Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong | ARC Review + Mood Board

Hello!!

HappyPublictaion Day to OUR VIOLENT ENDS by Chloe Gong. I thought it’d be a good time to share my thoughts on this book since this book is finally out. For the record, this is my most anticipated and annotated book of the year. Also, for the first time, my theories were on point and didn’t let me down. I was happy with it and am very excited to share my thoughts with y’all.

Before I forget, this was the fastest approved ARC ever in my NetGalley history. I had clicked the request button and was so confident I wouldn’t receive it. So I was shocked when I checked my mail just seconds after requesting the ARC, having the ecopy waiting on my dashboard. Thanks for making that day memorable, Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley.

Here are some reviews on OVE by Cherelle, Saima, and Georgia.

Surprisingly I didn’t have to break my head to keep this review spoiler-free, so here we go.

About the Book

Title: Our Violent Ends • By: Chloe Gong

Published on: 16 Nov 2021 • By: Hodder & Stoughton

Pace: Slow • Pages:494 • Age: 15+

Series: These Violent Delights #2 • Genre: YA Fantasy (Romance)

Song: Can We Kiss Forever? by Kina, Adriana Proenza

The year is 1927, and Shanghai teeters on the edge of revolution.

The heartstopping follow up to These Violent Delights, an imaginative, alluring retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai.

After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on the warpath. One wrong move, and her cousin will step into usurp her place as the Scarlet Gang’s heir. The only way to save the boy she loves from the wrath of the Scarlets is to have him want her dead for murdering his best friend in cold blood. If Juliette were actually guilty of the crime Roma believes she committed, his rejection might sting less.

Roma is still reeling from Marshall’s death, and his cousin Benedikt will barely speak to him. Roma knows it’s his fault for letting the ruthless Juliette back into his life, and he’s determined to set things right – even if that means killing the girl he hates and loves with equal measure.

Then a new monstrous danger emerges in the city, and though secrets keep them apart, Juliette must secure Roma’s cooperation if they are to end this threat once and for all. Shanghai is already at a boiling point: The Nationalists are marching in, whispers of civil war brew louder every day, and gangster rule faces complete annihilation. Roma and Juliette must put aside their differences to combat monsters and politics, but they aren’t prepared for the biggest threat of all: protecting their hearts from each other.

ADD TO GOODREADS

I received a copy of this book from Hodder & Stoughton courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

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Mood Board

Rep: Chinese (MCs), Russian immigrant (MC), Gay Russian and Korean (MCs), (Chinese SCs)

This book made me take notes extensively and helped me get back to writing on paper again. While going through those notes, I remembered the anxiety and fear that gripped me for what would happen to the 6 characters in the story. TBH, I kept comparing this to Romeo and Juliet and was on edge till the very end because the tension in the book was making me sweat. 

Not to mention, Juliette felt a lot chipper in this book. Her parents treated her like a kid, and her voice went unheard during their family and gang meetings. But she powered through fighting for the Scarlet Gang and her city. She was broken between choosing family or love when every corner of Shanghai became suffocating with the blood feud and death. There was very little hope to hold onto for her and everyone in the city. The impending doom was waiting to happen any moment.
Roma was withdrawn after what went down between him and Juliette 4 months ago. He was struggling to see her as the enemy and deny his feelings for her. Their gang rivalry and hate-fueled romance made me root for them and drove me nuts with worry to see how it’d all end.

And was I content with the ending? Absolutely! While there were many ways how this book could have ended, I liked it despite being rushed.

I mentioned in my These Violent Delights review that I needed to see Alisa more in this book, and I was so happy to see her being one of the main characters in this book. That girl could get her own story and rewrite this book from her POV. It’d be great, actually. Kathleen was more mature and very into her spy role in this one.

Marshall and Benedikt stole my heart in this book. They lost a lot because of the monster chase and other circumstances, but I’m so happy that they got their chance to say they loved each other. I just wanted to give Benedikt a hug when he felt torn inside and couldn’t speak about his feelings to anyone. Seeing them more in this novel made me like this book more.

I don’t have to say anything about the writing. I have my annotations to speak for it. It was intricate and very vivid in painting the 1920’s Shanghai for me. The anticipation of the events was slow, deliberate, and beautifully done. The atmosphere was ripe with fear and tension, which was almost tangible through the characters’ POVs. My only complaint was that it was drawn out in the middle and the anticipation for the revolution overshadowed other incidents in the story. Moreover, we were told the revolution was waiting to happen from the beginning, and when it did happen, it was pushed to the last few chapters and felt like an afterthought to the story.

Overall

With how things ended in These Violent Delights, the atmosphere must have cooled down, peace restored at least temporarily, but Shanghai was growing more chaotic with the Nationalists, Communists, and the Gangs trying to control the city. What once felt like home became a smothering place steeped with hate, greed, and the blood feud. Our Violent Ends is a tale about two blood-soaked roses who would burn the world down with their love.

This book was more political than TVD, but I enjoyed the anticipation and the slow burn romance that broke my heart yet left me satisfied with the story. I expected a lengthy epilogue given the slow progress of the plot, but I was sad to see it end with a small one. And I’m gonna repeat it again, this book is a million times better than the original Romeo & Juliet. These Violent Delights duology is one of the best retellings I have ever read to date and highly recommend it to everyone. 

We choose whether we will offer beauty to the world, or if we will use our thorns to sting.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

TW // Blood, violence, gore, character deaths, murder (including mass murder), war themes, torture, weapon use, insects, alcohol consumption, parental abuse, Self cutting imagery.

About Chloe Gong

Chloe Gong is the New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights and its sequel Our Violent Ends. She is a recent graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she double-majored in English and International Relations. Born in Shanghai and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, Chloe is now located in New York pretending to be a real adult.

After devouring the entire YA section of her local library, she started writing her own novels at age 13 to keep herself entertained, and has been highly entertained ever since. Chloe has been known to mysteriously appear by chanting “Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s best plays and doesn’t deserve its slander in pop culture” into a mirror three times.

Website

Thank you for reading this post and all the love while I’m still on my semi-hiatus.
Let me know which was the last anticipated book that met your expectations in the comments.

These violent delights have violent ends

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,

Which, as they kiss, consume.

― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet