ARC Review: Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights #2) by Chloe Gong

Posted November 15, 2021 by Lisa Mandina in Review / 7 Comments

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

ARC Review:  Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights #2) by Chloe GongOur Violent Ends by Chloe Gong
Series: These Violent Delights #2
Published by Hodder & Stoughton on November 16, 2021
Genres: YA Historical Fiction, YA Horror, YA Retelling
Pages: 494
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating: five-stars
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Synopsis:

Shanghai is under siege in this captivating and searingly romantic sequel to These Violent Delights, which New York Times bestselling author Natasha Ngan calls “deliciously dark.”

The year is 1927, and Shanghai teeters on the edge of revolution.

After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on the warpath. One wrong move, and her cousin will step in to usurp her place as the Scarlet Gang’s heir. The only way to save the boy she loves from the wrath of the Scarlets is to have him want her dead for murdering his best friend in cold blood. If Juliette were actually guilty of the crime Roma believes she committed, his rejection might sting less.

Roma is still reeling from Marshall’s death, and his cousin Benedikt will barely speak to him. Roma knows it’s his fault for letting the ruthless Juliette back into his life, and he’s determined to set things right—even if that means killing the girl he hates and loves with equal measure.

Then a new monstrous danger emerges in the city, and though secrets keep them apart, Juliette must secure Roma’s cooperation if they are to end this threat once and for all. Shanghai is already at a boiling point: The Nationalists are marching in, whispers of civil war brew louder every day, and gangster rule faces complete annihilation. Roma and Juliette must put aside their differences to combat monsters and politics, but they aren’t prepared for the biggest threat of all: protecting their hearts from each other.

My Review:

In a way I think I enjoyed this one even more than the first book, These Violent Delights. If I remember right, it took a bit to get into the story and the monster with the first book. But this one maybe because we had all that and I needed to know what was happening now that the man who had controlled the monster was gone, I was able to dive right back in. And this is a long book, as the first was, but it flew by every time I picked it up to read. I could barely put it down.

In this second book, the historical time we were in almost became more of the story and the monster was a little less important. Even though every time one of the now 5 monsters showed up it was a horrible scene for those who were stuck in the path. And honestly, once again, as with the first book, I really enjoyed the historical aspect. It isn’t a time period or at least not in that location, that I know that much about. So I always find books that teach me about history I haven’t learned to be some of my favorites.

Of course I also loved the Romeo and Juliet retelling aspect of the story. I actually really liked the way the author re-did some of the details of the story. Making us think that our star-crossed lovers might actually get a happy ending, that the suicide of this Juliet might not be real this time, and they might get to live on. And the ending, well I won’t tell you how it goes. You have to read it and decide for yourself about how the author has left our two lovers.

As with the first book, the descriptions of everything were so vivid and really got me into the world I was reading about. Now, usually, I will speed past those types of things in a story just to get to what is actually going on. And there were a few times maybe I did that, but quite often with this book I had to slow down and absorb all of the details so I could picture the scenes to perfection in my head as the author so completely drew a picture with her words.

This is an author I cannot wait to read more of in the future, and will definitely be sharing these books with my students.

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7 responses to “ARC Review: Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights #2) by Chloe Gong

    • Lisa Mandina

      I love them! They are big books though, so yeah, when you have time. I know how that is! I keep seeing books that sound so good, but no time to fit them in right now. Thanks for stopping by!

  1. I had a hard time getting into the first one and I’ve been reading reviews to see if I should check out the second one. This review makes me think I should give it a shot !

    • Lisa Mandina

      I feel like the first one might have taken a bit to get into but then I got hooked and loved it. And this one I loved as well!

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