“West Side Story meets Fists of Fury.”
Australian-born-and-raised, American-educated, ethnically Chinese author Chloe Gong became a social media sensation with her TikToks drumming up anticipation for her YA historical fantasy debut, These Violent Delights. With a title taken from a line in Shakespeare, it should come as no surprise that Simon and Schuster marketed the novel as a reimagining Romeo and Juliet set in 1926 Shanghai.
It should also come as no surprise that Gong’s TikTok platform vaulted her book into the NYT Bestseller List, currently with nearly 40,000 Goodreads reviews with an average rating of 4.0. After reading the book, I am here to say it’s an excellent story, and These Violent Delights’ success is much deserved.
BUT…
I would never use Romeo and Juliet to describe it.
Instead of rival merchant families, the story revolves around two warring criminal enterprises: the Chinese Scarlet Gang, and the Russian White Flowers. With underlying themes of immigration and colonization, it’s more akin to West Side Story.
Daughter of the head of the Scarlet Gang, Juliet Cai, has just returned to Roaring ‘20s Shanghai after a betrayal four years prior sent her to the New York. Her Romeo is Roma Montagov, son of the White Flowers’ leader. Before she left Shanghai, the two had shared a forbidden teenage romance.
Had the story taken place then, the comparison to Shakespeare’s work might be warranted. Now, though, Juliet hates Roma. She’s tough and clever, so unlike her insipid Capulet namesake. Her badassery makes her more like Chen Zhen, Bruce Lee’s character in Fists of Fury. Chen Zhen returns to 1930’s Shanghai from abroad, and immediately goes to fight the Japanese martial arts school that killed his master.
Though Fists of Fury is set in the next decade, it shares many of the same themes as These Violent Delights: foreign colonizers imposing their will on the Chinese in China, and the impact on the national psyche.
Given Gong’s story takes place earlier, it also intersects with pivotal events in Chinese history. There was a sizable white Russian population in Shanghai who had escaped the Bolshevik Revolution. Furthermore, at the time, the Chinese Communists were starting to gain power, and would soon ally with the Nationalists in the Northern Expedition to reunite North and South China—only to be massacred by the Green Gang in Shanghai.
Gong hints at these events without going in depth; and if I have one complaint about the story, it is since it is set in an important place and time, she could have actually used the Green Gang instead of a fictional group. In addition, a cursory internet search shows that Russians expatriates in Shanghai suffered from poverty and exploitation at the hands of other European powers, and I would have liked to see their plight illustrated more.
The plot, itself, moves at a breakneck pace: a mysterious disease is spreading through the city, with Scarlet Gang and White Flower members being among the first victims. Juliet must set aside her burning hatred for Roma in order to uncover the source—and it makes for quite a wild ride with fantastical elements.
There are several other viewpoint characters who help propel the story along and fill in more details. Each feels fleshed out and real, with backstory contributing to motivations and goals. The writing works well for a YA novel, eschewing ostentatious floweriness for straightforward prose that have moments of lyrical beauty. Poetic metaphors and similes evoke images and stir the imagination without being complicated.
I rate These Violent Delights an 8.75 out of 10 stars.
Julia Kitvaria Sarene