Thank you to Netgalley, Hodder & Stoughton and Chloe Gong for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Oh wow where do I even start… Do you like Romeo and Juliet? Enemies to Lovers? Monsters? Gangsters? Because if so this is definitely the book for you. I first came across These Violent Delights over twitter where I saw loads of people tweeting about how they couldn’t wait for it to be released so I looked it up on Netgalley and voila they provided me an ARC!
These Violent Delights is set in 1920s Shanghai, a city divided into factions by rival gangs and colonial powers. It is a gripping retelling of Romeo and Juliet featuring Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai, the two heirs of the rival gangs the Scarlets and the White Flowers. The two have not seen each other for years after a betrayal that left them sworn enemies, as if their blood feud wasn’t already enough. However, with a monster reeking havoc spreading a deadly contagion, they may need to put aside their differences to ensure there is a city left to rule over...
Upon entry into the story we are immediately greeted with the first deaths of the madness, a handful of White Flowers and Scarlet Gang resorting to tearing out their own throats in what seems to be a fit of madness. We get straight into the thick of it, accompanied by Chloe Gong’s beautiful writing. As the story progresses we flash back to the past to learn more and more about what happened to sour the past love between Roma and Juliette, and it is told perfectly bit by bit, with some bits truly coming as a shock at the perfect time.
Gong truly brings the characters to life and makes them more dimensional than I remember them being when I read the play. I loved reading about them and was rooting for them, hoping that it wouldn’t end like the play. This is one thing that I think Gong does really well, she has managed to take an extremely well known story and not only perfectly apply it to her own fantasy but to also manage the expectations you have having known what happens in the play. Gong still manages to shock the reader, going against expectations and maintaining the element of surprise, she truly brings the traditional story under her own reins and makes it new and exciting.
However, we still do get nods towards important plots from the play, if used in different ways such as the balcony scene, the potion and the dagger to name a few. Gong does really well to throw back to certain things you think will happen and then shock you by taking it in another direction. It’s almost like she’s teasing the reader by dangling important plot points from the original and then changing the game.
I also like the way the focus switches, we gain an insight into most of the characters minds because we follow them all for different important scenes in the third person. This means that you get to know more about them and what motivates them and how they feel. We’re also given an insight into how both gangs work, and more importantly the gang inner circle members are actually incredibly smart, they speak multiple languages and switch between them, scheme and plot and I love seeing that. I think that my favourite characters are probably Juliette (who we follow for most of the book), Kathleen and Marshall.
Juliette is truly a badass female main character, recently returned to Shanghai rumours of her ruthlessness follow her around, some of which we see firsthand in her encounters with others throughout the book. She is incredibly smart and conniving, and I love it because you see how she came to be that way, and you really get to grips with her internal struggle.
Gong’s writing is absolutely beautiful, not only in how she writes the surrounding but also in how she writes her characters and their feelings. Throughout the book you feel the angst surrounding Roma and Juliette, and it is perfect. The way she describes it is perfect and really has you rooting for them despite the feud and the madness descending on the city. But the way Gong also describes the surroundings is beautiful, you feel as if you are there in the city running for your life, I loved it so much because it made it feel so real in my imagination.
I really cannot wait for the second book, and when the first comes out on the 17th November I would highly recommend that you buy it. This story is going to do big things so don’t miss it! Reading has even made me want to read the Romeo and Juliet play again despite not liking it too much. Let me know what you think if you do buy it!
Love,
Carey
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