Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Our Violent Ends

Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

24 reviews

queenie_ofthe_void's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Put off finishing this book for weeks because I knew it'd be sad. But it was still great

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azrah786's review against another edition

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4.25

[This full review can also be found on my BLOG]

CW: violence, gun violence, blood, gore, mass shooting, murder, injury, death, kidnapping, torture, whipping, suicidal thoughts, war themes, parental abuse, police brutality

Our Violent Ends, where the “our” is really the reader because after finishing this I was so NOT okay!

This sequel continues a couple of months after the end of These Violent Delights with Shanghai on the brink of revolution. The blood feud is back in full force, especially with Roma seeing red after Juliette’s betrayal, which is not helping the situation in the slightest. Meanwhile Juliette is trying to tiptoe her way around her own secrets to save her neck as well as Roma’s. However, when the dreaded monster madness threat resurfaces Roma and Juliette are forced to once again come to a truce and combine forces to save their beloved city.

“Maybe it was inevitable in a city like this. Each and every one of them, taking on a path of destruction, even if they knew better, even if they would warn someone else off it.”

Chloe Gong's remarkable prose both immerses you right back into the setting, the city once again acting as a character itself, and perfectly captures the various tensions that can be found in its streets.

Much like the first book Gong has masterfully merged the classic story with the real world history of Shanghai, the political side to the storyline in particular taking centre stage. Plus with some of the primary plot from the play already having been mirrored in book 1 the retelling side is a little looser. However, I still had that constant anticipation for what events from the original were going to be rewritten and stumbling across cleverly utilised Shakespeare quotes made it all the more enjoyable.

“A rose is a rose, even by another name,” he whispered. “But we choose whether we will offer beauty to the world, or if we will use our thorns to sting.”

As ever the characters own my heart. The interactions between Roma and Juliette were as you would expect like a dagger in the heart, full of even more angst than before and I loved every second of it. I will admit I did spend a lot of time just wanting to jump into the book myself to knock some sense into the two of them and mainly yell at him to admit that HE LOVES HER and at her to acknowledge that HE’LL UNDERSTAND if she comes clean!!!

What I also really enjoyed was that there was a bigger spotlight on Kathleen, Rosalind, Benedict, Marshall and even Alisa which added so much more to the narrative! It has made me all the more excited for Foul Lady Fortune, the first book in the spin off duology releasing later in 2022!

“Sometimes hatred has no memory to feed off. It has grown strong enough to feed itself, and so long as we do not fight it, it will not bother us. It will not weaken us.”

All that aside I think I fall into the minority group of those who really enjoyed this book but didn’t love it as much as the first one (hence my slightly lower rating). The main reasons being the pacing and that I guessed a lot of the twists.. The book had a little bit of a slow start – despite there being some actiony scenes in the beginning which were great - and then when the political side of the plot really kicked off it got much more explosive and interesting but I also felt that the amount of focus on this made the monster part of the story seem a little overlooked? Not that this was a bad thing just there was SO MUCH going on!

Furthermore, I was reading this at an off time for me personally (it’s why I didn’t get through the ARC in time) so I think my mood definitely had an impact on my overall enjoyment but like I mentioned before this book was fantastic and I really didn’t want it to end.

Speaking of which, bittersweet though it was I don’t think we could have asked for a more perfect conclusion to this duology. I look forward to my heart being broken again in the next adventure Chloe Gong has in store for us.
Final Rating – 4.25/5 Stars

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quillify_'s review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

THIS BOOK ANNIHILATED ME WHAT THE HELL??????
CHLOE GONG NEEDS TO PAY FOR MY THERAPY BILLS BECAUSE WHAT WAS THAT ENDING!?!? WHY AM I IN LOVE WITH BOOKS THAT HAVE AN AMBIGUOUS ENDING???
*deep breath* *inhale* *exhale* POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Okay. Alright. I'm fine. I survived reading this book. I had the excuse of exams to hold off because I was scared but in the end my curiosity caught up to the trick. So here I am, wondering what the hell happened.
The characters, as always are *chef's kiss*. Alisa Montagova has become my new favourite kid. That girl deserves so much more than being kidnapped at every turn, oh my god ;-;
Ben and Mars deserve all the happiness in the world. I was having a headache because of Ben's sadness, and every time they both were close to meeting, something would happen. It felt like watching a Hindi TV serial drama in the best way, of course. Because their reunion was so satisfying. And Marshall and Juliette really did have the cutest friendship ever. Appreciate the m/f platonic relationship without any cumbersome romance.

Wonder why we had to be told that the boys were off living life instead of being shown all their happiness. Yeah, this is me begging for a BenMars novella ;-;

I really, really, really loved Kathleen's

(or as I should call her now: Celia)

character development. She is another one of my favourites beside Alisa and the main characters.
In addition, the angst and tension between Roma and Juliette was done really well. They ripped my heart out and then stitched it together and then repeated the process. The only iffy thing was when the truth of Juliette's actions was revealed, they zoomed a bit too fast into kissing and whispering I-love-yous when Juliette had

killed Tyler just hours ago

I dunno about you, but it just seemed a bit too fast for both of them to go from hate-loving each other to sexy times. Or maybe this is just another ace thing. \_(O_O)_/
The book dragged just a little bit at around the 75% mark but that's probably because I figured out who was up to those shenanigans in the city and was waiting for the mains to come to the realization. The rest of it though: the references from the Shakespeare play, the climax, Roma and Juliette and their struggle with their parents, all of it was amazing. Really appreciated the talk on colonization and the white people jokes (thank you Miss Cai <3)

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plumpaperbacks's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Cheese and rice. I knew this book was going to be intense, but I was absolutely not prepared for how intense it actually was. I think I survived all of the other books I’ve read over the years just so this one specifically could kill me. Very rarely do books evoke such physical reactions in me; as I read, I was laughing, gasping, and my heart was pounding. I don’t think it slowed down at all during the second half of the book.

There’s not much I can say that’s spoiler-free, and honestly, I don’t have either the physical or emotional energy right now for an in-depth review. Just know that as much as I loved the first book, somehow I love this one even more. Juliette, Roma, Marshall, Benedikt, and Alisa stole my heart; Juliette and Roma in particular own my soul. I’m legit reevaluating my mental list of favorite series of all time to make room for this duology in the top five. Anything that affects me as much as this did sure as hell deserves it.

So yeah. My heart is a pulp and my brain is mush and I don’t really know what to do with my life right now. If these books weren’t already one of my main personality traits, they are now. I’ll definitely reread them at some point, but I need to prepare myself for that first. I’m eagerly (and nervously) awaiting Chloe Gong’s next book.

Representation

Chinese protagonist and side characters
Chinese trans girl side character
Korean queer side character
queer side character with OCD

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