Genre: YA Historical Fantasy Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Okay, so if you didn’t read my review of These Violent Delights, I recommend reading that first, and also don’t read this review if you don’t want to be spoiled for book 1! If you didn’t already know, I was not a big fan of These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong, but the plot was interesting enough that I wanted to know what happened, so I did end up reading Our Violent Ends in December. As a whole, I enjoyed book 2 way more than book 1!
Our Violent Ends picks up roughly where we left off in These Violent Delights: The threat of monsters looms over the city, Roma hates Juliette again because she “killed” Marshall, and Juliette is keeping Marshall hidden in a safe house after faking his death.
I think the main aspect that improved my opinion of the duology is that Our Violent Ends was more face paced and action packed in my opinion. The first book felt like I read 350 pages waiting for something to happen, but events start unfolding quickly in book 2.
Additionally, I really liked the whole purposeful misunderstanding surrounding Marshall. Many YA books become annoying when one character is unnecessarily keeping a secret from others that could literally solve all the problems in the book if they were just honest. However, this deceit was clever because it was truly necessary to protect Juliette from Tyler, and telling the truth wouldn’t have solved the whole monster ordeal.
Finally, I must admit that I was glad to have less bugs mentioned in this book. I wouldn’t say that I have a phobia or anything, but I certainly found myself scratching my head during book 1. The monsters kind of evolve in book 2, and I appreciated that turn in events.
Overall, Our Violent Ends sincerely redeemed my opinion of the duology. If I were to based my opinion solely off of book 1, I probably wouldn’t read anything else by Chloe Gong, but after reading book 2, I’m curious to see what else she will create!
The Biased Bibliophile 