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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
mysterious
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
This book was fantastic. My wife happened to be reading a Beauty and the Beast retelling at the time and I decided I wanted to do a retelling as well. This has been on my list for some time and decided to go with it. Turns out I decided to read at a great time since the sequel comes out in November and I can’t wait to read it!
Chloe Gong did an awesome job of slow burning the characters together. It felt like there was just the right amount of distance between them and just the right amount of bringing them together. It was superbly done.
I enjoyed that the main plot of the story was surrounded by a mystery as well. Which I wasn’t expecting and was really cool way to follow the story. Insects that make you claw your throat out!? Yeah, that’s terrifying and interesting all at once.
My one complaint with the story was the world building. This was set in 1920s Shanghai and I didn’t feel like I was in it. I had to constantly remind myself that it was the 20s. I did feel like I was in Shanghai though.
All the characters were well done and interesting and diabolical in their own special way. I am truly excited for the sequel and conclusion to this story in November.
Chloe Gong did an awesome job of slow burning the characters together. It felt like there was just the right amount of distance between them and just the right amount of bringing them together. It was superbly done.
I enjoyed that the main plot of the story was surrounded by a mystery as well. Which I wasn’t expecting and was really cool way to follow the story. Insects that make you claw your throat out!? Yeah, that’s terrifying and interesting all at once.
My one complaint with the story was the world building. This was set in 1920s Shanghai and I didn’t feel like I was in it. I had to constantly remind myself that it was the 20s. I did feel like I was in Shanghai though.
All the characters were well done and interesting and diabolical in their own special way. I am truly excited for the sequel and conclusion to this story in November.
review originally posted on gr in 2021
2022 edit: This review by elisa is the best summary of my feelings on this book and then some. Everybody needs to read it. From Juliette's abuse of the working class, to the back-and-forth on whether or not this book wants to decolonize or ignore imperialism—it's worth the read. The author also said something really ugly responding to criticisms about it not being love between two Chinese people in an interview. Her response was "people would get confused" and then in the same breath said "how do you know he's not?" Like...that doesn't add up. Seeing the way she responds to anything that isn't a glowing review...I don't know. Maybe it's her youth, maybe it's her personality, maybe it's both but she definitely was not prepared in any way, shape, or form on how to deal with backlash and criticism. It's off-putting.
First, the good. I loved how unapologetically Chinese These Violent Delights was and all of the cultural and socioeconomic commentary. The toll that white colonization and imperialism was taking on Shanghai really solidified the intensity of the situation. I enjoyed the six cast of characters and appreciated their personalities and motives. All of the racism and sexism that Juliette discussed is part of my day to day and I'm glad others like me will be able to see themselves reflected in popular YA books. I liked seeing the intersection of Juliette being a Chinese girl living in America during some of her most formative years. The detail about how Juliette got her name and her continued identity struggles with being too western for Chinese people and being too Chinese for western people really hit home. I also appreciate that the pinyin forced me to brush up on my Chinese. If anyone complains about needing footnotes for the Chinese language/culture, please reevaluate your view on publishing and take a look at this thread.
Unfortunately, nothing else lived up to my expectations. Please know that nobody is more disappointed in my rating than I am. I was so excited for this book. I feel like I'm the only one who didn't have a good time despite my best efforts. Maybe I set myself up for disappointment because I already don't like Romeo and Juliet, but the source material's retellings are usually a hit for me. These Violent Delights read less like a whirlwind romance set in 1920's gangland Shanghai and more like rival Scooby Doo groups running around solving mysteries and getting chased by monsters.
These Violent Delights should have been a standalone. Everything was slow to develop—Chapter 17 really needed to be Chapter 3 or 4. It took 341 pages for the first enjoyable interaction to happen between the protagonists. I wasn't hoping for much. I just craved interesting dialogue between anyone—anything to get away from the ~350 pages of the same tension and adjective dumps. A couple of pages after that, the story went back to a painful drag for the next ~60 pages. There was an unnecessarily large amount of purple prose, filler paragraphs, and an absurd amount of detail that didn't need to exist. For example, every type of speech was described as accented and sometimes it'd dive into paragraphs on how the accent sounded. It was fine the first couple of times, but it should've been over and done with at least for the main characters like we do not need this! Get on with the story.
The social commentary felt fleeting at times. For example, a character would ruminate about their light skin privilege for a paragraph and then never talk about it again. Like there was no point. We never see how people are affected by colorism in Shanghai—an issue that often goes unaddressed in Asian communities. I wish Chloe Gong created a brown character in the main cast of six characters to help her illustrate the social commentary instead of just telling us, "I'm lucky I'm light skin." I know she doesn't have that experience herself so she might have been worried about writing it and missing the nuance it deserves, but it feels a little disingenuous to randomly talk about an issue and then never revisit it. It happens with multiple subjects, ranging from sexism to colorism. I'm also really sad that this isn't an intraracial romance between Asian characters. Don't get me wrong, Roma is nice. It's just rare to see love between Asian characters in western mainstream media. My heart really yearns to see more of it.
Kudos to Chloe Gong for writing this series while in school during such a tough time. I appreciate the ideas and the representation, but These Violent Delights felt like a book of incomplete ideas. It was a collection of Tumblr social commentary essays regarding identity politics couched between glacial pacing and heaps of flowery prose. The last 1/6th of the book was the only redeeming quality, but it's not enough for those few pages to be really good after crawling through the mud for 400 pages. The ping pong-ing between different political ideas and out-of-place Mystery Machine chases took away from what I thought was going to be a forbidden romance and gang-city politics. The last 40 pages were fun, fast-paced, with incredible twists, and neverending intrigue. I just wish this were applicable to the whole book. BIPOC stories like this are necessary and I appreciate Chloe Gong for the humbling experience and reminder that BIPOC creators should be allowed to be mediocre in these spaces. It made me temper my excitement for overhyped content. I just hope not to be disappointed again.
2022 edit: This review by elisa is the best summary of my feelings on this book and then some. Everybody needs to read it. From Juliette's abuse of the working class, to the back-and-forth on whether or not this book wants to decolonize or ignore imperialism—it's worth the read. The author also said something really ugly responding to criticisms about it not being love between two Chinese people in an interview. Her response was "people would get confused" and then in the same breath said "how do you know he's not?" Like...that doesn't add up. Seeing the way she responds to anything that isn't a glowing review...I don't know. Maybe it's her youth, maybe it's her personality, maybe it's both but she definitely was not prepared in any way, shape, or form on how to deal with backlash and criticism. It's off-putting.
First, the good. I loved how unapologetically Chinese These Violent Delights was and all of the cultural and socioeconomic commentary. The toll that white colonization and imperialism was taking on Shanghai really solidified the intensity of the situation. I enjoyed the six cast of characters and appreciated their personalities and motives. All of the racism and sexism that Juliette discussed is part of my day to day and I'm glad others like me will be able to see themselves reflected in popular YA books. I liked seeing the intersection of Juliette being a Chinese girl living in America during some of her most formative years. The detail about how Juliette got her name and her continued identity struggles with being too western for Chinese people and being too Chinese for western people really hit home. I also appreciate that the pinyin forced me to brush up on my Chinese. If anyone complains about needing footnotes for the Chinese language/culture, please reevaluate your view on publishing and take a look at this thread.
Unfortunately, nothing else lived up to my expectations. Please know that nobody is more disappointed in my rating than I am. I was so excited for this book. I feel like I'm the only one who didn't have a good time despite my best efforts. Maybe I set myself up for disappointment because I already don't like Romeo and Juliet, but the source material's retellings are usually a hit for me. These Violent Delights read less like a whirlwind romance set in 1920's gangland Shanghai and more like rival Scooby Doo groups running around solving mysteries and getting chased by monsters.
These Violent Delights should have been a standalone. Everything was slow to develop—Chapter 17 really needed to be Chapter 3 or 4. It took 341 pages for the first enjoyable interaction to happen between the protagonists. I wasn't hoping for much. I just craved interesting dialogue between anyone—anything to get away from the ~350 pages of the same tension and adjective dumps. A couple of pages after that, the story went back to a painful drag for the next ~60 pages. There was an unnecessarily large amount of purple prose, filler paragraphs, and an absurd amount of detail that didn't need to exist. For example, every type of speech was described as accented and sometimes it'd dive into paragraphs on how the accent sounded. It was fine the first couple of times, but it should've been over and done with at least for the main characters like we do not need this! Get on with the story.
The social commentary felt fleeting at times. For example, a character would ruminate about their light skin privilege for a paragraph and then never talk about it again. Like there was no point. We never see how people are affected by colorism in Shanghai—an issue that often goes unaddressed in Asian communities. I wish Chloe Gong created a brown character in the main cast of six characters to help her illustrate the social commentary instead of just telling us, "I'm lucky I'm light skin." I know she doesn't have that experience herself so she might have been worried about writing it and missing the nuance it deserves, but it feels a little disingenuous to randomly talk about an issue and then never revisit it. It happens with multiple subjects, ranging from sexism to colorism. I'm also really sad that this isn't an intraracial romance between Asian characters. Don't get me wrong, Roma is nice. It's just rare to see love between Asian characters in western mainstream media. My heart really yearns to see more of it.
Kudos to Chloe Gong for writing this series while in school during such a tough time. I appreciate the ideas and the representation, but These Violent Delights felt like a book of incomplete ideas. It was a collection of Tumblr social commentary essays regarding identity politics couched between glacial pacing and heaps of flowery prose. The last 1/6th of the book was the only redeeming quality, but it's not enough for those few pages to be really good after crawling through the mud for 400 pages. The ping pong-ing between different political ideas and out-of-place Mystery Machine chases took away from what I thought was going to be a forbidden romance and gang-city politics. The last 40 pages were fun, fast-paced, with incredible twists, and neverending intrigue. I just wish this were applicable to the whole book. BIPOC stories like this are necessary and I appreciate Chloe Gong for the humbling experience and reminder that BIPOC creators should be allowed to be mediocre in these spaces. It made me temper my excitement for overhyped content. I just hope not to be disappointed again.
I listened to it and wasn’t a huge fan of the reader which may have affected my views on the book. Very YA drama and a bit much at times. Cookie cutter characters, but the plot felt fresh, especially for an RNJ adaptation. Regardless of my criticisms, I enjoyed it and will listen to the sequel when my Spotify hours renew. Escapist and fun which is always a good time.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
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
dark
hopeful
informative
mysterious
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
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I went in this book completely blind. The only thing I knew was that it's loved by masses and it has rival gangs. So, I was really excited to read it.
It had a promising start and I though omg juliette cai is gonna be my favouirte character.... But alas! Things went down the hill pretty fast.
First of all, I found the whole monster thing terrible!!! I would have LOVED this book if it revolved around rivalry between scarlets and white flowers, along with some ongoing politics ofcourse. But.. the whole monster thing was ridiculous.
Then we have both leads. Excuse me but where was the chemistry? Where was the yearning? They were so blandly written that I couldn't care less about any of them. Juliette seemed to a promising lead but nah i couldnt connect myself with her.
And then there were toooo many povs. And I was done with all of them... Couldnt care less about any of the characters. The only character that i liked a bit was Alisa and liked whenever she was in a scene.
Ps: i thought that maybe if monster dies by the end we might see gang rivalry in next book. But after reading the epilogue i was like this rubbish monster plot is gonna continue in next book too?? Thanks I am not gonna read it.🙄🙄🙄
Chloe gong saw the 2016 kdrama circle and decided that an insect killing a human was a good idea... then she decided to merge all the things she could think of (colonialism, rival gangs etc) together and created this mess of a book.
It had a promising start and I though omg juliette cai is gonna be my favouirte character.... But alas! Things went down the hill pretty fast.
First of all, I found the whole monster thing terrible!!! I would have LOVED this book if it revolved around rivalry between scarlets and white flowers, along with some ongoing politics ofcourse. But.. the whole monster thing was ridiculous.
Then we have both leads. Excuse me but where was the chemistry? Where was the yearning? They were so blandly written that I couldn't care less about any of them. Juliette seemed to a promising lead but nah i couldnt connect myself with her.
And then there were toooo many povs. And I was done with all of them... Couldnt care less about any of the characters. The only character that i liked a bit was Alisa and liked whenever she was in a scene.
Ps: i thought that maybe if monster dies by the end we might see gang rivalry in next book. But after reading the epilogue i was like this rubbish monster plot is gonna continue in next book too?? Thanks I am not gonna read it.🙄🙄🙄
Chloe gong saw the 2016 kdrama circle and decided that an insect killing a human was a good idea... then she decided to merge all the things she could think of (colonialism, rival gangs etc) together and created this mess of a book.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated