A review by the_bookarazzii
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

4.0

Too many kind hearts turn cold every day.
~ Chloe Gong

These Violent Delights is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet, blended with mystery and forbidden romance. The story takes place in the 1920s in the city of Shangai, where two gangs are fighting against each other.

Juliette Cai is a young Chinese girl and heir to the Scarlet Gang. She is trying to live up to her family's expectations before her throne is stolen from her by his sibling. On the other hand, Roma Montagov, heir to the White Flowers, a Russian gang, is working hard to keep his title as heir in such a volatile environment.

Out of nowhere a strange illness spreads and the members of both gangs start ripping their throats out. Just because of the fear of foreigners taking control of the city Roma and Juliette are forced to sort out things together.

One thing that attracted my attention was the blend of different genres within one book: romance, and historical fiction with fantasy elements all at once. This helped make both the characters and the story more compelling, as the plot was very unique and not something I have seen frequently.

However, the romance part was not that good. I expected betrayal and yearning and tension, and most of what I got was aggressive awkwardness. When Juliette and Roma were together, I kept waiting for there to be that tangled emotion and forbidden lust and could not find anything. Also, the book was very slow-paced not my kind, and just due to this reason I DNF-ed this book last year. But this time I decided to finish reading it and I enjoyed it.

The best part of this book was how it handled racism, very well executed and manipulated. I absolutely loved the gangster concept of this book. The whole rivalry and star-crossed lovers thing was implemented so well.