Book: These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
Read From: 9th August - 12th August 2021
Rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: Shanghai, 1926. A blood feud between the Scarlet gang and the White Flower gang has the city divided. That is, until, a river monster plaguing the city forces Scarlet heir Juliette and White Flower heir Roma to set aside gang politics and work together to save Shanghai.
Wow WHAT A BOOK to kick off our first monthly book club pick over at @fantasyfriendsbookclub! These Violent Delights is relatively popular within the book community and from reading reviews, definitely seems to be a ‘love it or hate it’ marmite book. I can definitely understand the negative reviews, but I absolutely loved it… for the reason most disliked it!
I loved the slow burn, both in terms of the unfolding plot and relationship. Yes, the beginning could be considered slow but I was fully immersed into 1920s Shanghai, the atmosphere was *chefs kiss* and it was so fascinating to learn about the gang culture and politics which were developed so well and revised an amazing set up for the book.
Don’t even get me started on Juliette and Roma, my absolute FAVES serving knife to the throat realness🥵 this was such an awesome enemies to lovers book with the most amazing tension. It was also super interesting to see how much of a role they played in the gangs and how, unlike the original text, it wasn’t a separate story. But it also wasn’t needless! Their relationship and character storylines tied in so well to the plot and I was fully invested.
I could write an essay on this book, I enjoyed it that much. Such a good pick to kick off book club - I will forever be in debt to all of our lovely members for giving me the kick up the butt I needed to buy this and read it because for some unknown reason I just kept putting it off! The wait until November is going to be LONG but I can’t wait to see what goes down in the sequel!