To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods

To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X. Chang★☆☆☆☆   1.5/5—ARC received on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.I wanted to enjoy this book. The title and cover art is catching, synopsis promising, and for the first 20% of the book, I found the plot intriguing and wanted to know more. However, it all takes a nosedive shortly after. For a story centered around a war between magic and science, there is little to no in-depth exploration in the differences between the two. Similarly, a severe lack of world-building when it should have been pivotal, considering Pangu and Rome come from two entirely different planets, connected through this portal that is never explained. Use of magic has a physical toll on the user, and we see this depicted in Ruying for all of 1 or 2 chapters before the idea is entirely dropped.On a related note, the author should have highly considered creating a fictional race adjacent to the Romans for this story. To call the colonisers “Romans” only elicits the imagery of Ancient Rome, yet the Romans here use technology and science. It's a little disconcerting as a reader, and we've already created a fictional world adjacent to China. Why not just commit to an entirely fictional universe? Characters are dull and underdeveloped. Ruying spends the whole book idolising Meiya, whom she calls “kind”. We only ever see Meiya cruelly putting her sister down, and she takes the award for my most disliked character. The rest of the characters suffer the same issue: too much offscreen character building. Lots of tell, instead of show: “Meiya is kind, Grandma is intelligent, Taohua is strong”. We never see any of this demonstrated through action on screen.Romance was unconvincing. The dialogue between Antony and Ruying was dry and so boring to read. Ruying is gas lit, brainwashed (in the most obvious way; it wasn't even subtle), and clearly in a Stockholm Syndrome situation. Time skip occurs, and suddenly - Antony and Ruying are in love. I greatly dislike that we had one random chapter of Antony's POV to depict that he'd actually fallen for Ruying. Why not just show it in his actions instead? What made him fall for her? I have no clue, because both romance and her killings seemed to all happen off screen through time skips! All of which leads to severe lack of development. And to preface all of this with her initial Author's Note just seems in incredibly bad taste (and I say this as someone who has no issues reading problematic dark tropes - I would entirely remove the Author's Note at this point). I understand what the author was trying to attempt, but I truly think that proper execution of the idea requires a more delicate touch.What truly made me miffed (spoiler alert) was that Meiya and Baihu kept Ruying in the dark the entire time until the end. It's like they were begging for Ruying to be brainwashed, and were baffled by the end result.Other various dislikes:- Chinese text itself embedded into the narrative (although I did enjoy its application within the story). As a native Chinese speaker, I would prefer to have footnotes instead to make reading flow more consistent- The rebel group and Phantom are underdeveloped if not non-existent. Zero buildup prior to their appearance- The Author keeps writing. Like. This.- Use of time skips to skip crucial character and plot development, resulting in flat characters- Failed attempt at painting characters as morally greyFor a promising and rather strong start to the story, it peters off quite fast and tragically. The ideas and concepts that author attempts to explore requires a more skillful hand.