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A review by beautifulminutiae
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
Did not finish book. Stopped at 29%.
DNF’d this book at about 25%. There were several reasons this wasn’t working for me.
One was Juliette’s spoiled brat entitled behavior, masquerading as a tough girl boss. Considering her heritage and the time period, it’s odd to me how disrespectful she is towards her parents. When I hate the main character who I’m supposed to like and admire, it makes it hard to enjoy the book.
Secondly, I think the author aims to tackle colonization in Shanghai, which is fascinating. I never knew about the Russians, French and British coming into Shanghai and trying to push the Chinese traditions and people out. However, the French and the British are the big bad colonizers here, despite the fact that the Russians are also trying to take over the city. Yet we’re supposed to sympathize with the Russians as being just as oppressed as the Chinese? I think the author wrote it this way because the romantic lead is Russian, so I guess he gets a free pass. But it comes off sounding really strange.
Lastly, the gore/violence in this book was getting to be a bit much for me. I didn’t read the description, otherwise I would have known that people were tearing out their own throats and maybe that would have deterred me from reading this. If the book was so bloody and detailed in the first quarter of the book, I can only assume that it would up the ante in its intensity later on and I’m fairly confident it would be a bit too much for me.
One was Juliette’s spoiled brat entitled behavior, masquerading as a tough girl boss. Considering her heritage and the time period, it’s odd to me how disrespectful she is towards her parents. When I hate the main character who I’m supposed to like and admire, it makes it hard to enjoy the book.
Secondly, I think the author aims to tackle colonization in Shanghai, which is fascinating. I never knew about the Russians, French and British coming into Shanghai and trying to push the Chinese traditions and people out. However, the French and the British are the big bad colonizers here, despite the fact that the Russians are also trying to take over the city. Yet we’re supposed to sympathize with the Russians as being just as oppressed as the Chinese? I think the author wrote it this way because the romantic lead is Russian, so I guess he gets a free pass. But it comes off sounding really strange.
Lastly, the gore/violence in this book was getting to be a bit much for me. I didn’t read the description, otherwise I would have known that people were tearing out their own throats and maybe that would have deterred me from reading this. If the book was so bloody and detailed in the first quarter of the book, I can only assume that it would up the ante in its intensity later on and I’m fairly confident it would be a bit too much for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence and Gore
Moderate: Colonisation and Transphobia