Book review: These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Image: These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, Hodder & Stoughton (Hachette), 2020. All rights reserved. Cover illustration ⓒ Billelis and design by Sarah Creech. Photograph of book taken by me. Image used on this blog under the “Fair dealing for criticism or review” provision of the Commonwealth Copyright Act, 1968.

I was really looking forward to reading this book. The premise is awesome: Romeo and Juliet but set in 1920s gangland Shanghai, with a monster and mysterious deaths thrown in. How cool is that? Then I got my library copy, all tattoo-like with the black background and the red roses and the blingy dragon and the dagger… I couldn’t wait. Unfortunately, and apologies to anyone who enjoyed it, it’s just not very well written. So, fair warning – I did not finish this book. I only got up to page 67 before I decided not to waste any more time on it. Maybe it improves. I don’t know.

Juliette Cai (Juliet Capulet…) is the 18 year old heir apparent of the Scarlet Gang, a Chinese gang working in Shanghai. Roma Montagov (Romeo Montague…) is the heir to the city’s Russian gang, the White Flowers. They have some sort of romantic past and she feels he betrayed her in some way. Members of their gangs are dying in the same mysterious way – ripping their own throats out – and people keep seeing glimpses of a many-eyed monster in the river. Juliette and Roma will need to work together to solve it.

So, like I said… the premise is fine. The cover is fab. But the writing is clunky. She’s clearly an inexperienced writer, which is fine, but her publishers should have supported her to develop it more before publication.

Anyway, I’m disappointed, but with so many good books in the world and so little time, I just move onto the next.

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Title: These Violent Delights

Author: Chloe Gong

Cover design: cover illustration ⓒ Billelis and design by Sarah Creech

First published: 2020

Genre: reimagined classic, suspense, fantasy, historical fiction

Representation: Chinese and Russian Shanghainese gangsters (main characters)

Suitability: unsure, as didn’t finish reading

Fyi: I didn’t finish this book, but in the beginning chapters there’s violence and references to the drug trade

Themes: family, love, betrayal, colonialism…

NSW syllabus: Ext 1 Related Project or wide reading – but I wouldn’t recommend for either

If you like this, try: The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein by Kiersten White