A review by azrah786
Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

4.25

 [This full review can also be found on my BLOG]

CW: violence, gun violence, blood, gore, mass shooting, murder, injury, death, kidnapping, torture, whipping, suicidal thoughts, war themes, parental abuse, police brutality

Our Violent Ends, where the “our” is really the reader because after finishing this I was so NOT okay!

This sequel continues a couple of months after the end of These Violent Delights with Shanghai on the brink of revolution. The blood feud is back in full force, especially with Roma seeing red after Juliette’s betrayal, which is not helping the situation in the slightest. Meanwhile Juliette is trying to tiptoe her way around her own secrets to save her neck as well as Roma’s. However, when the dreaded monster madness threat resurfaces Roma and Juliette are forced to once again come to a truce and combine forces to save their beloved city.

“Maybe it was inevitable in a city like this. Each and every one of them, taking on a path of destruction, even if they knew better, even if they would warn someone else off it.”


Chloe Gong's remarkable prose both immerses you right back into the setting, the city once again acting as a character itself, and perfectly captures the various tensions that can be found in its streets.

Much like the first book Gong has masterfully merged the classic story with the real world history of Shanghai, the political side to the storyline in particular taking centre stage. Plus with some of the primary plot from the play already having been mirrored in book 1 the retelling side is a little looser. However, I still had that constant anticipation for what events from the original were going to be rewritten and stumbling across cleverly utilised Shakespeare quotes made it all the more enjoyable.

“A rose is a rose, even by another name,” he whispered. “But we choose whether we will offer beauty to the world, or if we will use our thorns to sting.”


As ever the characters own my heart. The interactions between Roma and Juliette were as you would expect like a dagger in the heart, full of even more angst than before and I loved every second of it. I will admit I did spend a lot of time just wanting to jump into the book myself to knock some sense into the two of them and mainly yell at him to admit that HE LOVES HER and at her to acknowledge that HE’LL UNDERSTAND if she comes clean!!!

What I also really enjoyed was that there was a bigger spotlight on Kathleen, Rosalind, Benedict, Marshall and even Alisa which added so much more to the narrative! It has made me all the more excited for Foul Lady Fortune, the first book in the spin off duology releasing later in 2022!

“Sometimes hatred has no memory to feed off. It has grown strong enough to feed itself, and so long as we do not fight it, it will not bother us. It will not weaken us.”


All that aside I think I fall into the minority group of those who really enjoyed this book but didn’t love it as much as the first one (hence my slightly lower rating). The main reasons being the pacing and that I guessed a lot of the twists.. The book had a little bit of a slow start – despite there being some actiony scenes in the beginning which were great - and then when the political side of the plot really kicked off it got much more explosive and interesting but I also felt that the amount of focus on this made the monster part of the story seem a little overlooked? Not that this was a bad thing just there was SO MUCH going on!

Furthermore, I was reading this at an off time for me personally (it’s why I didn’t get through the ARC in time) so I think my mood definitely had an impact on my overall enjoyment but like I mentioned before this book was fantastic and I really didn’t want it to end.

Speaking of which, bittersweet though it was I don’t think we could have asked for a more perfect conclusion to this duology. I look forward to my heart being broken again in the next adventure Chloe Gong has in store for us.
Final Rating – 4.25/5 Stars 
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