Casino Asphodel.

She belongs in the spotlight...

And Persephone clawed her way out of Demeter’s shadow to reach it. Now she’s lead in Calliope’s Cirque production but not without great cost, and there is not enough money in the world to pay off the debt accrued for the simple mistake of trusting Zeus. Though it’s easier to ignore the bars when she still has room to fly.

Landing a residency at the legendary Casino Asphodel is everything she trained for. Meeting a man she’d been convinced didn’t exist? She could never be prepared for that. Hades isn’t prepared for her either, but it’s soon evident they’re a force when together. He gives her a soft place to land, and she makes him want to reach for the stars. But when Zeus ups the stakes, they must be willing to go all in, even if it means coming down from the sky. Or stepping into the light.

KEEP ME CLOSE

She is the closest thing Khaos Falls has to a goddess…

And Aphrodite is feared and worshipped in equal measure. She has dedicated her life to being a savior for the lost regardless of the risk, but when unknown enemies nearly assassinate her in her own club, she realizes her reckless vigilante tactics won’t cut it anymore.

He is the furthest thing Khaos Falls has from a hero…

In fact, Hephaestus is who you call when all the heroes have fallen. Still, he is the best at what he does, strengthening the city’s weaknesses and keeping his feelings out of it. When tasked with Aphrodite’s personal security, it’s easy for him to detach himself from their mutual disdain. Until disdain is no longer the only thing he feels for her.

With their enemies elusive and snakes in their midst, good hearts and sharp wit may not be enough. But he made a vow, and he will keep it. Even if it means turning newfound feelings into newfound strengths and using them as a weapon to protect her.

LET ME IN

She never cared about being perfect.

Raised under Zeus’s self-serving influence, Athena only ever cared about being right. But with Zeus gone and everything changing, it’s been difficult trying to break free of the chains he so expertly secured her in as a girl. Especially when constantly worrying about Dionysos.

And he never cared much about saving himself.

Raised under Hades’ self-sacrificing influence, Dionysos only ever cared about pleasing everybody else. But when the opportunity to prove he’s more than a winemaker presents itself —with the promise of spending more time with Athena— he has no choice but to take it.

In a bid for peace, Athena and Dionysos are sent to an ailing Thassos City to try and strike a treaty. But with war within reach and rules rearranged, wit and charisma may just fall short. But they’ve long since decided that to protect each other, blood is a small price to pay. Even their own.

LOVE ME NOW

Achilles loved playing the hero…

Being a mere man had never been enough for him. He wanted to be a great one. And when he finds out that Helen, his childhood best friend, has gone missing, taking the mission is instinct. Even if it meant returning to the place he was born and raised, a place he swore never to return to—Heraklion. But he goes nowhere without Patroclus.

Patroclus loved being one…

But being a hero was nothing like playing one. It was a senseless sequence of pyrrhic victories he'd carry forever. Yet when Achilles needs him to return to Heraklion and the arena he had been forced to claw his way out of, he says yes because… well, of course he does. He would follow Achilles anywhere.

Yet both had left more of themselves in Heraklion's notorious arena than they'd taken. So returning would not require heroes but something else, something worse, especially when Helen is not the only one in need of rescue. They both must determine not only what it means to be a man, but what it means to be a good one.

[shinyasahalo]

*She read the book everyone's calling a "colonizer romance" | To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods review.

That is not Zutara, because Katara would never be that way.  

[icedsodapop]

2023: My book is inspired by my grandfather's storiea of Manchuria under colonization.

2024: Japan is not involved at all in my story!!

Molly, I understand the frustration when it feels as if no one is "getting" the story you wrote and that pple are twisting what was on the page. I also don't think pple should be begging for your death on social media.

But honey... you cannot talk about how your book, with a fictional kingdom meant to be a fantasy counterpart to China, was inspired by your grandfather's stories of Manchuria under colonization, Manchuria... which was colonized by Japan around the time your grandfather was young... and then have your fictional colonizer character participate in secret medical experiments on humans and then get upset when your Asian reviewers start connecting the dots to Unit 731, the lab formed by the Imperial Japanese Army that infamously conducted medical experiments on their colonized peoples, and criticize you for writing a romance between a colonized person and a dude who commits war crimes against her people?? No matter how much you whiten your colonizer's character's skin and lighten their hair and claim they are inspired by Rome becos ancient Rome did not infamously have a unit conducting medical experimentation on the pple they invaded.

And advertizing it as "enemies to lovers"?? Please get a grip.

[so-what-then]

I will never, ever understand the urge of some people to take real genocide or colonialism and use it as fodder for a self centered YA coming-of-age/romance/fantasy.

Molly X. Chang is just the latest one but shes riding on the coattails of other narcissistic "bipoc" writers who do this. It needs to stop.

[bookie-the-reading-junkie]

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods review

1.5 stars

Oh boy. This book is a mess. I feel that it’s important to preface this by saying that I am a white American and my knowledge of Asian and Chinese culture/history is very limited (I’m a little more familiar with Japanese culture/history because of my love of anime). It is not my intent to criticize this book in ways that I shouldn’t and I don’t know enough about certain things to say if my assessment is correct or not. 

I had heard of this book a while ago when the author of Iron Widow (I love both the author and the book) promoted it, then when the whole thing with the white author review bombing POC debut authors, and then again when it was being called a colonizer romance. I did get spoiled with several things, but I feel like that didn’t matter too much. A lot of people said this book was a slog to get through, but I had just read “Daughter of the Moon Goddess” and this felt almost like a breeze in comparison because that one is 500 pages long and the prose is very similar; incredibly flowery and kind of repetitive. I finished this book in four days a few days ago and I’m already starting to forget what happened. 

I’m going to start off with the worldbuilding: it was a bit all over the place. I wasn’t quite as confused with the multiverse thing that was going on as a lot of people were, but I had many questions regarding the Romans that didn't get answered. Why was Rome/romans chosen to be the colonizers at all? Unit 731 was part of the Japanese occupation and the opium wars were spurred by the British. My guess is that the author felt that basing the colonizers on the Japanese would be too controversial, and wanted to go for a more fantasy/mythological vibe. Like a clash between western and Chinese mythology, which would have been really cool and actually what I expected when I first heard of this book, but wasn’t the case. 

Is Rome a reimagining of our world if Rome didn’t fall? That seems to be the case even though it’s not made clear. I wish that Rome/Roman culture/whatever appeared more because it’s so undescribed; we don’t have a clue as to what it’s like, especially when her own culture is given so much focus. The Romans are a blank slate, you could so easily swap out the Romans with like. Any modern western country, because the only difference between the two cultures is that the Romans are brutal and that they have “overwhelming science.”

That was something that bothered me a lot throughout the book, the constant “our magic can not measure up to their powerful science.” I can’t tell if it’s meant to be a critique of racist portrayals of “primitive people” or if it unintentionally comes off that way. Because to me, it’s the latter. Especially when so often science was technology like planes and guns, instead of what people generally think of when they hear science like chemistry or labs. I feel like if “technology” had been swapped with “science” that connotation I mentioned earlier wouldn’t be as strong. There were so many times Ruying would be like “science is so evil but magic is powerless against it” and it honestly made me a bit uncomfortable. Stuff like “one [world] was rich with magic, one was rife with science (p4)” and “these bracelets of science around my wrists (p114),” which is referring to her magic repressors/shock collar. There were a lot more (some worse) but I didn’t mark where they were. 

The writing was. Incomprehensibly flowery. I’ll be honest, this is a good example of why I don’t like flowery, poetic prose. It’s repetitive and the metaphors and similes start to end up not making sense for the sake of every. Single. Sentence. Sounding like it’s part of a poem or trying to be quotable. I disengage quickly from the story, glaze over, and miss stuff. Though in this case, it’d be pretty hard to miss stuff since it’s very repetitive. And with the gods thing. Look. I get it. It’s in the title. The Romans compare themselves to gods (or did the Panglings do that first? It’s unclear). But Ruying constantly talks about how they are false gods, how they pretend to be gods, how the real gods abandoned them, and false gods rule, and WE GET IT. YOU ONLY MENTIONED IT 20 TIMES IN THIS CHAPTER. I was in all honesty a bit baffled as to why she would compare them to gods so much, doing so only gives them so much more power over them. Some examples of the writing:

P17. Too cautious of his wrath, too aware of my sister's mortal vessel with its mortal needs for opian [magic version of opium].  P155. Our shared moment, beautiful as the embroideries grandma used to sew, came apart, snarled into halves, barely held together by tangled threads. P221. In the meantime, I will let you in on a little secret if you promise not to tell anyone. History is a melody sung by the victors. Truths and lies are what I make of these chords. Stay loyal to me, and I promise the world will remember you as a hero, forged in this war of magic and science. Because, come fire or storm, I’m going to win this game of power, and I can give you a legacy that will outlive you. A name to be whispered for thousands of years. 

The whole book is like this. I have read so many books with this sort of flowery prose in the past few years, especially debut novels and I’m starting to think that young authors need a gentle reminder that not every sentence has to be outstanding and quotable. I get it, I’m a writer myself and so often I feel like if I have a couple sentences that aren’t filled with imagery, then it’s flat and boring. But come on. 

The book is technically NA (though in the UK it’s YA for some reason idk), and while I haven’t read a ton of adult novels, there were times where it felt so painfully YA. The narrative was honestly a bit confusing sometimes; there were times where I couldn’t tell if Ruying was being an unreliable narrator or if the narrative was saying something straight. It definitely fell into the pitfall I notice a lot of bad slow-burn romances do when the love interest where they are treated like we already know them and should root for them rather than them being strangers. Also, the eyes thing, oh my godddddddd I’m so sick of books going on and on about people’s eyes. Right after she stole money from the love interest, she notices his eyes at the end of an alley:

P39. “I caught a splash of green at the other end of the darkened alley” [note: please tell me he’s wearing green and she didn’t see only his captivating viridian eyes. (Edit: god dammit he wasn’t he’s wearing midnight blue)]

My personal explanation is that his eyes fucking glow or something. 

For as much as gods were talked about, Ruying’s gods were only very vaguely discussed aside from that they left about a thousand years (I think?)  ago according to myth. Death is a great example of this, constantly referred to but never explained. At some point I realized she was referring to Death as “he” which was jarring because I’m pretty sure no pronouns were used for Death in the first half of the book, which I preferred because it made Death feel separate from the living world. The only time any gods are talked about is when Ruying tells Antony a story about the goddess Nüwa (which is a real myth, slightly adjusted for the book), but it doesn’t really serve any purpose nor does it really shed light on further worldbuilding. The emperors are said to be descendants of dragons, but that also doesn’t get a lot of explanation. There were a few times I wondered if things like that were referencing Chinese mythology or culture that I wouldn’t get or if there were just things that weren’t explained well enough. 

Moving on to the characters. There was a pretty small cast: the MC, Ruying; her twin, Meiya; their grandmother; love interest/childhood friend, Baihu; her childhood friend, Taohua; Prince Jade Orbs, Antony; and a few other side characters. But we see very little of them besides Ruying and Antony, even if she’s being isolated from them. Ruying constantly talks about what she would do for her family, but we see her interact with her grandma exactly once and every interaction with her sister (which is like. three) is a fight involving both of their views on the colonization and oppression of their people. Meiya wants to fight with the resistance and would rather die than kneel forever at the Roman’s feet. She tells Ruying off and that she’s deluded when she explains that she’s the Prince’s personal assassin in order to protect her family and peace. This book does so much telling instead of showing and it’s very clear when it comes to the characters and the relationships between them. Ruying as a character has a lot of potential, someone who is afraid of their own power and the high that it gives them, both hating and loving their ability, desperate to save their family. I think that if the romance was completely cut out, then she could have been a cool character. But this girl is as delulu as it gets. 

When she met Antony, I thought I might enjoy their relationship, not in a “omg I ship it, I don’t care if it’s toxic” way but in a “this dynamic is so fucked up and I can’t stop reading” way. The few times I’ve run across ships (used in the loosest manner) like that, I’ve been able to enjoy it because even if the narrator is unreliable, it’s clear that it’s not romantic. I backtracked so quickly because the narrative did not want to depict it as abusive and toxic, it wanted to depict it as romantic. My notes went from “okay so far, kind of into this, because it’s so clearly toxic” to “oh god this is becoming romantic FAR too fast.” 

I spent so much of the book intensely irritated at Ruying because she is constantly making him sympathetic and excusing him. This starts from the very beginning, not even when they actually spend time together:

P111. I swallowed the lump in my throat, and my heart beat a little too fast when he said my name, so gentle, so benevolent [he is meeting her in a cell in the dungeon and about to propose that she become his personal assassin or die.] P141. there was a quiet fear in his voice. A softness. As if he were a man confessing something he didn’t want to be heard. In this moment, I wanted to believe his words, see him as someone other than a prince monstrous in his greed. [less than an hour ago he put a loaded gun to her head and said that he would kill her, her family, and everyone she loves if she attempted to kill him again.] Pp 151-152. before I knew it, someone had drawn me into their embrace. A safe place of tenderness to hide from the cold of everything else.  In silence, Antony Augustus held me tight, as if doing so could hold all of my broken pieces together, keep me whole against the cascading gray waves of hate striking me like an ocean striking at crumbling cliffs. Deep in my bones I knew everything about this moment was wrong.  Leaning into his touch was wrong, wrapping my arms around his and clinging to him for life was wrong.  But I did it anyway. [He just made her kill a person. This one of the very few times that she feels something is wrong or that he’s being manipulative until much later and several people tell her to snap out of it.]

If I remember correctly, this was all in one day. He is a little nice to her and she so quickly forgets that he is the enemy. This is the same person who spent the first few chapters talking about how much she despised the Romans and how all Romans were evil. Right after the last segment, Antony tells her his sob story that as a child he lived in poverty and he had robbed his adoptive father, the Roman emperor’s son. His soon-to-be adoptive father came to his house and told Antony to either kill his biological parents, or all three of them would die; he chose the first option. What the actual fuck. And then she says “He was a prince of Rome. He had no reason to lie to me (p158).” I fucking stopped dead in my tracks and stared at these sentences. HE HAS EVERY FUCKING REASON TO LIE TO YOU???? TO MANIPULATE YOU???? YOU CLEARLY DIDN’T THAT HIGHLY OF ANY ROMAN EARLIER

His whole thing is that because he grew up poor, he knows what it’s like be in her shoes, and he also doesn’t want to commit mass genocide like his grandfather or brothers do (or so he claims; we don’t get a lot of insight as to what his grandfather and brother do want to do, though I suppose that’s book two). He doesn’t want a war/genocide and wants her to assassinate key people that would bring war quicker. He gives her very little evidence (though to be fair, also very little choice) to show how this would actually do anything. He says he wants her to kill both Romans and Pangulings, but as far as the reader is aware, she only kills Pangulings. There’s a six month time skip after the deal, and she has killed 48 people and she’s in love with him. This is unfortunate because while I understand the reason for that time skip, those six months would have been crucial in both their character development and the development of their relationship. Ruying is so utterly convinced that Antony is a good person and wants peace and it takes her twin sister and her childhood friend/other love interest telling her to wake up and realize that he’s just using her before she starts to think “maybe? He’s a bad guy?” How did the girl that hates the Romans so much get to this point? We didn’t get to see that. 

It’s not super clear if Antony is manipulating her. I mean, he is to an extent, but how far it goes isn’t clear. Because it would make sense if he was manipulating her into thinking that he is in love with her. But we get one chapter in his POV where we find out he is in love with her and is like “if only we were different people, we could be together :(“ and drops this line:

P293. He had starved himself of love, laughed at the Romeos and Juilets of his world, the love songs that echoed on the radios. Now, in this bed with Ruying beside him, Antony finally understood what his grandfather meant when he said love was a weakness. 

*rolls my eyes in aroace* god, poor baby that must have been so hard. I bet you were pushing away women right and left because who isn’t into someone that experiments on humans and threatens their lives and loved ones. Though you never know with straight people. Oh yeah, he has done/is doing experiments on her people, especially those who have magic. That’s the big leadup for the story, which wasn’t a big surprise to me because I was spoiled by that, but he actually mentions that his people have done experiments on hers and she doesn’t even take note of it?????

Here’s the thing: there’s an author note saying that she was partially inspired for this book by the Russian and Japanese occupation of Manchuria China. Her own grandfather lived during that time and told her fictionalized versions of real horror stories of the Japanese occupation and of unit 731 as a kid, though she didn’t realize this until 2020. She asks the reader to understand that Ruying isn’t a hero, just a girl who wants to protect her family. I have no problems with an author tackling difficult subjects like this, in fact, I think it’s great because it’s a form of catharsis and can inspire readers (especially ones that are less familiar with the subject) to look further into it and educate themselves. 

However, I feel like the author didn’t really do what she wanted justice. Because of that author’s note and attention brought to Unit 731 specifically, I expected the book to focus heavily on that. The actual part that is similar to unit 731 is so short, so glossed over, so contained, that it does not feel respectful or handled well in any manner. What happens is that Baihu takes Ruying into the labs and they see her childhood best friend experimented on (draining her blood? Her life energy? It’s a little unclear even when Antony explains what the experiments are for) and then die. One of Ruying’s requests before becoming Antony’s personal assassin was that he released Taohua and he agreed. So while she’s obviously distraught about her friend dying, most of her focus is that Antony lied to her; not the actual experimentation or any of that. (The reason for the experimentation also feels weirdly out of place; Antony’s world is dying because of climate change, which is why they want to colonize and move to hers; why more people haven’t moved yet isn’t clear. Antony and his adoptive father wanted to find out if people with magic could be, in essence, be used for more sustainable energy because their magic has the potential to be super energy efficient. In theory, an interesting and horrifying concept; in practice, badly executed.)

I watched a couple reviews of this book on youtube who had also mentioned unit 731 and I decided to look into myself because I had heard of it, but nothing more than it was one of the most horrific historical events and that it involved human experimentation. I only looked at wikipedia and I had to stop when I got to the section on experiments involving frostbite (which was not very far in), and I have a pretty strong stomach. The experiments were done pretty much purely for the sake of sick curiosity. Biological warfare was committed on surrounding cities to observe the results. It is truly so sicking, and I can not comprehend how someone can learn about this and have family who was personally affected by it and go “yeah, I’ll put that into my enemies-to-lovers romance where the main love interest is the one involved in this sort of thing.”

At first, I was kind of apathetic to this book. I’m glad that I read a bit about unit 731 (and I should probably look more into it) afterward because it puts it in a completely different light. Now I’m just a bit disgusted. No hate to the author, but I really wish that she had put more thought into this. It also just feels weird because while there is a love triangle going on, the way she marketed it made it very clear that the main romance is between Ruying and Antony, with calling it dark romance enemies-to-lovers, Zutara on steroids, etc. Not to mention in her author’s note, she says that she thinks that grandfather would be proud of this book, which, I don’t know, felt a little weird to me the way that it was phrased. 

I want to go on a bit of a tangent about the whole thing about Zutara and this book relating to fanfiction. I checked out her tiktok page, and 99% of it is basically the same three slideshows promoting the book, and almost every single one is about Zutara on steroids/the tropes in the book. I think it’s very bad practice to promote traditional books based almost solely on tropes and popular ships. It makes sense with fanfiction, there’s an established setting and cast of characters who people are already emotionally attached to. I think that it shows weakness in your writing if you rely on things like “only one bed,” “touch them and you die,” “enemies to lovers,” “morally gray characters,” “knife to throat” to set the foundations of your book on. These can be incorporated into your book and be done very well, but so often now (not necessarily just in this book) it feels like books are being built on tropes. It’s becoming the cake rather than the icing. Anywho. 

I didn’t see how it was supposed to be like Zutara at first besides the broadest strokes of “he’s a prince and his people bad and committing war crimes against hers.” To be honest, I’m not really a fan of Zutara, I just don’t vibe with it and I find that a lot of fans of it are kind of intense. I do like Zukka (mostly it’s like “hey what if dumbass one and two got together?”) and have read a shit ton of it, so I feel like many of the same things about Zutara can apply to Zukka. Anywho, I was more  focused on whether or not the personalities match (Ruying a little, Antony NO), but I started to see some similarities. I guess. Someone said “yeah it’s zutara if Zuko was Ozai” which I think really hits it on the nail. Zuko, while he made lots of bad decisions and yeah, I suppose you could call him a morally gray character, is fundamentally a good person. Antony is not, despite whatever the author was doing to what, humanize him? Make him a sympathetic villain? Am I supposed to be sad for this guy that 1) killed his parents 2) threatened to kill the MC and everyone she loves and 3) of his own will, did experiments on people? Yeah, no. Not to mention that he doesn’t really try to understand her/her culture or what she’s gone through being under occupation of his people; he doesn’t care and thinks that spouting proverbs in her own language every other sentence gets him brownie points. 

I won’t say that fanfiction has perfectly delved into these issues nor can I say much about colonization and its lasting impact on people, but I guarantee you that I have read fanfiction barely beta-ed that handled these topics more tactfully than this book, and included romance between someone who is a part of the oppressed population and someone whose family is directly responsible for that oppression. A few people have said it feels like fanfiction just in general, which I don’t 100% agree with, but it does in the way that we are sort of expected to understand the world and know who the love interest is and the development between the two. There is almost zero buildup and explanation when it comes to Antony, you’re expected to root for him and love him because he gave her a hug after making her murder a person. I think that is the biggest pitfall for authors who started writing via fanfiction or convert their fanfiction into novels; any time a character shows up, it feels a lot like when a celebrity appears in a disney show and the laugh track cheers and you have no clue who they are.

Yeah in short, it started off fine, went downhill and then crashed into a wall. I may read the next book simply out of curiosity, but I’m not sure I could handle it.

[szynkaaa]

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang is out!