"They have always said that Shanghai is an ugly daughter, but as the years grow on, it isn’t enough anymore to characterize this city as merely one entity. This place rumbles on Western idealism and Eastern labor, hateful of its split and unable to function without it, multiple facets fighting and grappling in an ever-constant quarrel. Half filthy rich, half dirt poor; half land, half water flowing in from the East China Sea.
That is what this city is. The party at the end of the world."

This was a wonderful re-imagining of Romeo and Juliet's story! Being a fan of Shakespeare and having read and loved his play, I knew what to expect in broad lines, but I was absolutely not prepared for how much more exciting and high-stakes this felt!!

What stood out to me with this book was Shanghai's story and its development. The terror that sweeps over the city with the apparition of the monster (and with the already existing tensions at an all time high making it all even worse) is palpable.

Chloe does such an amazing job at telling history through a fantasy lens, as Shanghai really was as divided and in danger as we feel it to be in this book. I regrettably don’t know much, if anything, about Chinese history, but it was all explained and presented so well that you couldn’t help but feel that push and pull, that overwhelming desire to mediate between East and West, between traditional values and modernity. It really was beautifully done!

Of course, as I always do, I fell in love with the characters as well. Juliette is the most badass, take-no-shit heroine that I could wish for, and Roma completes her perfectly. It’s not often that the woman is the grump and the man is the sunshine (or, at least, as sunshine as the leader of a gang can get), but I enjoyed every second of their banter and their tension. It’s all about the yearning!!!

Also, we need to talk about one mister Marshall Seo, because he has completely stolen my heart, and I am SO beyond glad that we get to see more of him (and him and Benedikt)!! If you’ve also read Romeo and Juliet, you know full well what happens to Mercutio, and so the threat of that was a constant thought in the back of my mind as soon as I realized who he was supposed to embody in the retelling. SO happy that the original "death potion" was used so differently and cleverly here!

I will say, the beginning of this was a bit slow for me - but I can't attribute that to the book itself, as I've had a bad brain... weeks, month, really. So everything was harder for me to do. All I want from a series, though, is that I want to continue it immediately - and BOY DO I WANT TO GO READ "OUR VIOLENT ENDS" LIKE, NOW, RIGHT NOW!!!!!