Mar 29, 2022
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong is a teen fiction book but is a retelling of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The book follows Roma Montagov and Juliet Cai, the two heirs of the most fearsome gangs in 1926 Shanghai. It follows them in both the present and the past as the two struggle with their romantic relationship, as well as the threat of a monster lurking the streets. I personally loved this book; its plot, characters, and the world itself. It takes Romeo and Juliet’s main plot points and changes them to the gangs of 1926 Shanghai while maintaining the integrity of the original story. The modern elements of the characters that are included in the book were done in a way that showed meaningful representation.