These Violent Delights (Full Duology) Review

 

These Violent Delights (Duology) by Chloe Gong

*Warning: This review contains spoilers*

*Content Warning: This review mention suicide*

Book 1: These Violent Delights 

There is certainly a lot to enjoy about this wildly popular book duology. It has a great premise, an interesting mix of characters, a very unique setting, and it’s based on one of the most well-known Shakespearean plays ever written, Romeo and Juliet. 

I should specify that I say “based on” pretty loosely because the actual direct references to Romeo and Juliet are pretty few and far between here. After all, this book is a dark fantasy romance set in 1920/ Shanghai, not a historical piece about English teenagers like the original play. We have the infamous balcony scene played on, the main characters’ names (Roma and Juliette) are pulled straight from the source material, and it’s fairly easy to figure which characters represent whom from the original play (Lourens in Friar Lawrence, Tyler is Tybalt, Marshall is Mercutio, etc). But other than that, this story pretty much stands on its own legs. In fact, if Gong just renamed all her characters, I’m not sure it would be much of a Romeo and Juliet retelling at all. That’s not necessarily a criticism, however. Not staying too stringent on the original Shakespeare allows Gong to flirt with the retelling aspect, but she can also experiment with her own creativity. It also takes away one of the ickiest aspects of Romeo and Juliet, which is the ages of the two titular characters. 

Gong has also found several places to include diversity in her work. Since the novel takes place in Shanghai, we get a lot of Chinese characters in major and minor roles, including the FMC Juliette Cai. There’s also a lot of LGBT representation with the subplot of the romance between Marshall and Benedikt, as well as with Juliette’s cousin Kathleen being trans. And while it’s maybe not completely true to history how well these LGBT characters were accepted in a story that’s meant to take place in the 1920s, it is refreshing to read something that doesn’t shove blatant homophobia down the reader’s throat for the sake of realism. Plus it makes a wonderful example for other authors to see the way that LGBT characters can be included in meaningful roles in a story even if they aren’t the protagonists, and how not every LGBT character’s story need to revolve around overcoming homophobia. 

Although I will admit, throughout reading, I was often struck by how much this book did not feel like a period piece to me at all. Gong had a great opportunity with such a cool setting—1920s Shanghai with a dark fantasy element—but it felt more like I was reading a modern/contemporary urban fantasy the entire time. The dialogue and the behaviors of the characters felt way too much like they belonged in the 2020s to me. The only thing that really kept reminding that this was a period piece was the absence of modern technology. 

Although my complaints about the setting weren’t my biggest criticisms of the story. I could live with slight aberrations in dialogue if everything else were stellar. However, I really felt this story just needed more fleshing out overall. It’s a great concept. I loved the fantasy element, and the mystery surrounding it. It’s so unique and kept me intrigued from start to finish, and I was even rooting for Roma and Juliette as a couple, even though I’m usually not a fan of enemies-to-lovers. But the problem is that the characterization feels a bit weak to me. Some of the characters feel more like stock characters and not fully defined on their own. We’re also essentially getting the same subplot twice, because Roma and Juliette both have issues/conflicts with their fathers who lead their family gangs, as well as the fact that both their families were responsible for the death of someone the other cared about (Roma’s mother and Juliette’s childhood caregiver), so the switching between their points of view often feels to me like we are getting the exact same internal struggle told twice. It would have been more interesting if their side plots (outside of the main plot they shared together) were more distinctly different. 

I found the overall theme of the gang rivalries between the two families (Montagovs/White Flowers and Cais/Scarlet Gang) quite interesting to read about. While I liked the fantasy element a lot, there were also quite a few places where I was more interested in this aspect than the overarching fantasy story though. I don’t really consider it a flaw of book 1, though, because Gong mostly uses book 1 to set up the gang rivalry and it really comes in full in book 2. 

The twist at the end was perhaps my favorite part of the book. Given that Marshall’s character represents Mercutio from the original Shakespeare, I knew he was fated to die. And I was dreading it because I didn’t want another Bury Your Gays plot. So when the end revealed that Juliette had faked killing him, I was jumping for joy. Diehards of the original play will likely be upset that Gong made such a deviation, but I’m glad for it. 

Overall, I would give These Violent Delights a 3.5 out of 5 stars. There’s so much good here, but so much else that could have been developed even better. 

Book II: Our Violent Ends 

To start with what I absolutely loved about the second installment in this duology is that I think it improves on some of my major criticisms of the previous novel. The characters feel a bit more fully defined, the romantic relationships have more palpable tension, the parent-child conflicts are more interesting, and this book explores the blood feud between the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers more fully. 

The other thing I enjoyed was the way that Gong chooses to expand on the ending. At first, I really wasn’t sure how to feel about the ending. I mean, it’s a Romeo and Juliet retelling, so obviously, I knew what was coming. I just wasn’t sure that death was the best conclusion to either Roma or Juliette’s story, especially not by suicide. And I wasn’t sure about how Gong led up to this moment in the novel either. Yes, it needed to happen in order to stay true to the source material of what Gong was working from, but with the Roma and Juliette that we got to know in this version of the story, I wasn’t sure that the whole self sacrifice to destroy the monster and save the city really fit them. I never really got the impression that either of them were so attached to their city that they would go through with this, and I absolutely wasn’t convinced that there was no way to accomplish what they needed to without dying—so that cheapened a really intense moment for me.

That all being said, the way that Gong leaves it open at the end, implying that maybe, just maybe Roma and Juliette survived and escaped and are living free of the gang ties that divide them was brilliant. It made me appreciate the ending more. 

I don’t really care much for “symbolic marriages” in romance fiction—especially when it’s supposed to be a tragic romance—because I think it actually cheapens the impact of the fact that the star-crossed lovers never actually got to wed. So I wasn’t a major fan of the symbolic/faked marriage between Roma and Juliette, although I do see why Gong included it. It was the necessary first steps to ending the rivalry between their families. So, it’s not a weakness. It does add something to the plot, it’s just not my personal cup of tea. 

Although when it comes to the romances, I have to admit, sometimes I was rooting more for Marshall and Benedikt than I was Roma and Juliette. Sorry (no I’m not). 

My favorite character-relationship development in Our Violent Ends wasn’t either of the romances, however. It was the sister relationship between Rosalind and Celia (previously indicated in the text as Kathleen). 

Rosalind was a character who I didn’t feel really got the development she needed in the first book to really stand out. And when first reading this book, I wasn’t sure I was going to be impressed with the direction Gong took her in this installment either. It was so obvious that she was the leak in the Scarlet Gang, and that her “White Flower Associated” boyfriend was Dimitri, mainly because they were the only two characters left who had yet to have any other importance to the story, so it had to be them. Despite it being too obvious in my opinion, I really do love where Rosalind ends up—deciding to save her sister Celia’s life before vanishing. It actually has me excited for her spin-off novel, Foul Lady Fortune. Celia’s entire character development is also wonderful—in learning to accept herself and her identity. Having not read Foul Lady Fortune yet, I’m really hoping she appears in it too. 

There are quite a few characters who didn’t get the development they needed to drive their functions in the story, specifically Alisa (whose relationship with her brother Roma wasn’t expanded on enough in the text to make the reader feel connected to his protectiveness over her. Classic instance of telling instead of showing), and Juliette’s cousin Tyler, who feels more like a stock character type villain, rather than a fully fleshed out villain with depth. 

I would rate Our Violent Ends a 3.5 stars out of 5. I enjoyed it greatly, but there are still places where the writing is shaky and where my feelings are mixed on certain aspects.

Full Duology

I would give the entire duology 3.5 stars. It’s difficult to rate because I really did enjoy the read, it left me eager for more from the universe Gong is building, and there’s nothing specific within the story that I dislike, but there’s just so much more fleshing out that the actual writing could have used to make a good story great.