These Violent Delights and Our Violent Ends ~ Chloe Gong
These Violent Delights and its sequel Our Violent Ends is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai, in the world of gangsters and political upheaval. The duology follows Juliette Cai, heir of the Scarlet Gang and Roma Montagov, heir of the rival White Flowers gang as they team up to rid the streets of Shanghai of a monster targeting the people.
1920s Shanghai is not something I’m familiar with and yet Chloe Gong painted such a vivid picture of the time and the city that it was hard not to think of it as familiarly as the local city. The imagery of everything in the novels was evocative and gave new life to a familiar story with a fantastical twist.
Juliette and Roma had a wonderfully written relationship that I loved following through the two books. The development was interesting because it wasn’t linear. We started off with them being two ex-lovers who hated themselves because they couldn’t hate each other despite what horrible things they had done to each other in the name of the blood feud between their two gangs and watched as they fell in love again and then hurt each other in order to protect them and I was hooked. It was nice to see the Romeo and Juliet relationship given a little more love and thought.
As individual characters, they were interesting to read about. The books did follow Juliette more than Roma, however, he wasn’t a secondary character. Juliette was a complicated character wrapped in layers of expectations and bravado. Roma, whilst in the same position as Juliette being the heir to his gang, is still as deadly and complicated but softer. Both characters and the way they act around their contemporaries makes for such compelling reading.
I will admit, three hundred words into this gushing review, that I’m not the biggest fan of Romeo and Juliette, I don’t think it is one of the greatest love stories of all time and most adaptations aren’t done well enough to really make the story interesting. However, Chloe Gong wrote something that is so much bigger that the Romeo and Juliet storyline almost became a subplot. I don’t know much about any of the politics in the 1920s (apart from what I’ve learned from Peaky Blinders) but the political landscape was written well enough that it didn’t feel too heavy but also had enough truth in it that I have a good foundation to start if I felt like looking into it further. The fantasy storyline of the monster and the almost scientific way it was described and treated made me very much believe that it all happened in 1926 Shanghai.
As for the sequel, I think I preferred it to the first novel. Our Violent Ends took all the best bits from the first book and developed them, giving more time to some of the supporting characters. Getting to read the thought process of Juliette and Roma’s family and friends took an already exceptional book and made it almost perfect.
If you can’t tell already, I adored both these books and couldn’t put either of them down. I loved the ending and felt like it fit the duology perfectly. I’m very happy with where it ended and think that Chloe Gong has written something that is so complete that I’m not wishing for more lest it spoils what already exists.
C🌙
