With Juliette’s hatred for Roma still as fresh as ever, you can see why this might be a challenging task. (Oh and if it wasn’t obvious enough, Roma and Juliette used to love each other at ages 15, up until Roma’s betrayal wounded Juliette greatly.) Now they’re enemies and need to come together to defeat a common enemy - a monster that lies in the depths of the Huangpu river and has been terrorizing Shanghai. The rivalry started generations ago, yet the blood they spill from one another today is still just as red. A simple synopsis: Roma and Juliette are heirs of rival gangs, the Russian White Flowers and the Scarlet Gang of Shanghai respectively. Let us start then, chronologically of course, and just a little warning there will be minor spoilers in this review. This book is the first in an incomplete duology and it was absolutely… Well, you should read this (remarkable) review to find out. Full of history, action, and romance, These Violent Delights is four hundred and fifty pages of fun with a lot of very eerie parallels to the world we are living in right now.Hello! Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my remarkable review on Chloe Gong’s debut novel: These violent delights. Her take is an entertaining and thought-provoking update that features a meticulously-crafted setting and a lovable and diverse cast of characters. Author Chloe Gong based the story on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it is.

But when a mysterious and deathly pandemic takes Shanghai by surprise, they choose to set aside their differences in order to save their beloved city. Though their families have warred for decades, Juliette and Roma were lovers until a painful rift tore them apart years ago. Then there’s Roma, son of the rival gang, the White Flowers. There’s Juliette, returned from abroad to reclaim her place as eventual leader of the Scarlet Gang (a criminal enterprise run by her family). This buzzy YA novel set in 1920s-era Shanghai is actually about two heroes. When I first picked up this book I thought, this is wild, and then I couldn’t put it down for 3 days. The stories and the worlds can vary widely-from The Lord of the Rings-style epics to dragons fighting in the sky-but each time, without fail, you’ll find a classic tale of a young, untested hero fighting forces of evil and maybe finding love along the way. I’ve always been the kind of person who roots for the underdog, which is one reason why I love young adult fantasy books so much.

These violent delights review