Delightfully Disturbing Details: A Review of These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

Hello, Book Nerds! Welcome back to Reading Has Ruined My Life or welcome if you are new. As always, my name is Hannah and I am your captain on this journey into my bookcases.

With the end of Spooky Season comes the end of spooky reads here on RHRML. For a little while at least. It’s time once again to shake things up. We will not be talking about horror this week. Not straight up horror. There are some horror elements in this book, but today’s review will be on a book that blends many different genres. We’ve got romance, we’ve got a mystery, we’ve got historical fiction; hell, we’ve got a retelling of Romeo and Juliet today, and possibly science fiction? There’s lots of good things to talk about this afternoon. So what am I reviewing?

Please give a warm welcome to These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong!

As always, a spoiler alert is in order. If you’ve read any other review on this site then you will know I simply love to spoil the entirety of the books I read. This is your one and only warning. I also have a quick content and trigger warning to give. These Violent Delights deals heavily with self-harm as one of the main plot points is the public losing their minds, harming themselves, and essentially committing suicide. These Violent Delights also has mentions of physical and mental abuse, drug addiction, transphobia, and racism. There is a lot going on in this one so please check other content and triggers warnings as I have likely missed some things. Also, please take care while reading if any of these topics are triggering to you in anyway. These topics are all relevant to the plot and characters, and they cannot be avoided in this read; please take care. With that, let’s get to the synopsis.

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Shanghai, where we lay our scene. The year is 1926, Juliette Cai, the proud princess and heir of the Scarlet Gang, is back home and ready to see the Scarlet Gang as the undisputed rulers of the city once again. This means taking out the only other gang in power: the White Flowers. The Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers have been fighting for generations, and by the time of our story, there obviously must be a pair of star-crossed lovers.

This ain't Romeo and Juliet without a pair of star-crossed lovers.

Enter Roma Montagov: Juliette’s first love and the heir to the White Flowers. With Juliette’s return to Shanghai, Roma has been following her every move; not in a weird, stalker-y way, but in a “I must keep tabs on my enemies” kind of way. Then members of both gangs begin violently killing themselves. Soldiers on both sides begin ripping their throats out. With these deaths, everyone in the city begins to gossip. The rumors of a madness begin to spread. People aren’t ripping their throats out by their own free will, instead a monster lurks in the shadowy alleyways and takes over people’s minds causing them to die at their own hands.

This madness causes Roma and Juliette to team up. They must set their differences aside in order to stop the madness from spreading more than it has. Can they do it? Can they save their families and the city? Will they find out what this madness, this illness, is? What causes it? Who or what unleashed it? And can Juliette forgive Roma for betraying her all those years ago? Find out in These Violent Delights.

I can say with my whole chest that These Violent Delights is a better love story than Romeo and Juliet. But I can also say that Romeo and Juliet reads a lot faster than These Violent Delights. We’re going to start today’s review with the novel’s pacing. This is a very slow paced read with a slow paced enemies-to-lovers romance. Despite what you may think, dear reader, this very much works in the book’s favor. These Violent Delights could have worked as a fast paced read, but the slow pace allows the story to take its time. It allows readers to theorize who is behind the disgusting bug monster. There’s time for there to be more twists and turns. While a fast pace still would have been fun with action happening on every page, I do believe the slow pace works in the book’s favor as this book isn’t necessarily about action, it's more so about the main characters outsmarting their enemies. But be prepared to take a long time reading this one. It took me well over a week to get through, and I am kind of mad about that. Only because this read slowed my 2025 reading goal's progress tremendously. But listen, it's not bad, it’s just a slow read.

That being said, Chloe Gong has far too much going on at times. For instance, the amount of feuding entities is too large. You not only have the White Flowers and Scarlet Gang fighting, but you also have communists, the French, British, and Americans all fighting for control in Shanghai. It’s too much! It’s far too easy to forget which entity is plotting what, and at this point I’m too scared to ask what the plans are. These Violent Delights is a thick book. At some point during the editing process, someone should have jumped in and insisted on streamlining the story. There is no need to have that many warring factions. Ninety percent of them could have been cut and the main story wouldn’t change. So while the slow pacing works, it’s important to remember that less is more at times.

It does help that These Violent Delights has some of the most beautiful prose that I’ve read in a while. Seriously, Chloe Gong knocks it out of the park with her writing. There is so much rich detail on every single page. I found myself in the dark, seedy alleyways of Shanghai, I found myself on the cold docks, I too was there in dangerous nightclubs and speakeasies; the details are so beautiful. Not to mention, I too had to endure the madness/illness spreading through the city. My skin was crawling thanks to the bug monster. I was scratching every single exposed piece of skin on my body thanks to the creature Chloe Gong depicted. I will be having nightmares about it for a while.

Applause for the details in These Violent Delights.

Listen, despite hating the amount of time it took me to read These Violent Delights, and the fact the story could have been heavily whittled down, I did enjoy this read. I looked forward to picking the book up after working all day. I found the story enjoyable and the prose was beautiful. But overall this is a fairly average read. Nothing in it blew my mind. 

With that, I shall bid you all adieu. Thank you very much for joining me today, Book Nerds. I hope you had a marvelous time here. I will see you all again next week with a fun new post. If you can’t wait that long then I highly suggest giving Reading Has Ruined My Life a follow over on Instagram (@ReadingHasRuinedMyLife). I post there almost daily so come back often to revel in literary goodness. You can also follow the blog on Twitter and BlueSky (@RHRMLBlog). If you want something not related to books then you should check out my podcast Nothing to See Hear. It stars me and two of my dearest friends as we talk about everything and anything. This week I highly recommend Frankie’s series about WCW Monday Nitro. He has been torturing me and our other co-star Amanda by forcing us to watch bad 90’s wrestling. You can listen to the show on Spotify and YouTube.

With that, stay safe, wash your hands, and read some good books for me.

See y'all then, bye!