Star-Crossed Lovers Without the "Lovers" Part

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Started: November 2, 2021

Finished: November 5, 2021 (12:45 AM)

Rating: ★★.5

Synopsis

• A retelling of Romeo and Juliet, set in Shanghai, China with gangs the White Flower Gang and the Scarlet Gang (the Montogovs and the Cais)

• Retelling but there is also a monster wreaking havoc incorporated into the book

• Julliette Cai and Roma Montogov past lovers when they were fifteen and now four years later after betrayal, they have to work together, despite the ongoing blood feud

Review:

Plot

It was simply not the best. I think I had high expectations from it, considering the hype it got from TikTok and the fact that it was a New York Times best-selling book for a good number of weeks. The overall plot felt dull and I expected there to be more action and a more captivating plot line but it felt like a continuous and prolonged game of tag. Roma’s and Juliette’s findings kept leading to new and different people, which I get is the main premise of any plot, but I thought there would be more interesting things happening instead of going to different people and finding more information which leads to another person, and so on. NOT TO MENTION, both Juliette and Roma only decided to work together after like 200 pages into the book. So long. Too long. And even after that, they did not really work work together, you know? I expected the two gangs to work together not just both of them.

The writing also felt dragged out. I had to either skim the long paragraphs or reread them because they felt unnecessary and frankly, a waste of time. In moments when I was reading the book, it felt like I was just reading words off the page and not being completely immersed in the story.

Characters

I did not feel any connection with any of the characters.

Juliette kind of pissed me off because she kept treating her servants poorly and she came off as snobby and pretentious even though I know that Gong tried to paint her as a badass, cold character who does not give a fuck (which she does, but she just rubbed me off the wrong way). I do have to give her the props of constantly questioning herself of why she still had feelings for Roma after four years and his betrayal--mood. It’s hard to move on, I can relate. haha yikes.

I did not really connect with Roma either. He was a bit of a flat character in my opinion; there was nothing too conflicting about his background that gave that UMPH, you know? Like I understand his struggle with his family and how he does not want to be a part of the feud...ok maybe he did have some twist in him which I thought was kind of contrasting, but it just did not really stick with me for some reason.

Roma and Juliette together were mediocre. They did not have the best chemistry; I have seen FAR FAR better enemies to lovers. I even bookmarked all the times where they had some sort of chemistry, and I only came up with less than fifteen bookmarks. I think for a Romeo and Juliet retelling, I expected there to be a lot more romance. I did feel a little something when they confessed their love for one another--I thought that was cute. But it felt...stale. There was no tension between the two, it was literally Juliette being icy and keeping her guard up which felt extremely frustrating, and not in a good way.

Benedict and Marshall were alright. I did not have any huge connection with them either, which was a bit disappointing because I am a huge sucker for side characters! I thought Rosalind’s background was pretty interesting and consider her to be the most interesting character out of all of them, but she also seemed a little snobby towards the end...I feel indifferent about Kathleen.

Lasting Thoughts, Parting Words:

I had such high expectations for the book that it definitely ruined it for me. I expected so much more from the story and its characters and their chemistry, so I overall felt disappointed. But did I finish the book in less than 3 days? Yes. Did I finish it faster than other books that I rated a lot higher *ahem Ninth House ahem*? Yes. Yes, I did. But will I get the Our Violent Ends, the sequel of this book? Sadly, no. I thought I was going to, but considering the turn of events and the fact that the next book’s synopsis is the same thing but roles reversed, I think I will spare myself. And plus, it is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet and it’s a duology, so the chances they both die at the end is very likely and my mental health cannot deal with a character dying, let alone the two main characters lol.