Juliette and Roma frequently refer to “the city” personified as if the place is what causes violence and not people’s actions. What do you think about this? Choose a chapter and rewrite it from the city’s perspective. Families can talk about the violence in Our Violent Ends. How much is too much? Is reading about it different from seeing it in movies, videos, or games? It didn’t take long though to see that the book was building on These Violent Delights in some interesting ways. Both Roma and Juliette have been changed by the events of the first book Roma is furious with Juliette. He may still love her, but he hates her just as much. If killing her is the only way to start healing from her betrayal, he knows that’s what he must steel himself to do.

Our Violent Ends is the second book in the These Violent Delights series, written by Chloe Gong. It was published November 16th, 2021 by Margaret K. McElderry Books. I will fight this war to love you, Juliette Cai. I will fight this feud to have you, because it was this feud that gave you to me, twisted as it is, and now I will take you away from it.” They speak of Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai as the ones who dared to dream. And for that, in a city consumed by nightmares, they were cut down without mercy.” Guide written by Cynthia Medrano, Digital Services Librarian at Heartland Community College, and member of the 2022 Rise: A Feminist Book Project Committee.Characters represent a diverse group, mostly from mainland China and several European countries. A positive representation of a same-sex romance. Consider the main couples and their race, gender, and sexuality. What obstacles might they face (outside of a blood feud) to be together? Have you or anyone you know dated someone family or society did not approve of? What role should family and/or society play in the person you choose to be in a relationship with? After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on a mission. 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. Personally, I’d have liked to see more emphasis on the traitor storyline and less on the main characters’ relationship to the political side of things. I know not everyone will agree with me on this! But although I thought the citywide tensions helped to add texture to the plot and were interesting in abstract, I thought they overcomplicated the central story. Bringing the hunt for the spy forward in place of the more large-scale political side of things would, I think, have helped to keep the stakes more personal. I enjoyed Our Violent Ends, possibly even more than These Violent Delights

She’s also much clearer on her feelings about Roma, which made for one of the crucial changes to the romance dynamic. Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide. Get started Close Words and phrases in Chinese using pinyin, French, and Russian, some with context clues, may inspire readers look them up. The setting gives readers a sense of the political and social atmosphere in Shanghai in the mid-1920s, when Communist and Nationalist factions fighting for control of the government led to the Shanghai massacre and Chinese Civil War. A nightclub setting with mention that excessive drinking is a pastime. Alcohol flows at a dinner meeting. Customers drink at a dance hall. Mention that a gang trades in opium. Cigar and cigarette smoke mentioned. It was Juliette who had escalated the feud, who had pulled the trigger on Marshall Seo and told Roma to his face that whatever happened between them had been nothing but a lie. So now all the blood left in his wake was his revenge.Who in the world doesn’t know how Romeo & Juliet ends? And if you do, then the ending – Roma and Juliette’s final decision – comes as no surprise. The effort was so forceful that Juliette tasted blood inside her lip, sliced by her own sharp teeth. She stifled a gasp and then another when Roma’s hand tightened around her throat, his eyes murderous. Roma] ached with the knowledge that the softness of their youth was gone forever . . .” What is meant by this? When do you think people realize they are no longer children? Does everyone grow up at the same rate? Why or why not? What does “growing up” mean to you? 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 Did you like the way the story blends different elements like romance, fantasy, and historical fiction? Why, or why not?