Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
CRB Bingo Square “I”. When you know a book has a big huge twist in it, do you try to figure out what it is? I had read that there’s a big twist at the end of Chloe Gong’s Immortal Longings, and even though the book did a good job of setting it up, I was very surprised. So then I thought about what kind of reader I am in general, and I would say I tend to just read and let the plot wash […]
These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
There were things I liked about this book (the fashion! the sombre realities of colonialism!) but they were largely outweighed by clunky writing that’s simultaneously too verbose and too brief. Not to malign youth, but I upon reaching the author bio and seeing that Gong is currently a student at UPenn I definitely had a moment of “ah, yes, makes sense.” These Violent Delights is not, as I initially thought, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet in 1920s Shanghai. It’s obviously not not that (all the characters make an […]
