Book Review | Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong

dum dum dum dum….

The one sequel that REALLY made me feel destroyed like all those bibliophiles talk about.

Our Violent Ends (These Violent Delights, #2)

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

CONTENT WARNINGS: This book contains mentions and descriptions of blood, violence, gore, character deaths, murder, weapon use, insects, alcohol consumption, parental abuse.

Our Violent Ends. What can I say? I’m obsessed with this duology. I should’ve know, how this would end, some part of me probably did know, but I was still spamming my boyfriend with texts of ‘NOOOOOOO’, ‘IT CAN’T END HEREEEE’, ‘I NEED MORE’ , ‘I HATE BOOKS’.

Took me quite a while to calm down. It’s now been 3 days, since I finished OVE and I haven’t read a single book. I have arcs and buddy reads to do, but I just can’t. Looking for Roma, Juliette, Benedikt, Marshall and Alina in every meme, video, edit, anything I can get my hands on, has kept me occupied. I just can’t get enough of this book!

Our Violent Ends will take you on a ride wilder than the wildest ride out there. It will make you annoyed at the characters, scream at them, anticipate EVERYTHING, scan the chapters for clues and just gradually lose your mind.

What I liked the most about this duology, was by far the side characters. In so many books side characters remain unexplained. Everyone in OVE had their own story. There’s drama, romance, suspense, nervous tension, action, murder and SO MUCH MORE.

Just like The Violent Delights.

Tyler. Juliette’s cousin. Now I won’t give you any spoilers, but Tyler was a fantastic addition to the story. I wanted to kill him, yet I know if the story was told from his point of view, I would’ve been rooting for him. Morally grey characters. Chloe Gong, the way she writes, makes characters seem all the more human. Nobody is completely truly ‘perfect’ and that’s something I liked about the book.

The tension, the forbidden romance, the monsters of Shanghai which are no longer mythical. Read it for the plot, for the side characters, for the city above the sea, that will never be the same.