Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - Our Violent Ends

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Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

57 reviews

namenotimportant's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

"Why do you pause?" "Because even if you hate me Roma Montagov, I still love you."

"In the end, this was all that they were. Two hearts pressed as close as they dared, shadows melding into one by the flickering candlelight."

Wow, I'm in awe. This book had me in a chokehold for the last 100 pages. No scratch that, at least the last 200 pages.

Although I wished for a different ending for them, it fits. A bittersweet ending for a bittersweet love. I love that at least Marshall and Benedikt have a chance together now.

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rexpostfacto's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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sabrinz's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Book 2 continues a few weeks after the ends of book 1.
The threat of more monsters hangs over Shanghai and Roma is convinced by Juliette's charade that she has killed Marshall. However, the two crime lords want their heirs to work suddenly work together to find a blackmailer who threatens to unleash more of the monsters. Soon, the blackmailer becomes the least of Roma and Juliette's problems as the powder keg that is Shanghai is only seconds away from exploding.

Buckle in for book 2 because there is a LOT going on and hardly a moment to catch your breath. It's a great conclusion to this take on Romeo and Juliet.

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sydneyluxford's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

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

4.5

THE WAY I KNEW EXACTLY HOW IT WAS GOING TO END AND I STILL HAD THE NERVE TO CRY. I AM LITERALLY BROKEN RIGHT NOW. I really don’t get why Miss Chloe Gong had to put me through that? I don’t know if I did something to offend her, but it was truly uncalled for.

Juliette and Roma have my whole heart, for real.

Gong better have a trick up her sleeve and they better not have actually died because I am too sad. I actually don’t know why the ending shocked me when it’s literally a Romeo and Juliet retelling.

Despite the ending, the moments between Juliette and Roma were so fucking good. It was definitely a step up from the first book, which I felt was lacking. I don’t know how I’m going to recover from this. The way they always found their way back to each other despite being literal gang rivals and having all odds against them 🥲😞.

Bro, Benedikt and Marshal are SO CUTE. The love confession from Ben at the end had no business being that cute when the stakes were so high:

“I’ll say it however many times you want. I’ll romance you until you get sick of me. I am horrendously, horrendously in love with your dreadful face.”

I actually don’t know how I’m going to be able to read Foul Lady Fortune KNOWING that Rosalind was the cause of all of this. She better redeem herself.

Juliette and Roma are literally The Great War by Taylor Swift.

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jhaneveauguste's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-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

4.5

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lectricefeministe's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

4.5

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ladygetslit's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional 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? It's complicated

5.0

There will be hatred. There will be war. The country will fight itself to pieces. It will starve its people, ravage its land, poison its breath. Shanghai will fall and break and cry. But alongside everything, there has to be love—eternal, undying, enduring. Burn through vengeance and terror and warfare. Burn through everything that fuels the human heart and sears it red, burn through everything that covers the outside with hard muscle and tough sinew. Cut down deep and grab what beats beneath, and it is love that will survive after everything else has perished.

My Personal Opinion: It is a rare sequel that lives up to the first installment, but Our Violent Ends managed to blow me away. This book has everything: political intrigue based in Chinese history, queer and trans representation, family drama, mysterious monsters, loyal friend groups, and (of course) star-crossed love.

My Teacher Opinion: this would be an amazing replacement for Romeo & Juliet, although I may ruffle feathers by saying so. I do think the duology would be best for an upper level high school class, due to the pretty heavy violence and complexity of the political plot lines.

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takarakei's review against another edition

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dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I am honestly pretty apathetic about this series. I really really wanted to like these, but ultimately I really struggled to get through both books.

I did not like the writing style or pacing of these books. The way the story is written makes it hard to follow, and I found the writing to be repetitive and boring. I found myself having to constantly re-read paragraphs but at the same time not really caring about what I was reading. Ultimately I did not care for Juliette and Roma’s relationship. After finishing the first book I found myself wondering why it is I just didn’t seem to really *get* their relationship - supposedly this is enemies to lovers (which is my favorite trope btw) but beyond this giant familial rivalry which is described over and over again I honestly did not feel enough tension or hatred between them to build up and make me care about them ending up together. I did not find either Juliette or Roma to be very complex and therefore their relationship was not impactful.

Throughout both books I was way more interested in the secondary characters: Benedikt and Marshall and Kathleen in particular. I found myself wishing for more time spent with these characters and their journey, struggles and development. To me, Kathleen is the real intriguing character of the series - she is way smarter, complex and ultimately I think more badass than Juliette. I would have rather been reading her story and POV solely.

In both books the monsters that plague the city and the entire plot-line there did not really intrigue me. Even less so in Our Violent Ends since it’s an even smaller part of the second book, and seems very in the background of everything else going on politically in this world.

Did I feel like the second book was better than the first? maybe a bit, but since it’s longer than the first book the pacing was even more of an issue for me. There were parts of the second book that I did enjoy reading but they were too far and fewer between (and were pretty much solely the parts from the secondary characters' POV).

I pushed myself to finish the books because I did want to see how it ended, but I was left feeling unfulfilled. The “climax” of the story feels like it drags on for too long, and I kept thinking “ok is this IT yet?”

I honestly think that it would have been more impactful to not leave the ending open the way it is and stick more to the source of Romeo and Juliet dying - because in Shakespeare’s tragedy them dying is what teaches those around them that violence, power struggle and hatred between people are the evils that corrupt our world. They die for love and for each other, and without that the ending fell flat. Perhaps it is intentional that the author will continue the series and eventually bring these lessons around to this world and those living in it? but I likely won’t be reading on.

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ourlastopus's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense medium-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

we can clearly see how much chloe gong has evolved as a writer in this incredible sequel; this killed me in the best way possible
ok, now i’m going back to crying

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shannnne_reads_words's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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