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

thank you Penguin for the review copy! sorry I hated it
BOOKS MENTIONED:
To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods by Molly X Chang: bookshop.org/a...
The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary by Ken Liu (appeared in his short story collection The Paper Menagerie): bookshop.org/a...
heavy content warnings for the Ken Liu story! it uses actual testimonies from unit 731 and does not shy away from the graphic realities
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
00:39 - Book drama
03:53 - Spoiler-free summary
07:18 - Spoiler-free review
13:57 - SPOILERS! Full review
23:22 - Ruying is colonized in the mind
24:43 - Criticism of Prince Colonization as a love interest
26:25 - Relationship buildup (or lack thereof)
28:18 - Ruying’s character growth (or lack thereof)
30:52 - The plot twist
35:42 - What could’ve been better?
41:08 - Outro (spoiler-free)
FIND ME ELSEWHERE!
IG: / catherineannechiang
TT: / catherineannechiang
Substack: catontheintern...
Bookshop: bookshop.org/s...
FTC disclosure: I may make a small commission from the links, which helps support my work!

[@Grey_3438]

What is it with modern day authors thinking that "enemies to lovers" means oppressor x oppressed 😭

[@chio5709]

in a way, 'oppressor x oppressed' PROBABLY could works if the oppressor educated to act and think specific way which lead him to be one AND they have to want and will change their way+actually try to do something about it. But.., it'll be an extremely slow burn and they'll have to be a friend or partner in justice or whatever (in private basically no power imbalance) before the romance start.. That'd takes a lot of patience to write and the topics will have to be written *very* carefully.

[@Grey_3438]

@@chio5709 So basically authors want a Zuko without his character development and self-reflection

[@chio5709]

@@Grey_3438 Now that you mention it, YES

[@gabrielleduplessis7388]

I agree with you. I know that not all enemies to lovers is like this which is why I like rivals to lovers more. Not all portrayals are the guy or girl putting a knife across their neck. While not my favorite trope, this version of it is heartbreaking to me, especially when it is written by women. Women constantly worry about being trapped or lured into these relationships and authors like E.L James and Colleen Hoover constantly romanticize it. How are their minds so warped?

[@joyc.e.7511]

Ok, but ACTUALLY. I get that that makes for a really obvious route to take, but it's almost always never engaged with realistically and often poorly.

[@notthesimi]

Yes this is exactly like zutara… if Zuko was Ozai.

[@MsMvsc]

One of the reasons I generally dislike Zutara is that people write them OOC to fit tropes, and what do you know? This book markets itself as Zutara inspired and does the exact same shit lol

[@Luavyy]

Zutara is still really questionable, if you look at it from katara’s perspective

[@notthesimi]

@@LuavyyKatara and Zuko had the bonding experience in the cave, the hunt for Kataras moms killer, fighting Azula, and last but not least the Ember Island Players interpretation of their feelings. That last one was for fun. I’m fine with ATLA as it stands with the ships, but I do like zutara because of the dark emotions they have and what it drives them to do. It also helps that Zuko stops the fire nation war machine and roles back the occupation of foreign soil.

[@Luavyy]

@@notthesimi katara hated zuko throughout the whole show and just became friends with him like 6 episodes before the finale, i get what you’re saying but I don’t think they are a good ship

[@notthesimi]

@@Luavyy let’s just say I’m a zuko fan girl. Of my three top ships he’s in two of them. I also don’t need healthy to enjoy a ship. It does helps katara is a formidable waterbender. My original point was that zutara was a comparison stretch, unless the leads love interest has a massive character change. Zuko doesn’t commit mass genocide, that’s sozin. He doesn’t kidnap people to do weird shit to them, that’s Long Fang and Hama. He didn’t threaten Mai family to get her to date him or threaten to kill team avatars family members if they didn’t allow him to be a part of the group, that’s Azula. The worst thing he does is break uncle Irohs heart, chase the Avatar and cause property damage. I think his on .screen kill count is at 0

[@pidginenglish]

he’s making her use a power that diminishes her life?? and she’s in love??

[@danielbetancourt1483]

Seems realistic

[@Zack-xv2yc]

​@@danielbetancourt1483 For a tragedy, which this shit isn't.

[@VIVIXXEN_ART]

It's giving the Darkling using Alinas powers while she is all the way begging him to not and their shippers are just line "wow they are so in love 😍"

[@pidginenglish]

@@VIVIXXEN_ART 🤣🤣🤣 100% accurate comparison

[@erebusmint]

That’s exactly what happened in For The Throne by Hannah Whitten, and exactly why I couldn’t finish the book. It’s infuriating!!!!!

[@akshathahegde6550]

Honestly, the only way i could think of this story line being saved is if she had the intention of murdering him and his family the whole time. But that would require her to have dignity, moral values and common sense.

[@MagisterialVoyager]

The absolute roast. 😭 As it should be, BTW. 💅

[@darkdream1469]

​@@MagisterialVoyager ikr 😂🔥

[@MagisterialVoyager]

@@darkdream1469 like, no, honestly why does this mc is so freaking annoying, i'm not even joking. it literally reads like someone with plenty of internalised colonial value they've yet to work through... and i'm literally an academic specialising in postcolonialism. i'm looking forward if anyone would slam the frick out of this book in any academic journal because YIKES. goodbye.

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

Or you could write a very dark romance with a female character who thinks of herself as and has lived as someone devoid of morals etc and throughout the story the conflict comes from her being pushed to such a desperate point a last scrap of her soul that she thought was lost rebels. *And she finally turns on him. A very good author could probably make an interesting story out of that, but it would be dark as hell

[@maomi1852]

Why would she try to kill him with a gun if she has magic that can kill people? 😂😂😂 Girlie lost a golden opportunity to kill the main culprits behind the invasion and war.

[@catherineannechiang]

HAHAHA I don’t know 😭😭😭 like she really could’ve…at any point…

[@gabrielleduplessis7388]

It would be cool if they figured out ways to shield themselves from her power making it harder to fulfill her original mission.

[@catherineannechiang]

this is my bad but i forgot the romans have these "science bracelets" that block their magic!! lmao. tho later on in the book antony trusts her enough that he turns them off for her, and by then she's too in love with him to kill him

[@gabrielleduplessis7388]

@@catherineannechiang that makes a lot of sense.

[@CharlieConcepts-pw9ur]

Killing him with a gun could work. If she made it look like a suicide and then forged some letters, making it look like he became depressed before the Suicide. Him dropping dead via death magic is suspicious AF. Him biting down on an barrel to taste test some lead could be believable if she sets it up right.

[@dontbother2knock]

zuko and katara did NOT go through three seasons of character development to be turned into watered down caricatures

[@alexv3372]

Yeah ngl I kinda love the characters but this book… yeah

[@microlm4336]

I feel like the marketing and forward really make this book stomach turning for me. If you know the gravity of unit 731, of what happened to your family, how could you instead turn around and use it for clout and a bulwark when people question you for reducing the gravity of colonization to mere set dressing for your poorly written romance? It feels exploitative of family tragedy. Even in the forward where she describes the chinese army as fighting with bows and arrows against superior technology makes me think that the author desperately needs to do some internal decolonization because how are you really going to say that when the Qing army had guns too! Any colonized people has their own history of development and science, including China! It's reflected in her infantilization of Pangu as not having "science" and only having "magic"--the same orientalist mysticism she's applying to her own image of China.

[@catherineannechiang]

i wish i could like this comment 100 times bc the magic vs. science thing felt exactly as you said: orientalist mysticism!! and just poor world building bc how could they not develop any "science" or "tech" that uses magic if the entire world is reliant on it lol

[@eunuchboy]

@@catherineannechiang I couldn't thank you enough for mentioning this! A lot of people only focused on the colonizer romance part which is fair because you can see the flaws in the book without having foreknowledge of Chinese culture and history. But being able to recognize the anti-indigenous undertones of the narrative is so so helpful in criticizing it and showing the more insidious side of this kind of "mystical far east" trope. There are a lot of ways this book failed to deliver a good representation of Chinese (particularly northern Chinese) culture and the "science vs magic" is part of it.

[@catherineannechiang]

totally agree!! the "science vs magic" concept just feels like repackaged colonial logic. and speaking of the representation of chinese culture, it felt like there was barely any? bc the entire book was about antony's green eyes

[@eunuchboy]

@@catherineannechiang Haha yes! I have more feelings about the culture that I'll probably post in a separate comment but it's just so weird that most of the Chinese characters who are actually victims of colonialism are flat and underdeveloped (e.g. Taohua, by god her character is handled so badly) and end up being used for the plot without appropriate humanization. Meanwhile colonizer guy over here takes up most of the book, gets the focus of the marketing and most readers are engaged with his story arc. It's less "he's a colonizer and in a relationship with the mc" and more "he's a colonizer and overshadows any kind of proper insight this book could've had towards the colonizer mentality and struggle of victims".

[@heyimsasa]

you perfectly summed up how i felt about this book. i think this was also an issue of the author biting off more than she could chew because it was a project beyond her scope and abilities.

[@phangkuanhoong7967]

So, i'm Malaysian Chinese. My grandparents suffered the Japanese occupation during WW2, and that piece of dark history is well-known to us. For this author to reference it and write a book like this is well, beyond "uncomfortable" to me. I really wanted to enjoy this novel, but I DNF real quick.

[@trashyink2132]

Who would look at WW2 Japan colonization and think "Hmmmm, what a good romance idea" !?!?!?

[@persephone7304]

There's another book with a similar premise that came out this year: The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan. A Malayan ends up working as a spy for a Japanese general during the Japanese Occupation of Malaysia, falls in love with him which results in her family and friends suffering. It wasn't marketed as a romance, no comparisons to ships. How you promote your book definitely helps put readers in perspective. I do feel icky about the romancey bits and the way the general was characterized to be more complex than your average war criminal.

[@JulesKYim]

@@persephone7304 I just wanted to add that this novel, while not quite a romance, contains also similar themes. Tan is a great writer. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Evening_Mists

[@missdragon5892]

I cannot imagine using something like unit 731 as a plot point in a fantasy novel without taking the time, care and sensitivity to explore the horror and gravity of that situation.

[@marni3682]

It's actually unbelievable...

[@aidacelicaguilar7927]

She has repeatedly mentioned she didn't use that as inspiration at all. This is just part of the Twitter misinformation bus

[@missdragon5892]

@@aidacelicaguilar7927 Darling, watch the video. Read the opening note.

[@beelzemobabbity]

⁠@@aidacelicaguilar7927honestly isnt that even worse tho? She mentions it IN THE BOOK, but says she wasn’t inspired by it?

[@randomchannel323]

Poppy war by rf kuang makes the same mistake of not being sensitive fictionalising that time in history

[@yana33612]

Okay, so I've now watched the entire video, spoilers and all. From the sound of it, this book encounters the same pitfalls that a lot of TikTok-popular 'dark romance' books do. Most are heavily marketed based on tropes and specific scenes from the book that sound good when taken out of context. I'm not one to knock common book tropes, but I feel like there are certain topics that cannot be squeezed in to fit these tropes. In my opinion, the word 'enemies' in enemies to lovers applies to two people who are more or less equally matched in skill or power but dislike each other for other reasons. A bully and the person being bullied are closer to an abuser vs. victim dynamic. The same applies to a colonizer and a person from the land his people have colonized. Topics like colonialism and imperialism are serious and complex. They need to be discussed keeping that complexity in mind, or you end up writing a selfish main character who doesn’t care for the people her love interest is involved in brutalizing until it directly affects her in some way.

[@catherineannechiang]

agreed about enemies to lovers! i hate picking up something marketed as enemies to lovers but it's really about...abuse

[@MsMvsc]

​@@catherineannechiang Finally someone that gets it!

[@terranceorwhatever60]

Enemies to lovers is like Batman x joker. In which both are powerful and its not really a targeted hatred its just a general hatred for people like their enemy. Ik it seems unserious but thats actually a good example of an actual enemies to lovers trope. I find that many joke books and ships end up being far better than serious ships and books

[@friskybitzboi]

You either fully commit to an evil colonizer love interest and all the moral implications that entails- or you write a conflicted love interest that goes through a redemption arc and rights their wrongs (which is what I thought it would be like because of the Zutara inspiration)- you really shouldn’t have an objectively evil guy but then treat him and the romance like everything is fine

[@lamaface]

Correct me if I'm wrong tho, isn't this part of a trilogy? There's still two books to go, so it's possible that either of those options can happen

[@terranceorwhatever60]

@@lamaface highly doubt it with just the way the colonization plot line was written. All of the colonization and human testing just seemed like a footnote. So that just means morals and character development of the male lead changing to be against the occupation will be an after thought or not added at all. The triology will prob be about them facing difficulties with family, especially the roman side, but no actual change of moral and ideology

[@dylanrodrigues]

​@@terranceorwhatever60apparently she spoiled major plot points from the rest of trilogy to reassure people this wasn't a colonizer romance? Does anyone know about this? (Idc enough about this saga to read it for myself)

[@hemlockcryptid5379]

@@lamaface i mean if its gonna be compared to zutara i need folks to remember zuko is a child who has been traumatized and just wants his father to hate him. this is a full grown ass man who has no problem with what he's doing . even zukos arc happened over time and it was with self reflection after he realizes how fucked up the fire nation propaganda is

[@lamaface]

​@@terranceorwhatever60 I kind of figured the guy who appears to be the ML in book 1 will actually turn out to be the villain that needs to be killed, that would be a cool twist

[@gracesaw]

a little part of me died when you were reading the passage of them "'''flirting"''' wtf omg

[@catherineannechiang]

I…I still have no words

[@adorp]

I know about real life flirting that's worse. As much as we may hate stuff like Twilight, that's where the bar is when it comes to real life romance.

[@mabimabi2952]

I think the story would've had been much better if the main character had just been pretending to like the prince, like she tricked him to get leverage so she could then save her people. It would've made more sense.

[@catherineannechiang]

but that would require her to have morals and to take 2 seconds to think about what she's doing

[@muixc]

Everytime you say pagulin, I think of the anteater, pangolin. My mind has irreversibly replaced all the humans with anteaters in this story.

[@stone_forest3802]

And I thought it was only me. The whole time I was envisioning human ant eater war.

[@whiteraven562]

From everything I've heard, I think this book would be much better served if it had committed to the bit and gone full villain protagonist dark romance. Trying to paint Ruying as a mostly good person who'd just pushed to do bad things makes the fact that she genuinely fell for Antony look really bad. A good person wouldn't fall for the person holding her family hostage and subjugating her people. Ruying comes off as either deliberately ignorant or extremely callous. Also don't tie it to real-life atrocities. Kinda takes the fun out of the fantasy

[@Lilliathi]

I don't think falling in love takes any of that into account though. It just happens. You can become attracted to people you should hate.

[@whiteraven562]

@@Lilliathi Attracted to, yes. But someone with a functioning moral compass would be trying to talk themselves out of it at every turn

[@Lilliathi]

@@whiteraven562 There wouldn't be a general problem with girls going for badboys if that was easy.

[@analuisa9516]

​@@Lilliathi to be honest the vast majority of bad boys out there aren't plotting the decimation of a random girl's entire ethnicity, so... 😂

[@Lilliathi]

@@analuisa9516 No, just the decimation of that specific girl, but it's the same bad judgement in the end.

[@bananachocopie]

As a Singaporean Chinese who had a grandmother telling me stories about the Japanese Occupation, this book’s subject is horrifying. And to make references to Unit 731? And make this a romance? I cannot even.

[@pippycat2842]

The Poppy War is another fantasy book that uses allegories for unit 731 as well as comfort women, but those books aren’t romance and are fully focused on war and its atrocities which is why I feel like in TPW it works

[@soap7578]

Even from the description if also feels so copied from poppy war like even the main characters names fang runin>ruyin, the opium, the white people invaders with more advanced technology, and even the using magic killing u thing

[@Safiya_khan_1998]

Someone compared it to poppy war in the reviews, like in a good way xD now I have to go read poppy war 😭😂

[@MElv-if5ig]

Agreed, to me the more I read it the more it felt like an awkward copy of the poppy war.

[@nyanchat2657]

poppy war has actual substance and good writing though

[@KestrelDC]

Writer clearly doesn’t understand Zuko or Katara if this is their attempt to emulate anything about either of them….

[@akirasaito1551]

The amount of slavegirl Katara fanfics might surprise you...

[@girlypopgay]

Zuko got like kicked the fuck out/ran/excommunicated/whatever and WAS NOT RUNNING A 731 UNIT. Antony and Zuko are NOT the same.

[@alexv3372]

What’s a 731 unit?

[@cardcgirl]

my main issue was calling the enemy Rome when its based off of Unity 731 which is Japan. Why create Pangu based on China but you can't think of another name for the enemy? I feel like making it Rome and them being white was a lazy show of colonization when Japan colonized other countries.

[@sophitiaofhyrule]

Agreed the bad guys being Romans is so weird and random

[@kanachmandarin7910]

Great video! In Molly X. Chang's words, Antony/Ruying was never going to be endgame, while the marketing (done both by the publisher and by her) and the framing of their relationship within the narrative suggest otherwise. A lot of those problems stem from the time skip. We meet Ruying, who is afraid to use her powers and skip to the point where she's grown completely desensitized to murdering people. But why is she suddenly okay with that? The author skipped that over, probably because she was to scared to make Ruying too unlikeable and that's a shame. I think it could've tied nicely to Ruying's relationship to Antony as well, if Molly X. Chang committed to the bit and made him a manipulative abuser. We know that Ruying's home life is far from peaceful and Antony is the only person who treats her nicely. In order to not lose his regard, Ruying kills people Antony orders her to kill. A lot of abuse victims do things that they're uncomfortable with, because they're conditioned to think that if they do their abuser will love them more. Usually, the victim's action is rewarded by the abuser, and that's what makes this cycle hard to break from. Molly X. Chang could've written how after each kill Antony gives Ruying gifts or praises her. The kicker is that the reader sees right through the manipulation, even if Ruying doesn't. So all the reader has left is to wait in suspense till Ruying realizes that she'd been manipulated. Also, I've seen a lot of people comparing To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods to the Grisha Trilogy, and I can see where the comparison comes from. Antony experimenting on Ruying's people was, apparently, supposed to be this big reveal. But the thing is, making Antony a twist villain a-la Darkling doesn't work, simply because of who he is (a colonizer) and who Ruying is (a colonizee). Alina and Darkling at the beginning were on the same side, he was considered a Ravkan hero and even then the reader was given enough clues to piece together that he was not that good of a person. Sorry for the long comment, haha!

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

I love this comment, I think it's really insightful. The picture of a pattern of behavior where after her kills she's shaken and hollow and he takes her to his quarters and gives her a private lavish dinner, comfort, praise, silent support, even treats her wounds with his own hands and to her it's a lifeline of 'safety' and 'stability' in the worst moments of her life but the reader can see that it has these grotesque implications of tenderly giving a dog a treat is so vivid. (There could even be small subtextual reminders right after, as he interacts with others, if need be.) Maybe in the beginning she's even a bit aware of it but comes to rely on it so heavily to not fall apart that she HAS to push the knowledge away to not crumble. I think that could both show the immediacy of how he becomes a twisted pseudo-lifeline while letting the viewer pity her AND be vividly reminded of the gruesome undertones.

[@Noblebird02]

The medical experiments in the Grisha verse is done by the nazi Germany Expy nation. That also includes a genuinely sexy version of the oppressed and oppressor romance, because the FMC (the bone witch) can frigging kill people with her powers.

[@Skyedragonknight]

This would've been a much better take on the story! Too bad Molly didn't have the skill to pull off a story about abuse and power dynamics

[@a.p907]

Every once in a while, a book comes out that makes people go "Why?"

[@catherineannechiang]

it feels like every month these days lmao

[@12makbe]

Im not even renotely joking when i say that my ARC review of this book was a page and a half on google docs before i put it into goodreads. And i was going to give Chang benefit of the doubt that maybe she was oblivious to the actual issues arc readers were having with her book. but then on instagram when she tried to gaslight readers that this isnt a colonizer romance but instead Ruying is manipulated, and she tried to frame the issue as ppl hate reviewing bc of the book having an interracial romance. And she deleted my respectful comments to another person explaining the issues arc readers had went way beyond "interracial romance" and instantly destroyed any credibility she held in my eyes

[@catherineannechiang]

wow did not know about how she was interacting with reviewers and deleting comments! that is disappointing

[@strawberrylime33]

It's maddening how the author is protecting her work to this extent.

[@s.y.k.a1912]

So I've been around Wattpad for some time now to read some fanfics, and found out that Molly is currently active there... and still posting this book of hers there. Guess the author _never_ really learned anything at all from the backlash😐 And guess what? Most of the people who are in support of her are *drumrolls* the yties🙃

[@classicghosts]

​@@s.y.k.a1912I'm white and could not even fathom ever supporting a novel like this. I am beyond horrified and disgusted that there are people trying to justify this story by saying it's not a colonizer romance but a "dark romance" when it's just a poorly written (YA?) novel that should've gone through sensitivity readers and have the main core of the story changed.

[@Skyedragonknight]

Same here. She even blocked me on Instagram lol

[@zynpkrdg]

i honestly had thought the "colonizer" guy would be like the child of some nobles from the colonizing side and actually against all their policies and they would work together to overthrow them crusty dusty fossils from the description on goodreads. kinda like elend from mistborn, he is the son of a noble and the nobles are extremely oppressive but his heart is in the right place and he is trying to change things, and when the revolution comes he thinks that the historical event he'd been waiting for is happening but he's on the wrong side of history so he immediately tries to help the revolutionaries.

[@currentlyprocastinating5334]

Especially considering the Zutara comparisons. As Zukos entire thing is that he grows to understand the horror of what the fire nation is doing and joins the group trying to stop it. In both cases the characters are sympatetic primarily because of their growth and that they take the side of the other protagonists.

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

Plus, in this scenario you could even have some 'danger' scenarios that tiktok would rave over by positioning him as someone who has to pretend to be a POS for a while before he's sure he won't be betrayed/revealed. You could have someone who's a little bit of a monster because he grew up among these people, but he's trying to use some of that ruthless Machiavellian calculation for good. You could have an interesting conflict where he's maybe TOO used to being in deep cover for the ultimate assassination of his family blah blah and a tense balancing act where she wants to trust him but can't quite because she thinks sometimes he's a little too cold-blooded even for the cause, but ultimately they ARE both fighting for freedom....just in a spymaster x people's hero dynamic. And you could still talk a lot about power dynamics and colonization in this scenario.

[@mrspreminger]

only 4 minutes in and I'm already dreading what's to come after hearing 'unit 731' and 'dark romance'

[@teejaykaye4357]

Having recently listened to a deep dive into Unit 731 I simply cannot imagine someone understanding the events of that and thinking “yeah that’s a good thing to use as a point of comparison for my dark romance novel”

[@ktdesignbox]

I think more aspiring authors should read Ursula K. Le Guin's novels AND her manual to write fiction. She wrote a phenomenal portrait of a coloniser in "The word for world is forest" that did not turn him into a love interest. I really do not know why this novel of hers is so little known, when it is so relevant for decolonisation in fantasy. I also heard that the Poppy Wars was a better anticolonial novel inspired in China.

[@dylanrodrigues]

It's always a good reason to read Ursula K. Le Guin, whether you're an author or a reader.

[@jujub7829]

The Poppy War was a pretty brutal read for me, but its a good example on how to base off historical facts for your fantasy book.

[@booksandtheblacktea2088]

As an Indonesian, I heard things from my late grandma (she was born in the 1922, lived through both Dutch and Japanese occupations). She's had privileges, like for example went to school with Dutch kids, something most other indigenous kids can't do at the time, because my great grandfather was one of the local officials. But even with those privileges, she's still had traumatic stories. Imagine what happened with those without privileges in their everyday lives. So to see someone like this author using her grandparents' traumatic experiences as an aesthetic for her "romantasy" made me sick. To be real honest with you all, after knowing this book from Cait Corrain drama, I added this book to my TBR right away without thinking twice. And then ARC reviews with valid criticism started to appear, I was still want to give this book a chance. Until the reviewers doxxing drama. A disclaimer that I'm still not sure who's right here, but lets say for the sake of the argument that it wasn't true, that Molly wasn't doxxing anyone, but her way of handling the issue was just not it. I didn't expect her to bow to all criticism because trolls and bullies do exist. But when she chose the defensive way, refusing to at least listen to valid ones, and just gaslighted us like "haters gonna hate lol", that's when I decided to bye Felicia-ed her, never to touch her books if she doesn't have any plans to do better and be more respectful when handling things based on tragic historical events. P.S.: And LOL to those who accuse valid critics of being a hater on interracial couples. DUH, the valid criticism exists because Antony actually experimenting on Ruying's people, FFS. People's opinions including mine would be different if he's someone who questions his nations actions towards Pangu and other nations they colonized.

[@ttfn1412]

also an indonesian here. my family was piss poor so my great grandparents and grandparents didn’t have said privilege. none of them shared half of the worst experiences they’ve had during WW II and even then it was FAR to traumatic for me, a mere audience of their stories, to even digest. i just don’t understand how someone could use this kinds deep, devastating trauma that they themselves didn’t experience first hand as a simple set dressing for their fantasy story let alone for it to be the source of romance? like, are we ignoring the fact that young girls and women back in the day were RAPED for entertainment?? THAT was her source of romance? like it’s madness to me 💀💀

[@girlie7502]

What annoys me is how people are like “listen to poc voices” but then with this book, they’re calling the VALID, WELL written 1-2 star reviews from asian and other poc review bombing or saying they’re white…

[@hxnx3900]

i got so annoyed when people were saying “poc can write about dark, deplorable topics if they want to without being criticised” LIKE GIRL WHAT??? I’m a poc and ANYONE who uses horrific real world events to write a poorly researched book which is frankly disrespectful to real people absolutely should be criticised

[@hxnx3900]

I also hate when people call books like these “dark romance” when they are literally romanticising an oppressor

[@okichan9134]

It might be a crazy idea, but I think that it would be interesting if Ruying allied with Anthony specifically because she hated her fellow countrymen. Like, if before the Romans arrived her and her family would have been social pharias, that were nobles at some point, but lost their privelege due to the scheming of other people. This way Ruying is justified in feeling no sympathy towards her people and actually feeling vindicated when the Romans arrive. This way she would feel no qualms about joining the Romans, because for her it is more of a enemy of my enemy is my friend type of deal. But that would mean deliberately making Ruying unlikeable and being prepared that the readers wouldn't like her. And that's not the reaction the author wanted. That's why Ruying doesn't kill anyone on page. I believe the author has written somewhere to not judge Ruying harshly for her choices.

[@Tamaki742]

I mean that would make sense considering often times, the way colonizers stay in power is because they curried favor from noble families and basically had them fight each other by themselves. Creating instability so they could control the people they subjugate more through puppet leaders.

[@catherineannechiang]

i think you're right and even though she wanted to write a "morally grey" mc she didn't want the mc to be unlikeable. i would've respected it more if she committed fully and made ruying completely evil/scheming lol bc then at least ruying would've had more agency and ambition

[@mariesueme8807]

Oh, and like, Antony's backstory is perfect for Antony to pretend he's against the Romans. It would have been such a great story if he offered her a job in order to "save her" from his family and slowly he gained her trust and explained how he's trying to dismantle the empire. And this leads to Ruyin eventually introducing him to the resistance only to find out he was just lying to get inside into the rebels. That would be so much understandable for Ruyin's character.

[@anaghasatija8026]

lmaoo that reminds me of maven from the red queen series

[@anaghasatija8026]

lmaoo that reminds me of maven from the red queen series

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

Oh damn that's so good and would provide an actual heart-shattering twist.

[@arianedealswithsocialanxie8170]

Have not yet finished the audiobook, but like... what if Antony had been secretly trying to restore the Roman Republic all this time? Oh wait I see the Reylo comparisons would never have ended WHOOPS

[@eunuchboy]

Thank you Cat for this insightful review! I am so glad you gave your perspective as a member of the Chinese diaspora and very accurately pointed out the orientalist treatment of Chinese culture in this book. If there's anything for me to add to this already pretty comprehensive review it's that the author could not deliver on the portrayal of Manchu or Northeast Chinese colonization and culture that was promised in the marketing and author's note. I'm not sure whether the author uses Manchurian to refer to the ethnic group or geographic location, which muddies the water even more. Nevertheless, the vast majority of the book's description of Chinese culture and colonization fits southern China better than northeast China. The deity Nvwa who is somewhat important in the story originates from Miao and southern Han creation myths, and Pangu is also from southern China. There is virtually no representation of Manchu mythology. Even the emperor's name Yongle is borrowed from a real-life emperor (lazy nomenclature, but I digress) who is Han. Regarding the portrayal of colonization, it reads much more like a pop history version of Britain's colonization of Hong Kong than the occupation of Manchuria by Russia or Imperial Japan, especially with the use of opian/opium. The only plot element that parallels the occupation of Manchuria specifically is Unit 731, which is unfortunate considering how much you could do with that underrepresented part of history. Especially with the author emphasizing how much she was inspired by "true stories of Manchuria", it's just so off-putting! I really wish no readers are misled into thinking Nvwa is a northern Chinese myth or that the Opium Wars colonized Manchuria. There's a lot of weird things in TGUWG that are easy to miss if the reader doesn't have knowledge of Chinese culture or colonial history, and I think that's part of the reason why many Chinese critics received backlash from fans of the author. A lot of critiques were brushed over as ethnonationalist attacks or from people who were "oversensitive" and wanted to censor dark romances, but Unit 731 is something that really isn't taken lightly by Chinese audiences. It's a mindset that's difficult to understand for outsiders, but when you actually read how Chinese victims were treated when these atrocities occurred, it's difficult not to be sympathetic to how people process national trauma. It's just not a good book for learning about Chinese culture and history, and most of the "Chinese culture" it puts out (with all the random Chinese words that aren't even cohesive and are sometimes translated improperly) is just an orientalist farce used to make itself look representative. Well, and also the fact that one of the "idioms" used in the book is the name of a romance Chinese TV show.

[@catherineannechiang]

thank you so much for this added context-the historical and cultural "representation" is confusing at best and the way cultural elements and historical facts from different parts of china are mixed up is just orientalizing. one of the idioms being the name of a tv show is??? i have no words lmfao & the idea that people could be "oversensitive" about unit 731 is enraging 😀 i hate that this book is probably the first time many readers have even heard of unit 731

[@eunuchboy]

@@catherineannechiangYup! Many say that bad representation is worse than no representation, and honestly I felt that with this book. Many people got way too comfortable using sinophobia against Chinese critics just because the author was Chinese, and it ended up doing even more disrespect to Chinese culture and our colonial past. I wish I didn’t have to see people denying this book’s historical inspirations and talk about how they actually love colonizer romances just to defend the author’s mistakes. I’m sure the author wouldn’t like this either, but these are the fans this book has curated, and she’s already alienated herself among much of her Chinese audience.

[@bamioayam]

Sorry this question is veering off topic of the video, but some things you said really caught my eye and I'd love to know if you have reference/source recommendations for me to check, because I'm really into figuring out the area origins of certain deities and whatnot. A lot of times the sources I read tend to conflate multiple myths from different eras and locations into one "homogeneous" "Chinese mythology" (eg. taking the Shanhaijing and conflating the mythos represented in it as having been "believed" by everyone across geographical modern China, when it was likely written during the Warring States, which encompassed a specific area), it ends up REALLY confusing when you encounter multiple "contradicting" myths. (Contradiction being likely an issue of conflating eras, locations or straight up just different ethnic groups) Do you have sources for, say, Nvwa (and Pangu) being from Miao and Southern Han, and perhaps sources on mythology/religious beliefs of the Northern or historical non-Han people living in areas of modern day China might've had? Honestly, I've been trying to figure out where the whole belief in Kunlun mountains first originated... Thank you so much in advance jerhkltkehrt sorry for the side swerve

[@eunuchboy]

@@bamioayamno problem! so one is a paper by Shi Chaojiang 石朝江 that purports Fuxi and Nüwa evolved from Miao/Hmong myths, as they both involved great floods and brother/sister marriage. Another text by Rui Yifu 芮逸夫 evaluates some Miao folklore (relatively modern) and draws similarities, although it seems that instead of creating people they are more akin to a common ancestor. I’m also looking at this one by Lü Zhijian that’s pretty comprehensive and goes a bit back to the common history of Han and Miao and how the myths came to be in ancient tribal China. These sources are all in Chinese, I’ll let you know if I find something else!

[@bamioayam]

@@eunuchboy Thank you so so very much!!!!!!! HOARDS THESE LIKE TREASURES I may not be able to read Chinese well yet but these kinds of papers are my motivation to study I've always struggled to figure out how to slot in Nvwa, Fuxi, Shennong etc in the overgeneralized notion that they "are part of" not just coexist alongside, other creation myths. Like, the culture that venerate 上帝 and consider themselves descendants of a black bird and more strongly associate their royal mythology with that of the sun/sun birds just don't seem likely to also come up with Fuxi and Nvwa, you know? But thanks to Investiture of the Gods, now everyone just goes like "yeah well, Nvwa got pissed at Shang Di Xin" and I'm just "wait... how would Nvwa even fit into a Shang beliefs framework???" 😂 It's this kind of later-era merging and conflation that gives me a headache. I'm casually (ferally) writing a 'verse where mythical creatures change according to what the people believe, so I am trying very hard to clarify and track these developments...

[@axoltl5462]

Also, I remember a controversy surrounding the author (wasn't huge, but was definitely something that caught my eye) about how the author described her identity as 'Manchurian bred', which to a lot of twitter users well versed in chinese history/chinese themselves, it was super red flaggy, as that was the imperial japanese term for china that no one uses unless you like...supported imperial japan. I honestly don't care much about the book, but remembering that in the context of everyone's criticism is...definitely something to think about!

[@Noblebird02]

That actually makes sense, like if she is from a Chinese ethnic minority that used to be the imperial dynasty (because they brutally conquered the Ming dynasty/Han Chinese) that didn't exactly prosper under communism (not that the Chinese benefitted from Mao either) , then making the character disgruntled follower of a fallen dynasty would have made the FMC a genuinely interesting and agentic morally grey character rather than a coward

[@pearlkisses_8520]

As soon as you said unit 731 and "romance" I screamed "what" so loud I woke up my cats

[@n14d14]

unit 731 was more than a tragedy, it was one of the most evil and disturbing acts ever committed by man. i genuinely cant believe someone put it in their YA novel.

[@Ai-yahUdingus]

I was going to borrow this from the library, but now I'm convinced that I shouldn't waste my time. I also learned from another reader's twitter review that the author used a lot of modern slang and even the actual title of a Chinese TV show and passed it off as proverbs or some shit to sound exotic which icks me to no end.

[@analuisa9516]

There's even a Taylor Swift reference in it 😢😂

[@Ches19.]

@@analuisa9516NO. it’s always the swifties omfg💀

[@noga9895]

AND Star Trek + Spiderman quotes!

[@hozie6795]

Full disclosure: I'm not East Asian, but I'd like to think I have a decent level of subject-area knowledge in Chinese history (as in, have studied it academically). I can't really speak exactly to Molly X. Chang's life particularly, but I've noticed a trend wherein a lot of stories are marketed as "authentically Asian/African/Latin American/etc..." because they're written by a diasporic author. A lot of the time they end up just as shallow, pastiche-y, orientalist, or culturally homogenizing as any shitty novel written by Westerners about the exotic wonders of the mystic East. This isn't to say that diasporic authors aren't capable of portraying their ancestral cultures well-far from it-but when the notion of Own Voices is applied by people who have no idea why it's actually good to let people tell their own stories and just view it as a marketing trend, it ends up horseshoeing into this race-essentialist ideas that being ethnically Chinese gives you an innate understanding of Chinese history that somehow makes you especially well-suited for telling stories about China. And, well, the problem is that it doesn't work that way, and that's how you end up with "Unit 731 but make it Sexy" or, like, all the bad ahistorical samurai mysticism that takes conservative/fascist mythmaking about the innate warrior spirit of the Japanese people at face value because they don't think of Japanese history as something that can be understood and interpreted and retold differently by different Japanese people, they just see it as a monolith. That being said, this whole book could be redeemed if there's a book 2 love triangle introduction a la ACOTAR where the badboy love rival who shows up to steal colonialism-boy's girl is an obvious Mao stand-in, because that would be hilarious. Give me Sexy Badboy Mao Zedong!

[@hozie6795]

@llve-zzzsh Wherever the Chairman is in his Long March in the Sky, I'm sure he'll be fine with a bit of silly goofy jokes and jests, and will furthermore accede that it is fully in line with the principles of Mao Zedong Thought for me to double down: Give me Sexy Mao! Give me Zhu De as his doofy best friend character who he's soft and kind to despite being a brooding badboy towards everyone else! Give me Zhou Enlai as the secondary sexyman who's part of Not!Mao's crew and ends up being the love interest for the MC's as-yet-unpaired bestie! Give me yassified Zhang Xueliang!

[@elliecee2034]

There's literally so many ways this could've been done right - she could've committed to truly make Antony evil and show that Ruying was manipulated and abused. She could've shown that Ruying had colonial mentality and was selfish - make her unlikable, and then gone and done the work to show her growth and change. So many ways. But to me, who's people were colonized 3 times (I'm Filipino) I'm with you with the sentiment that certain things just shouldn't be "morally gray" like colonization isn't one of them.

[@clockworkmonsters8590]

One way I think the romance aspect could have worked is if he was against the colonisation but was too scared to disagree with his ruthless family to do much about it, until perhaps his older brother kidnaps the main character. He meets her and they bond over him wanting to be less cowardly and fight his family's atrocities, and he helps her rebel from within the main hub of the colonisers. Essentially, she inspires him to defect and betray his family to help the Pangulians, and the romance is a subplot to the espionage/assassination of the high ranking colonisers that they work together to achieve

[@annsh.6487]

If this was zutara inspired, why didn't the prince despise his coloniser roots and abandon his nation in order to achieve personal growth and join the resistance at the end of the book

[@nalurodriigues]

The lost opportunity to make a "couple" in which the oppressed acted like a hero with a betraying heart, an oppressor who's disgusted with himself and the target of his desire for having this kind of feelings, and a self-destroying ending in which none of them wins because that's how war is

[@iateabagelonce]

It's crazy to me how - the author's underdeveloped writing abilities aside - so much about this story could have worked way better with a little more research and creativity. You know how you can get someone to overlook atrocities being done to their own people? You make them believe that they are separate from their people. Better than them, chosen, different, etc. Why couldn't Antony have, for example, starved her to break down her resistance, then made himself look benevolent by feeding her and "freeing" her, or by dangling her family like a carrot in front of her, etc.? Why couldn't Antony have broken her spirit and then fed her lies about her own people until she believes those lies, to the point that she thinks that being his assassin is for the greater good? To go along with that, I could have believed that Ruying's parents would be "proud" of her for serving Antony - if the author built up her parents as, again, believing themselves as separate and better than the rest of their people, so they do favors for the colonizers and are rewarded etc. etc. So we as the audience are disturbed at how we can see how colonized in the mind these characters are, while a kernel of Ruying's true and more rebellious self is buried down somewhere deep but is still alive and casting doubt on her own actions and on her family. Like don't get me wrong, that's really dark stuff, but it seems like that's what the author imagined her characters being in her head, but what ended up on the paper was disjointed and poorly thought through and unwilling to break from the oddly soft romance angle.

[@beeshika1320]

The reason why Zutara is beloved and feels right(the ship this book is based off of) is that Zuko is knocked down from his postion of power when they become close, he whole heartedly regrets his prejudice and Katara doesn't forgive easily. They become friends very late only after all stuff is sorted, they dont ignore the elephant in the room and they discuss it. He is a redeemed villain who wants to right his wrongs. Not a straight up villain long before he and katara are even okay enough to be in the same room together

[@mariesueme8807]

I think she's not a good enough writer for this book to work. She can't make the romance compelling enough for you to understand how Ruyin falls for Antony. She doesn't even show how he manipulates her so you can't feel like he's this mastermind and she's a poor victim. The whole colonization and rebels plot was so underwritten you have to wonder if Ruyin is just a bootlicker. If she was a good writer this could have been a really interesting book, but that requires skill. I don't think she's trying to romantize Unit 731, I think she went in over her head with this book. Edit: and hey, writing a book is fucking hard. Finishing a book, even if it's bad, is a feat. But if you're gonna use these very heavy themes, maybe wait until you can do them justice??

[@kanachmandarin7910]

I agree. It all waters down to the author taking more than she could chew. She tackled a lot of complicated subjects in her debut but ultimately couldn't commit to any of them.

[@adorp]

Lol you don't need to be a good writer to write a popular fanfic. Remember 50SOG? shock value.

[@lidu6363]

Imagine having the power to kill your oppressors... and not using it to kill your oppressors 🤔 Can anyone explain that to me? 😅

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

In the comments this reviewer said that they'd forgotten but the Romans had bracelets to suppress/make themselves immune to magic.

[@lidu6363]

@@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf Oh wow. That's such a major plot point that would be SO sloppy to leave out if true 😵‍💫

[@isaa1782]

I was never a huge Zutara fan...but I love how those usually make (valid) points why the ship isn't really a colonizer romance, only for this author to put out something Zutara-inspired which is a full blown colonizer romance

[@reem6608]

That's not a fair point. Just because someone claims to be inspired by something doesn't mean they do that thing justice or understand what made it successful in the first place. Case in point: books marketing themselves to be the next Game of Thrones but are run of the mill romantasies in actuality.

[@TheFlowerbeast]

"She wonders if shes betraying her country" uh shes killing her own people so yes? This MC is so dumb 😂

[@asdfghjklasdfghjkl321]

I think whats crazy to me too is that if you look on Goodreads for example, those who are giving the book 5 stars are either white people or people who clearly haven't even read the book but are literally saying they're giving the book 5 stars because they feel bad for Molly. Meanwhile actually bipoc reviewers who've actually read the book are giving it 1 or 2 stars. I dunno, the whole situation is absolutely bizarre to me. Yes, what Cait did was bad and racist, but not every bad review is because someone is trying to be racist. And then there's the fact that this book was even able to be picked up by a literary agent and then sold to a publisher with an editor and marketing team and no one ever stopped to consider the major red flags???

[@catherineannechiang]

i do wonder about the editing and publishing process and wonder who was involved. like did they have any sensitivity readers??? at all?????

[@asdfghjklasdfghjkl321]

@catherineannechiang You see, and let me make it clear, and not all of course, but it makes me wonder why a lot of books being chosen by literary agents and publishers are around the themes of colonialism. And it's not that isn't something of value to write about, but it's kinda sus to me that publishers are taking these specific stories that literary agents are taking from the query trenches to be published yet like you said, without any sensitivity readers or maybe it just shouldn't have been published in the first place. It's like they want to seem "woke" without putting in any of the labor that would actually take to make a quality story. And then this leads to my feelings that kind of annoys me is that bipoc people are so much more than just being oppressed/colonized.

[@okichan9134]

Money is the answer. The book can be marketed as enemies-to-lovers and many readers are ready to buy anything with this type relationship dynamic. They are here for the romance, not the political message. There is also the fact that TGUAWG sounds similar to The Hurricane Wars, which sold rather well because of the relationship dynamic and the author's preexisting Reylo fanbase. Literary agents are not choosing the books that are good, they're choosing the books that will sell. With that being said, the author and the publishing house could have worked on editing more, especially after the backlash the ARCs got.

[@muntu1221]

​@@asdfghjklasdfghjkl321 It's not like that. It _is_ that. Publishing companies don't care about any social movement. They're corporations that care about minmaxing profits. Publishing houses don't hand to lose anything if an author gets a bad reputation, so they don't care one way or the other what's actually in the book.

[@eunuchboy]

just today i saw someone who isnt chinese make a burner account on goodreads to give the book a five star because they think the author was getting attacked by evil chinese people upset over nothing, and that they themselves felt that it was an appropriate portrayal of colonization. it’s so dire. settlers love scaling our rights and deciding who can speak over who, who is oppressing who, and how our suffering should be portrayed, just to make a mockery of it all. as viet thanh nguyen said, all wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory. i wish this happened with some other part of chinese history.

[@librasun-scorpiorising]

Scalding hot take: getting review bombed by cait corrain was the best possible thing that could have happened to this book

[@shifaahasan7566]

I completely agree. In the sense that "bad attention is still attention" and also the fact that she was a victim of a scandal made people a lot more sympathetic towards her and caused them to blindly (or at least without much objective thinking) support her. Also that a lot of the people in supoort of her are white just makes it harder for POC reviewers/readers to be critical as the sentiments of "you should be supporting her since she's been through so much" or "where's your solidarity" resounds throughout arguments/discussions. I think if this hadn't blown up as a result of the reviews it would've flown under the radar (relatively speaking) and gone straight to tiktok or other platforms to be properly flamed for the tropes it executes poorly and the historical inaccuracies/the research that seems to be non-existent. It feels like it would've done well as part of the badly written dark romance trend making the rounds. Now it'll be hard to criticize as some may think critics agree with the review scandal or that they're jealous of the book's success.

[@katstephens6482]

See there was this little thing about Zuko’s character called a redemption arc? I feel like that might’ve been like important or something and without it he’s just a bad person?? But idk 🙄

[@QueenXKnit]

She must have thought she could do a Shatter Me stunt, but at least the villain was not villaining like this.

[@ziaaafication]

I think if Ruying's fatal flaw was her cowardice, this story would make more sense. Because then it would totally make sense why she'd so easily be manipulated by Antony who offers her more protection than she could ever have dreamed of. She could even have deluded herself into believing that she's not selling out her country out of cowardice but out of practicality (and to protect her family). Maybe she was even too terrified of death to ever use her magic on anyone and Antony fed her lies to eventually get her to not only use her powers but to get really good at them. Moreover, her contempt for her childhood friend's involvement with the Romans would also make sense cos she'd see anyone taking any active action as stirring the pot, putting them all at risk or something. Then her character arc in this book would've been her coming to terms with her cowardice and how her actions could lead her and her people to total annihilation. Honestly, the more that I think about it, the more I kind of wonder if that was the original idea for Ruying but someone higher up wanted the MC to be more of a girl boss than a deeply flawed individual

[@JulesKYim]

As a Singaporean-Chinese person whose very existence is a result of my grandparents escaping death during the Japanese Occupation of Singapore, I have words for Chang, and none of them particularly pleasant. What also got my goat was her decision to highlight her Manchu heritage and bleat about minorities in present-day PRC; it's bizarre and a bit silly, given that the Manchurians were the conquering, colonising final imperial dynasty of China that persecuted the majority Han, oversaw genocides in pursuit of massive expansion, deteriorated in the 1800s to the extent that coastal Chinese cities became a playground for western imperial powers, squandered their chance at a Manchurian nation that Japan handed to them on a plate, and last but not least, laid the groundwork for the eventual Rape of Nanking. The fact that Manchurians were not persecuted by successor governments is probably a historical aberration as well, and given minority privileges in the PRC, most are quite happy to be known as such in the census and leverage on it. The way she's framing this all is damned weird.

[@darya3976]

firstly, you are a very eloquent speaker and it was a pleasure to listen to u !! secondly, i agree with everything u've said, of course, and it pisses me off that the book was marketed as being perfect for zutara fans lol, because one thing atla never tried to do is excuse zuko's actions. his entire arc was dedicated to unlearning the propaganda that he was taught his whole life, culminating in him helping aang defeat the fire lord and fight azula. katara's arc parallels his and culminates in her fighting alongside someone who she had once seen as the personification of evil. if they were to get together at the end, it would have been a good ending for both of their characters. here, none of the characters were written as meticulously, and as u had mentioned in the video, they had no personalities to speak of. this is nothing like zutara and its giving the ship a bad rep, pleaseee hahaha

[@okichan9134]

It's also worth noting that Zuko's redemption arc has nothing to do with his romantic arc in the show. He redeems himself with no goal in mind, he has nothing to gain from it, and he doesn't expect to be rewarded for it. He just sees that what his people were doing was wrong and decides that he doesn't want to be like this.

[@catherineannechiang]

thank you! as a zutara fan this marketing hurts me deeply lol. i completely agree with you

[@noeticnoetic]

I saw someone say earlier that the romance is closer to Ozai/Katara and that must be what "zutara on steroids" means. While I'm not a fan of zutara, I understand their appeal and I can see why people want them together. I am also a fan of darker stories, and a complex exploration of colonization sounds like an amazing read. Honestly, had this been closer to zutara, it would've been a much better written novel, because Zuko and Katara's characters explore so many complicated aspects of colonization. We also had time and development when it came to Zutara, along with the fact that Avatar also has a rich cast of well-developed characters for you to examine. Meanwhile, Ruying.... yeahhh... even before the "twist," we can tell she's a class traitor, but the fact that Ruying was mad the most about Antony lying to her is insane. But the fact that the side characters were paid dust, and the only characters who "existed" were Ruying and Antony robs so much nuance. What about the people Ruying killed? What about the world of Pangu? And if the childhood best friend was "the male lead all along," then why can't anyone tell shit about him other than bare-bone facts found on a character sheet? Why do Antony and Ruying even like each other (I am serious. Who cares about his green eyes. Explain his manipulation at least, and we would understand why. And what even about her makes him genuinely have feelings)??? Where is the nuance?? WOC should be able to explore complex, sensitive topics. Heck, they should be encouraged to. But that doesn't automatically mean it's absolved of all criticism, especially from other people of color. If someone wrote colonizer romance, they should at least write it well.

[@darya3976]

@@noeticnoetic i should probably first of all say that i am not a poc, however i do come from a country that has been colonised for centuries & is currently undergoing genocide, so i will speak in that aspect only so as not to overstep. i agree with you in the regard that i enjoy stories that explore darker & heavier themes, however nowadays the authors seem to put in more effort into marketing their books a certain way rather than actually sitting down and writing them. one thing about zutara is that the plot did not revolve around their relationship, rather it was a nice addition to an already existing story and would have completed their arcs nicely. without the romance, they are still strong and memorable characters on their own. zuko’s arc is often referred to as one of the best redemption stories in fiction. katara is probably one of the strongest female characters in children’s media and has a great development and personal growth. with ruying and antony… it felt like the author wrote the rest of the book around their relationship, making it central, when in fact it should be the other way around. eh, what can i say, its just another one of those ya fantasy books targeted at (mostly) tiktok readers who religiously eat up garbage🤷🏻‍♀️ to end this on a more positive note, i would like to recommend u a book that i think h would like, based on what u have said in ur comment. blood over bright haven by ml wang. (it is currently unavailable to buy seeing as it was first self-published and has been recently picked up by a publishing house, so the traditional publishing date is scheduled to be some time in october, however u can read it online on 🏴‍☠️ websites if u want to). it explores colonialism, imperialism, sexism in academia and exploitation of immigrants, which is a theme i have personally never seen talked about in fantasy before, or at least not to this degree. i think u’ll appreciate the story as well as the spectacular ending.

[@darya3976]

@@noeticnoetic i should probably first of all say that i am not a poc, however i do come from a country that has been colonised for centuries & is currently undergoing genocide, so i will speak in that aspect only so as not to overstep. i agree with you in the regard that i enjoy stories that explore darker & heavier themes, however nowadays the authors seem to put in more effort into marketing their books a certain way rather than actually sitting down and writing them. one thing about zutara is that the plot did not revolve around their relationship, rather it was a nice addition to an already existing story and would have completed their arcs nicely. without the romance, they are still strong and memorable characters on their own. zuko’s arc is often referred to as one of the best redemption stories in fiction. katara is probably one of the strongest female characters in children’s media and has a great development and personal growth. with ruying and antony… it felt like the author wrote the rest of the book around their relationship, making it central, when in fact it should be the other way around. eh, what can i say, its just another one of those ya fantasy books targeted at (mostly) tiktok readers who religiously eat up garbage🤷🏻‍♀️ to end this on a more positive note, i would like to recommend u a book that i think h would like, based on what u have said in ur comment. blood over bright haven by ml wang. (it is currently unavailable to buy seeing as it was first self-published and has been recently picked up by a publishing house, so the traditional publishing date is scheduled to be some time in october, however u can read it online on 🏴‍☠️ websites if u want to). it explores colonialism, imperialism, sexism in academia and exploitation of immigrants, which is a theme i have personally never seen talked about in fantasy before, or at least not to this degree. i think u’ll appreciate the story as well as the spectacular ending.

[@thylionheart]

(Edit: this comment is very much an inconsequential rant about a not-very-important aspect of this whole saga-there are far bigger and more real-world impactful issues with this book (i.e how it capitalizes off of the horrors of Unit 731) than this tiny aspect of its marketing) The author marketing it as Zutara-esque irks me so much. Zuko is a prince who was burned and exiled by his own father when he was _fourteen_ and who comes to deeply regret the actions he took during the literal darkest periods of his life when he still just a young teen, who works hard to redeem himself, forge his own path, aid and fight for the people his family and nation oppressed and colonized, and heal from his own abuse. Reducing Zuko down to just “colonizer” ignores his growth and redemption-and reducing Katara down to just “colonized” ignores how she, very actively and on more than one occasion, fought for, defended, helped, and healed Fire Nation civilians, as well as forgave Zuko after he helped bring her closure regarding her mother’s death (without their field trip, she never would’ve known why exactly her mother was murdered.) Whatever _waves hand_ this is, is not Zutara

[@reem6608]

period. I'm tired of the lashing zutara gets bc ppl misusing the terms they learnt from soc 101 and book publishers who use chatgpt to generate market branding for their books.

[@okuribi1]

I don't have much else to add other than what you've already said, other than: why would they not develop any science and tech "just because they have magic" when magic shortens their life and can even kill them? 😭

[@boredomgirl312]

Zutara on steroids? More like Zutara on dehydration

[@MagisterialVoyager]

😂😂😂

[@kaydkaydkayd]

22:40 this killed me 😭😭😭 w how empty this world building seems i could probably argue that misogyny wouldnt even work in a world full of magic like this , esp considering the scale of the powers ruying has

[@Noblebird02]

Yes. Like the reason misogyny is so prevalent is a that men wish to access our wombs and ensure that the wombs they own (wives & concubines) only give birth to their sons, combined with male physical strength. If women could kill men with a touch men wouldn't be able to oppress us

[@karlispovisils5297]

Some things I've noticed in this book review I think are worth mentioning: 1. Antony says that he's the only one in the royal family who doesn't want to obliterate everyone. This comes off like a lie. Most people back in Rome are likely cool with the idea of colonization over full genocide and he's actually saying this to bring the protag closer to him. 2. If the author were to go the full route of the protag being manipulated by kind actions from Antony, it would've been better if he went all the way with the kindness. Take her back to Rome and let her live in opulence. Slowly but surely bring her closer and then have her use her death powers if she wants to continue living this life of luxury. To do this, she could also get the safety of her family guaranteed from Antony as another manipulation tactic.

[@arianedealswithsocialanxie8170]

Antony "I'm adopted so I'm different" The Roman Emperor list page: am I a joke to you? 😅

[@mabimabi2952]

Ngl I was gonna read it for the pretty cover, oh dear, this is not a story I can get past

[@catherineannechiang]

truly such a shame because the cover art is beautiful!!

[@mishasa2751]

Not going to read this book, but i have one question. If she's so powerful, why can't she use her gift of death to kill her oppressors? Seems like such a stupid plote hole. Or is it explained in the book?

[@catherineannechiang]

SPOILERS (in case anyone else is reading): she initially has an aversion to using her gift bc of trauma but that...quickly disappears once she starts using it in service of prince colonizer. she also doesn't want to be a "martyr" for the resistance but again is ok using this gift for the oppressor lol. later on, she has the opportunity to help the resistance and assassinate antony, but she refuses bc she's too d!ckmatized...like there rly is no other reason

[@mishasa2751]

@@catherineannechiang thank you for answering! I questioned the morals of the author, now I deny her intelligence.

[@megbaecooksandbooks]

I was literally about the ask the same question

[@krenko-]

@@mishasa2751 the line "I questioned the morals of the author, now I deny her intelligence." is so good. not even just in an author context. if someone said that to me I'd die on the spot

[@asteridshydrangea-jt2hf]

@@mishasa2751 Elsewhere in the comments this youtuber said that they'd forgotten, but apparently there's a device the Romans used to neutralize the magic of the colonized people/immunize themselves from it! So the writer's craft is, uhhhhhhh, rife with problems but at least not THAT bad.

[@_vassilian]

When you've been writing the book for so long, you forgot that you had your MC tortured..

[@pika7058]

I think this book is very ironic because somehow the Prince and Ruying both are great representations of the world right now, of humanity and the atrocities going on in the world. Take Palestine into account, people wanted to condemn Hamas, a resistance force built because of the oppression the people of Palestine had to face over the years, every single time their excuse was, "but do you condemn Hamas?" And how it is ok for Israel to be occupying a state that is way older with evidence of it's existence even though the colonizer, the bastards they are keep trying their best by getting people to buy into this propaganda and for them to be massacring those people because it is what? Self defense? What a joke humanity has become. And now that it has come to genocide, no one can actually do anything except wait and watch on live television as countless more innocent lives are taken and we are still trying to justify and argue about if they had a right to live. Wow I did not intend to rant like this I apologize but watching this really made me chuckle more than a few times when you were describing how problematic and inconsistent Ruying's logic was because all I could think of was wow this is exactly the reflection of what is wrong with so many people around us in this world.

[@catherineannechiang]

spot on...I really hoped this book would deconstruct a lot of this colonial thinking especially bc the history it's based on is repeating and happening to Palestinians right now

[@PamNg]

*acts shocked*

[@catherineannechiang]

😂

[@yasmeennour47]

There was an arabic series about romance between Syrian woman and French soldier During the occupation I hated it sooo much And he killed her in the end!

[@gabriellehenley7914]

Okay here are my thoughts, 1. As someone who had to research the pacific front of WW2 I wonder how they thought that was a good idea for the basis as a romance considering what many women had to go through when they were captured 2. Why use Romans? If this was suppose to be about Japanese and Russian occupations 3. “Zutarra” on steroids while I don’t want to ship shame, various Zutarra shippers tend to strip Katara of her firery personality, her agency and use her as a standin self insert, and this reeks of that type of fanfic. 4. My god Ruying is a moron.

[@pauieeepau]

My theory for why the colonizers were Roman is for marketability. White male lead for the white man enjoyers. I've seen fans of this book marketing it to Reylo fans. And other comments with the same theory. And maybe having the colonizers be straight up Japanese was "too much". And they could have plausible deniability that it's actually related to WW2 at all.

[@gabriellehenley7914]

@@pauieeepau you make a very good point

[@catherineannechiang]

the point about that specific kind of zutara shipper!!! i love zutara but it's bc i love zuko and katara both individually and their parallel journeys of growth and becoming allies. when people ship "zutara" but they ignore the part where zuko undergoes massive personal transformation to unlearn the colonial system he grew up under, and they really just like colonizer romance and irreconcilable power imbalances, that's...interesting

[@ct4533]

because to a lot of people Chinese and Japanese=basically the same and how can the same person colonize themself? -eyeroll- gotta add some convenient colour-coding because god forbid people's view of asians as a monolith be challenged

[@reem6608]

Just want to say A+ for effort on the author's part for calling the colonizers Romans 😂 but I don't buy making the colonizers white was a matter of marketability only... Asian media is heavily consumed by international audiences so perhaps the author settled upon making the colonizers white for shock factor and bc the optics of making the colonizers Asian would look too bad idk.

[@TamilaSushkova]

Okay as I'm watching this, I honestly think that maybe Chang tried to do something similar to The Poppy War - Rin is an extremely morally grey character and she does have powers because she becomes a shaman. There is a colonizing force and Rin lives in the country thats being attacked (however her actual background is different). Ppl do find a semblance of a romance between her and Nezha but it never comes to be at all and the point isn't the romance, it's the war and Rin as a character and how far she'll go for power. What seems to be the problem is, as you said, we don't have Ruying's (?) end of the line, her limit to push on her morally grey characteristic. Also Rin is also captured and there's a scene where she gets experimented on (for not being entirely a normal human) but it's never ever showed it as an add-on to a weird romance dynamic lol

[@ReadtoFilth]

Ooof this is a sensitive issue. I notice this trope with the musical Miss Saigon and the Sheik by E.M Hull.

[@QueenXKnit]

Thank you for taking the time to share and review this, I believed the voices of people who said this was a colonizer romance - oxymoron much - and didnt want to give her my money. I cant believe she used a wordwide tragedy and trauma to sell her half-backed "romance." This is disgusting.

[@PlushmayhemVT]

Early in and the "We have magic so why would we put effort into science?" shit drives me insane when you pair it with "Oh yeah using magic also uses up our life and can kill us :)" aspect. Like, I dunno maybe you'd develop technology that would make it so you aren't killing yourselves everytime you try to solve any problem?? Maybe the fact people seem to have certain kind of magics would make relying on any type really inconvenient as a way to run x and y? It feels so handwavey.

[@toyosibee.mp3]

RIGHT..a fantasy version of China with no technology, no medicine? No gunpowder??? Only bows and arrows???????????????????????????????????????????

[@spellbound_bj]

Oh wow... the direct quotes had my jaw on the floor. I can't even. Thank you for the review -- I had this one on my watch list and now I can safely take it off.

[@avastans]

"i would start wars for her" bro you're basically halfway there already when you got hidden human experiments under the land that YOU occupied😭😭

[@dylpickled]

Thank you for teaching me about unit 731 and America’s coverup, I can’t believe I didn’t know this sooner!!

[@alyxleaf]

Purely based on the title and the cover when xiran jay zhao mentioned it in her cait corain scandal video i was so excited for it. All i can say is oh.

[@Chociewitka]

well, there were romances between the Nazis and persons with Jewish roots during WWII [e.g.: Auschwitz SS officer Franz Wunsch and Jewish Slovakian prisoner named Helena Citronova], so for sure such a dynamic is possible, but why Romans in a fantasy Asian setting, where the Romans never reached? Also depicting a China-resembling culture as "lacking in technogical advancement"? When prehistoricly and historicly a big hunk of humanity's (well, for of the Old World's technology) was invented and developed in China? [confused] Whoever would come up with such an idea?

[@Yanxie]

YOUR SWEATER IS SO CUTE

[@Bellycat01]

Omg for reals 😭I was eyeing it the whole time. Does anyone know where she got it from it’s so cute 😫

[@dylanrodrigues]

I would recommend people to try Ken Liu’s books and short stories instead. He writes about imperialism, Asian culture, and the immigrant experience so evocatively and respectfully. “The Paper Menagerie” is a story about a kid who is ashamed of his Chinese culture due to racism and loses connection with his loving mom bc of it… it’s so moving, I still remember it and tear up. “The Man Who Ended History” still traumatizes me to this day.

[@FloofleDoodlesStrudel]

The idea of mentioning one of worst human occupation atrocities OF ALL TIME as a real world reference on the inside cover of a colonizer romance is... really gross to put it kindly.

[@yangshen5494]

I can offer a real life example for this book. I watched a documentary about the "pleasure woman" in Japanese military occupation in China during WW2. One of the Chinese woman was a fierce fighter; apparently a soldier took an interest in her and even went so far "married" her. However, she never gave up escaping, even when her "husband" beat her nearly to death after her escape failed. She pretended to be obedient only bc she secretly joined the resistance force, and she needed her "marriage" to help her gather information for the comrade. The documentary didn't tell what happened to her "husband", but we know she survived to see her life reborn. I think if the author really did her research, she could use examples like that to make a great novel. Writing a twisted relationship under a particular history doesn't mean you can't convey a good message at the same time.

[@elliotoliverr]

i completely agree! when I read the summary, I thought the main character was going to use the love interest to somehow take back her country

[@thegenderfluidthing8660]

Not gonna lie, creative writers come off as the least educated group of people sometimes, and this book rly revealed the lack of basic background education in history & politics that I have observed in my own time in creative writing circles (as a writer myself)

[@noeticnoetic]

it's really shows that she's chinese-american diaspora

[@randomotakunerd]

The moment you mentioned Unit 731...In a ROMANCE novel, I already knew this was gonna be really problematic.

[@gabrielleduplessis7388]

This could have been done better in three ways. 1) the opium needles can act like jurda panem in six of crows where her powers become elevated and out of control plus the addiction. Tracker jacker venom from hunger games that brainwashes her. Serum in divergent which is a combination of the other two, in terms of writing. 2) both protagonists are evil and they become that version of a power couple and the main story is about her family having to witness this and fight against her, 3) if someone really wanted the romance element, let’s do the cliche of the adopted prince being a double agent and being reasonably angry while feeling trapped. They work together to escape and fight with the colonized. Her people hate him at first and he has to earn her trust and her respect. I can also picture the guard just being corrupt, not taking the prince’s orders and just likes torturing her secretly for the fun of it.

[@kiwifruitkl]

White Tears Brown Scars is a nonfiction book on white supremacy and colonialism. It mentions the Princess Pocahontas stereotype of indigenous Americans. Basically, Princess Pocahontas falls in love with the colonizer and prevents her people from killing him. In the sequel, she falls in love with a different colonizer. Then the author of that nonfiction book claims that the Princess Pocahontas stereotype legitimizes the conquest and colonization of the indigenous peoples of America. To be fair, Pocahontas is a Disney movie… made by a settler colonialist nation… and it is pretty damn obvious that it’s the story that the settler colonizer wants to tell. Of course, it’s going to be offensive for the people on the colonized side. Who wants to be conquered and dominated? No one. It sucks to be on the receiving end of the conquest. I have not read the novel yet but it sounds like Princess Pocahontas to me. I should expect this anyway. I feel like people get so uptight about what gets published or not, that they forget that publishing has never been about being right or wrong. It just allows people to share stories in book form. Obviously, this means book critics would come later, and I would definitely encourage the book critics to critique or criticize the book. Talking about the book’s inaccuracies is part of the critiquing process by the book reviewers. It doesn’t have to be before printing. Literary critiquing can occur after printing and distributing.

[@gabbyabbott4965]

The thing is this book would be WAY more interesting if the MC’s thoughts and ideas were challenged. Getting to see a coward/traitor stand up against the oppressor would legitimately be an interesting character study. But the fact that none of the MC’s actions are questioned by anyone, is disappointing. Edit: and the fact that she doesn’t support the rebellion doesn’t sit right with me.

[@heyimsasa]

you perfectly put into words exactly how i felt about this book, thank you. it was an anticipated read but i think this project was beyond the author's scope and abilities.

[@MichaelBerthelsen]

Just the initial setting details gives me His Dark Materials vibes, with the rift allowing someone to travel between worlds, one where there's magic, one where there's science...🤔 Mix it with the general plot like from Avatar, and make them 'Chinese vs. White' rather than 'Blue vs. Human...

[@yunivursexe7634]

I do think that a more thoughtful author could write a good colonizer/colonized dark romance novel, i'm a strong believer in the idea that any plot can become a good story with a good writer. It's just that a good writer would not name real life tragedies like unit 731 and expect a compelling, believable romance to occur.

[@jasminv8653]

Fr. exploring dark and even hateful themes (even in romance!) is not only alright but something i think authors deserve the right to do. But if you do it, you have to have something smart to say about it and not just do it as a tiktok marketable bag of tropes lol...

[@HungryEyes-sl3mu]

"So that is her meet-cute"🤣🤣🤣

[@user-tw8ec9vq6d]

seeing so many books in the back i've never heard of was so exciting! only 3000 subscribers SHOCKED me, i really enjoy the way you present your ideas and just the general cadence of your voice. so glad to sub 💗💗

[@catherineannechiang]

this is so kind, thank you! to be fair the books behind me are my growing TBR piles...it's an ongoing effort to read more diversely!

[@skinnyrat4277]

okay what the fuck. I recently did a history unit on Korean history (also occupied by Japan obv.) and would NEVER have considered someone would try to write something like this, jesus christ, omg. This is actually so foul I cant. To make a "dark" romance about Japanese occupied countries when there is a history of trafficking and sexual slavery in the Pacific War (and ya know, germ warfare and massacre in the Nanking area) is irresponsible and gross, jesus fucking christ arghghhgsdgfhdgshsh I would be curious to know what research (or lack thereof) the author had done about this period in (rather recent) history before writing this, because I find it hard to imagine that someone can have great knowledge of the occupation and not feel too upset and appalled by it to create this sort of fiction is beyond me. Idk sorry if this came off overly emotional im just like actually shocked someone would write this (and acknowledge the historical basis behind it too !! ) hgkdfhjgdf

[@catherineannechiang]

100% agree. in the author's note she said this was based on the ghost stories her grandparents told, which she later realized were about the real-life horrors of the occupation and unit 731 😐😐😐

[@DumiNihi]

The only way to fix this is if we find out she HAD been drugged the whole time

[@TheFlowerbeast]

So she has the power to kill but she never used them against the Romans even before meeting Anthony. But she uses it to kill her own people Lol that makes sense

[@Meowlo]

along with the darkling being shown to be a manipulator, his cause also was like an understandable cause. This guy is just out to colonize her people and experiment on them. I think this had a lot of potential but the way she leaned into romance just isn't it here.

[@eldweena1006]

"So that is their meet cute..." LOL!!! That's exactly the moment I decided I did not like the book. There's no recovering from what he did to her. I could never understand her attraction to him throughout the book. After reading the NetGalley arc I cancelled my preorder. I agree with every point you made. I was excited for this one but it was just not good.

[@noonlemur]

would LOVE to read a fantasy story with a cowardly main character...the only example that's coming to mind are the two main characters of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, both of whom are justified in their cowardice (one's cowardice becomes less and less justified over the course of his character arc, the other's "cowardice" is more of a well-deserved sense of self-preservation/a form of active rebellion)

[@catherineannechiang]

Shelley Parker Chan’s She Who Became the Sun duology has one character who is a coward but also scheming and ambitious and he’s so fun to read. recommend if you enjoy historical drama; it’s technically a fantasy but the fantasy elements are very light bc the publisher had the author add them when it was originally just historical fiction. it’s also a slow start but the 2nd book has a lot of palace intrigue that I found really fun and that’s also when the coward character gets to shine

[@noonlemur]

@@catherineannechiang thanks for the tip, this sounds like exactly what i'm looking for!! She Who Became the Sun's been on my to-read list for a while now, time to actually put some effort into finding a copy...

[@exeniris]

Okay here’s the thing. I think sometimes problematic romances can be written like a colonizer x colonized people ship is messed up but it is also okay to write in the same way that toxic relationships can be written or something following an enemies to lovers trope. These things can be written if the author really really wants to (idk why) because it’s what they like. But moralistically… it should be made clear that such a book doesn’t condone relationships and that in the real world, such relationships are unhealthy. It should be made clear that in a fictional world of a book, things like a morally dubious relationship can end up feeling romantic bc it is fantasy and written in a fictional lens. Like I think it’s fine to write a romanticization of a fantastical problematic relationship- it just must be made clear that this is bad in the real world. Honestly this book would be preferable as a fanfiction-type story because it could be tagged with trigger warnings (and the fact that this was actually published gives it a sense of authority that could be dangerous for actually condoning colonizer/colonized romance). As a YA book… the author should be prepared to face lots of criticism as she wasn’t clear on her stance

[@catherineannechiang]

yeah, i think where this went wrong was the fact that it's clearly (and in her own words) based on real oppression, and seems to be romanticizing this real oppression that many people are still to this day deeply troubled and hurt by. i agree that fanfiction is great in the sense that the community is usually quite clear about triggers and what the writers endorse irl vs. what they write in their fics, and that this isn't translated into published works and with the growing trend of fanfics becoming published books i think it may be a recurring problem. also agree with how published books have this sense of authority that fanfiction doesn't and they have to be treated differently! but also the author in this particular case seems to think her book was taking a clear moralistic stance against colonization when it definitely...didn't lol

[@exeniris]

@@catherineannechiang Yeah I agree! I really liked your review and it’s interesting bc I have been thinking abt how we reconcile the morals of what we read and how problematic things can be addressed without having harmful effects. Your review was super good at addressing the problems with the book! And also some of those quotes made me cringe horribly. I feel bad that you had to read the whole thing but thank you for the content

[@catherineannechiang]

@@exenirisyeah definitely that’s something I think about a lot too! and not something I’ve come to a solid conclusion about. lmao I’m glad you enjoyed this bc I needed to feel like all the time I spent reading this book was at least useful for something 😭😭😭

[@syenite]

Taking the time to show those 6 months would have made all the difference. The scenes where you can watch him isolate her, gaslight her, emotionally blackmail her, and her not figuring it out. Like show him further colonize her mind on more levels... Show how she was dragged down to the pit! Those six months were CRUCIAL and they were skipped! That wouldn't have fixed the marketing issue but if those six months were shown, this could have been amazing. I see the bones of a good story in it and I think tiktok trope demands just took over. Also, Zuko was on a redemption arc. Antony is NOT. So how is this even remotely Zutara?

[@Rainette1412]

The premises made me think of Basara ? With a Prince of a colonizing country you find out is actually not as bad as the rest of his family, and a revolutionary figure holding all the hopes of her people falling for each-other. Except the way it's developped acknowledges that the prince character has a lot of reflecting and atonement to do

[@syph3r_63]

I saw someone say that you can't have a morally gray protagonist if said protagonist has no morals and I think that sums up the issue with Ruying specifically pretty well

[@shadowseer07]

Are we sure this isn’t written by someone who actually despises dark romance? Because this sounds almost satirical, it’s so bad. No one would write this and find it romantic, right?