YA Review: Our Violent Ends
Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong (Margaret K. McElderry Books, 512p., ages 13-up, 9781534457720)
Our Violent Ends continues the satisfying, high-stakes tale of forbidden love that began in
These Violent Delights. Chloe Gong brings the duology to a close amid a culture of moral decay and an ever-increasing body count.
This sequel picks up four months after the "monster of Shanghai" was killed, and the madness associated with it has abated. But even as citizens celebrate, the bloody gang war between Scarlets and White Flowers rages on. Confrontations between Communists and Nationalists heat up as well and, in the emerging political landscape, both Scarlets and White Flowers stand to lose all their hard-won power and territories. Scarlet heir Juliette Cai hasn't seen ex-lover and White Flower heir Roma Montagov since she saved his life by pretending to shoot one of his closest friends. In the ensuing months, Roma, certain Juliette betrayed him, has become a bitter, angry killer intent on vengeance. But now the pair must work together again to track down a blackmailer who demands payment in exchange for the city's safety: while only one monster caused chaos and destruction before, "I have five," the blackmailer's note warns. "Do as I say, or everyone dies."
Chloe Gong revisits Romeo and Juliet--"one of Shakespeare's best plays" Gong states in her bio--and sets it in the "uproarious decadence" of an alternate 1920s Shanghai in political and social turmoil. At the heart lies the smoldering romance between Roma and Juliette, which simultaneously threatens to blaze into deadly violence and amorous love at any moment. Against such a ruthless backdrop, with loyalties tested, how can true love possibly win out? --Lynn Becker, reviewer, blogger, and children's book author.
Discover: This sequel to These Violent Delights continues a satisfying, high-stakes tale of forbidden love set amid a culture of extreme decadence and an ever-increasing body count.
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