Our Violent Ends: #1 New York Times Bestseller! (These Violent Delights)

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Some kissing, caressing, and undressing. Having sex once is implied but not directly narrated. No sensitive body parts mentioned. Relax,” Juliette whispered. “What you’re about to watch came directly from its premiere in Manhattan. Quality entertainment.”

Compare strife and tragedy across social classes. Would a laborer working in a factory for sixteen hours a day have time to duel like Roma and Tyler? How would the story change if the main characters were poor? How does Juliette’s loyalty to “her city, her gang, her family” change across both books? What do you think is more important: loyalty or survival? Explain your answers.Set in 1920s Shanghai, this atmospheric and intricate Romeo and Juliet–inspired duology follows eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, who has returned from studying in America to claim her rightful place as heir to the Scarlet Gang, a local Chinese criminal network. Four years earlier, her first love, Roma Montagov, heir to the White Flowers, a Russian rival gang, committed a betrayal so deep that the ripples of vengeance still move across the city. What else could she expect from a blood feud motivated by loyalty and violence? Before she can enact her revenge, a monster ravages the city, spreading a contagion that causes murderous madness and that targets both the Scarlets and the White Flowers. On top of the pandemic, political turmoil threatens to rip the city apart and end gangster rule. As a foreign imperialist presence grows, so does the threat of civil war, spurred by both the Nationalist Party and the Communists stoking the embers of revolution among the working class, who are tired of warlord control. Juliette and Roma realize working together may be their only chance for salvation. Of course it was hard for him to hurt her now. It went against every fiber of his being. Every cell, every nerve—they had grown into place with one mantra: protect her, protect her.” Unfortunately, the two are going to have to set their differences aside once again. A new threat is emerging in their city. Between the monsters and the political upheaval, the heirs to Shanghai’s biggest rival gangs may be so distracted that they forget they’re supposed to be enemies. Content warnings

He thought her a monster. He thought she had hated him the whole time, so viciously that she would destroy everything he loved, and he had to think that if he was to keep his life. Juliette refused to drag him down just because she was weak-willed.Shanghai is described as “the Paris of the East, the New York of the West.” Using examples from the text, describe how white, foreign influences shaped Shanghai as compared to the other cities in China that the characters visit. How does Shanghai’s unique culture impact how its inhabitants view themselves? What about the Chinese characters who lived in the West, like Juliette, Kathleen, and Rosalind? Our Violent Ends, by Chloe Gong, is the sequel to These Violent Delights. As such, spoilers for These Violent Delights are pretty much unavoidable! But, as usual, this review will be spoiler-free for Our Violent Ends. At first I thought Our Violent Ends was going to reset us to square one Juliette considers the racism she experienced in America and Shanghai due to colonizers. “They believed themselves the rulers of the world—on stolen land in America, on stolen land in Shanghai. Everywhere they went— entitlement. And Juliette was so tired.” Do you think entitlement fuels racism, imperialism, and colonization? Explain your answer. Give examples of how these systems of oppression exist today.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close For those who have read or seen Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, characters and specific scenes from Gong’s adaptation will seem familiar. Choose a character, whether they exist in the original play or not, and create a character map that shows their character development and personality. If they’re a character that appears in the play, consider the differences and similarities. What catalysts propel their story across both books? What are the points of no return? You can create your map as a time line, an aesthetic board or video, a series of tweets, diary entries, or something else. Be prepared to present your map to the class, including a rationale on why you chose to represent it the way you did. Dumb book with a very predictable storyline. Common sense forgot to review in the sex/romance section that there is kissing between characters of the same sex. Unless you want your kids exposed to that, don't read this book. All in all, really not a good story. Juliette gritted her teeth hard. She wondered if her tone still fooled anyone. In New York, she had been so good at lying, so good at playing pretend as an utterly different person. These last months had been wearing her down until there was nothing left of her but… her. I know you’re joking,” Juliette muttered, “but you might be right.” She pressed her pistol into her cousin’s hand and took off, calling over her shoulder, “Talk to the merchant for me! Merci!”

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close Some of the characters around Roma and Juliette seemed not to be handled as well. The main one who felt off to me, particularly compared to the first book, was Rosalind. I felt like her character was all over the place, and the way she behaved towards Kathleen and Juliette was inconsistent. She seemed to be building up to some kind of conflict with them in book one, and this felt like it vanished into thin air in Our Violent Ends. The plot is a tangled, complex beast What could possibly be more important than this?” Kathleen asked. They took their seats: the front-most row by the second-level railing, a perfect view of both the screen and all the people beneath. “Staring angrily at your bedroom wall, as you have been doing these few months?” I made a vow to you, Roma.’ She took a step forward. No one stopped her. ‘Where you go, I go. I will not bear a day parted. I will take a dagger to my own heart if I must.” The main thing keeping Roma and Juliette apart is this deception, Juliette refusing to tell him that she saved Marshall. Given that this sort of thing normally annoys me, I actually thought Chloe Gong did a great job in Our Violent Ends to make that feel reasonable. Juliette isn’t just being overdramatic; she has good reasons to keep this secret.