Reviews tagging 'Racism'

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

164 reviews

litliz's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Confinement, Kidnapping, Medical content, Self harm, Stalking, Suicide, Body horror, Colonisation, Death of parent, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Mass/school shootings, Gore, Bullying, Chronic illness, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Racism, Transphobia, Violence, and Vomit

elislittlelibrary's review

adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

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

5.0

This is (as far as I can remember) the second Romeo and Juliet-retelling that I read and loved. It took me some time to get into this book, but it really paid off! I liked the writing and really loved the setting. The world-building was well done and, even though there is magic involved, the world felt quite realistic. While, as has been mentioned, this is a Romeo and Juliet-retelling, the plot did not feel romance-heavy, which I personally really enjoyed. And the romance plot that was there focused a lot on connection, which I also tend to like. 
There are various plot twists in the book. I did guess some of them (

Paul Dexter, the usage of Doodskus for example

), though this did not take away from the plot, so I didn't mind!
The book puts a strong emphasis on language aspects, as well as the use of different languages (they are used throughout the book, often just words or phrases, sometimes sentences), I LOVED that!
Also, this book ends on a cliffhanger and I really have to read the sequel!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Death

Moderate: Racism, Blood, and Transphobia

scarletthequeen's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Gun violence, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Minor: Sexism and Racism

creolelitbelle's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny 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? It's complicated

5.0

These Violent Delights is a great re-imagining of Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet set in 1920s Shanghai, China with Roma & Juliette now at odds against each other after secretly dating four years prior to the events of the novel. Their families head the rival White Flowers and Scarlet Gang, and they can never forget that key piece of their personal identities. I love the subtle (and not-so-subtle) callbacks to the original play through major and minor characters, scenes, and pivotal lines. Those were all written in carefully to tie book into its source material but not pull the reader out of the new historical fiction story. Gong also did a delicately wonderful job weaving Chinese and other world history into the setting and plot by laying the history out whenever relevant to the story or characters but never over-explaining anything. Knowing the history prior to reading this book is not necessary but did add to my experience. The mystery of what causes the madness seeping into the city pushes enemies together for collaboration, and the intense action kept me hooked. Diversity in cast felt authentic to the time period of China's forced spheres of influence from other countries' powers, and the multi-pov storytelling really made certain chapters feel like isolated scenes as in a play. I am excited to read the sequel and the other books in the world of Secret Shanghai soon. The bonus content in the B&N edition was well worth it, too. I loved getting inside Roma's head through his letters from their first romance together, the prequel story of their courtship before is so sweet. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Emotional abuse, Blood, Classism, Violence, Murder, Death, Gun violence, Gore, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Sexism, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Cursing, Terminal illness, Racism, Alcohol, and Grief

Minor: Transphobia, Sexual content, and Drug use

metalballwheatley's review

adventurous dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.0

Romajuliette's alright but I loved Juliette as a character, she's so fun. 

Also this book has great white british man representation. I feel like the content here is really accurate to their culture. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Alcohol, and Gun violence

Moderate: Transphobia, Racism, and Blood

m4rtt4's review

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

Secret Shanghai is officially one of my favourite world's I've ever visited, and I'm glad to know the story doesn't end here. I enjoyed almost everything — the monster plotline could have been executed a little better — but I'm only taking 0.5 stars off for that. My absolute favourite thing in addition to the dynamic between Juliette and Roma was

everything about the brain-infesting insects (I'm a biology student...), though I must say the science stuff also felt a bit off and/or too modern for the time, for example the term 'viral' wasn't really used until the 1940s, and what were those machines in Lourens's lab, how did they work?

I need more specific answers, I'm curious — in all seriousness, I'm just a nitpicking nerd. Nevertheless, Gong has done an excellent job researching and creating all this, big kudos to her <3

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Murder, Gun violence, Blood, Violence, Gore, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Racism, Body horror, Misogyny, Death of parent, and Medical content

Minor: Drug use, Transphobia, and Alcohol

jeyjeyyy's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Fun book, nothing stood out exactly but I definitely found it interesting. 
I really liked the historical references and it did teach me a lot about society in Shanghai at that time. However, the fantasy plots did not make a lot of sense to me. I also did not particularly care about what was happening. The romance also felt a bit bland, it was really great at the beginning but I found its ‘resolution’ a bit too easy. Kind of felt like the characters lost most of the fun aspects of their personality about halfway through… What I wanted was angst upon angst and enemies and hatred and tensionand a LOT more romance. I did not really get that. This sounds iind of bad but I wnated it to be more… toxic? I mean this is Romeo and Juliet !!
Not to say I didn’t like the book, it was just not my favourite. 
Also REALLY loved the side characters, especially Kathleen and Marshall and Ben. Excited to see more of them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Racism, Medical content, Physical abuse, Blood, Body horror, Colonisation, Death of parent, Murder, Sexism, Death, Gun violence, and Violence

cnaccarato's review

adventurous dark emotional informative 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Blood, Body horror, Medical content, Misogyny, Classism, Death, Pandemic/Epidemic, Alcohol, Gore, Murder, Grief, Gun violence, Xenophobia, Sexism, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Racism

Moderate: Addiction, Emotional abuse, Transphobia, and Drug use

Minor: Police brutality, Outing, Bullying, Sexual content, and Homophobia

hmbutler15's review

adventurous dark emotional mysterious 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? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Colonisation, Murder, Gun violence, and Death

Minor: Racism, Death of parent, and Misogyny

thehannahclaire's review

DNF @ 50%

LOVED the premise, wasn’t a fan of the execution outside of the discussion of colonialism and race. I really wanted to feel connected to the characters, but I just wasn’t. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Blood, and Gore

Moderate: Xenophobia, Transphobia, Violence, Gun violence, and Racism

Minor: Deadnaming, Child abuse, Colonisation, and Drug use