#i feel you gong. my nerdy unwarranted criticisms are indeed nerdy and unwarranted

[cto10121]

Our Violent Ends (2021)—Review Part 3 + Conclusion

In which I finally get the Shanghainese politics straight, Kathleen becomes Celia out of nowhere, the Capulets Capulet too late, Roma and Juliette finally R&J nicely, Marshall/Benedikt are still not fully shippable, and Gong has the ovaries for a spectacular, apropos…perhaps not entirely earned ending. Spoilers, of course

“We listened to the modern age and never thought to control what you do,” Lord Cai said then, finally choosing to speak. His words were a low rumble that gave everything in the room a telltale tremor. “I see that it was our mistake.” (452)

A mistake their (frankly dumber) Shakespearean counterparts at least never made. I know why Gong decided against the whole sheltered!Juliet context of the original—namely because Strong Female Protagonists(tm) aka Macho Girl Jerks are now requisite in YA regardless if they are truly needed—but you lose a lot of what made the tragedy of the original work if Juliet is allowed to do whatever tf she wants and the parents get a case of Disappearing YA Parents syndrome. You also lose a good chance to criticize the male chauvinism and machismo that fuels and that is the basis for the violence.

Juliette choked out a laugh. “Do you think any of this would have turned out better if you had kept me trapped in the house? Do you think I would have never learned defiance if you had kept me in Shanghai all these years, educated only by Chinese scholars and their ancient teachings?” […] “I would have ended up the same. We are all held up on the city’s strings, and perhaps you should first ask why we have a blood feud before asking why I defied it!” (452)

Aaaaaaaand Juliette’s being educated in the States in the context of a critique on Western imperialism of a Chinese city still continues to bother me. I mean, Juliette can make it, sure. Perhaps she’s in a better position to make it, what with her knowing two cultures. But this Juliette carping on the white guys coming in and trying to buy the city while acting like the typical American brat just undermines the critique to me. Juliette herself never is self-aware about the advantages or the disadvantages of her own multiculturalism.

“Ask her. Ask Juliette what she did to Tyler.”

Utter silence descended on the room…Suddenly his refusal to bring her in on Scarlet planning made sense. Shutting her out of the Nationalist meetings made sense. How long had her father known? How long had he known she was a traitor and kept her here anyway, let her pretend that everything was normal? (455)

Beats me, too. How did they pass off Juliette’s murder of Tyler? Either I must have missed the conversation or Gong just decided to gloss over the cover up.

“Why must we remain enemies with the Montagovs when nobody remembers why?”

And yet wasn’t that the root of all hatred? Wasn’t that what made it so vicious?

There was never a reason. Never a good one. Never a fair one. (457).

Gong gets that right, at least.

The footsteps faded entirely. Only then did Juliette crumple into a ball, squeezing herself as small as she could upon the carpet, and let herself cry, let herself rage and scream into her hands. For the city, for the dead, for the blood that ran in rivers on the streets. For this cursed family, for her cousins.

For Roma. (457-458)

Per Roma, salve Roma, ciao Roma…*puts on sunglasses* Arrivederci Roma?

Let her drop an explosive to her bedroom floor, and it would send down a direct blast, strike all the people in the living room. Juliette felt a rush of loathing take root in her. She condemned the city for its hate. She condemned her parents, her gangs…But she was equally terrible. (460).

The first step is always acceptance. Seriously, though, WTF? She’d be condemning herself to death as well! And without Roma! Why must Juliette be the one to continuously lose braincells in these damn YA adaptations?

“I ruined us all for a love not true,” Rosalind whispered. “At the very least, I can still save you.” (472)

And now out of nowhere Rosalind regrets her liaison with Dimitri, the one who spread the monster virus (?). When did this even happen?

Juliette had wanted to be selfish, had wanted to run. But this was their love—violent and bloody. This city was their love. They couldn’t deny their upbringing as the heirs of Shanghai, as two pieces of a throne. What was left of their love if they rejected that? How could they live with themselves, look at each other, knowing they had been presented a choice and gone against who they were at their core? (484).

Dude. No. Run! Definitely run! This Shanghai makes RésJ!Verona look like a kindergarten sandbox fight! You two are sophisticated hot wealthy multilingual scions, and half of you already knows about life elsewhere! Come up with some contrivance in which you have to stay in the city, sure, but don’t give me this “Gosh darn it, I love this hellhole” crap. The original R&J may have decided to separate, but then Shakespeare!Verona was nowhere near as crappy. And when push came to shove re: Paris, Juliet accepted the necessity of fleeing with Romeo.

With her other hand, Juliette flipped open the lighter. She met Roma’s eyes, asked him in silence one last time if they were truly to do this. He showed no fear. He was gazing at her as one would gaze out into the sea, like she was this vast, momentous wonder that he was glad simply to bear witness upon. (486).

Don’t mind me, just basking in this novel’s (1) braincell about Roma’s love for Juliette. Ahhh, so good.

Behind them, with gasoline drenched into every square inch of the pavement, the explosion rang so loud and hot that all of Shanghai rocked with the blow. (487).

GONG FUCKING DID IT, Y’All. SHE WENT THERE. WHAT OVARIES OF STEEL. 100,000 POINTS TO FUCKING GRYFFINDOR.

That said. In a way, isn’t it a little unearned? This R&J has been growling fuck-you enemies for half the book and dewy-eyed let’s-pinkie-swear-and-get-“married” for the last quarter. If R&J had spent more time struggling to be together and less time on misunderstandings that get resolved quickly anyway, it may have been worth it. Also, if Gong had not decided to gumbo-soup the novel with, what, 2 other star-crossed couples, wishy-washy politics, and magic realist BS.

There will be hatred. There will be war. The country will fight itself to pieces. It will starve its people, ravage its land, poison its breath. Shanghai will fall and break and cry. But alongside everything, there has to be love—eternal, undying, enduring. Burn through vengeance and terror and warfare. Burn through everything that fuels the human heart and sears it red, burn through everything that covers the outside with hard muscle and tough sinew. Cut down deep and grab what beats beneath, and it is love that will survive after everything else has perished. (494).

Well-worded (except for the “and cry” bit. “Weep” would have been a more dignified word choice) and almost apropos if she hadn’t killed of her R&J. Love did not survive in that sense.

But with that, our tale ends! Arrivederci Roma…and Juliette.

BONUS: Gong included a little story on Marshall/Benedikt for the B&N edition. I decided to go ahead and review that too.

“I saw Roma leave only earlier,” Marshall said. “Right out into the rain without a care in the world.”

“Roma is a lost cause when it comes to making sensible decisions,” Benedikt countered. (504).

Oh, no, you don’t, Benedikt “Screw my reasonable pacifist Shakespearean counterpart, I go pew pew too” Montagov! Roma does have some one-braincell moments, mostly when he thinks Juliette killed Marshall and when she pretended to be dead, but oddly enough, they actually feel OOC for him…which actually would make him in-character with Shakespeare!Romeo? Ugh, it’s weird.

“If anyone asks”—Marshall’s eyes flickered to meet his—“I did it. I beat them up.”

“What? It’s fine—”

“No, it’s not. You are a Montagov. Keep your unruffled reputation. Let me be the fighting fists, let me be the one that does your dirty work.” (521)

Aaaaaaaaand once again the Benvolio analogue is the one portrayed as secretly trigger-happy violent while the Mercutio analogue gets all the sweet, easygoing charm. Kill this with fire.

Conclusion

Review also available here, if cleaned up.

Like most sequels, this is pretty much a copy of the first book. You get an initially enemies-to-lovers R&J with UST who have to work together against a bigger threat and then they stay overnight at a brothel (they don’t do anything this time, though), political factions and alliances shift and change and fuck the city up, and magic realist monsters pop up to wreak havoc. The only difference is that this time the minor characters are less two-dimensional ciphers, Marshall/Benedikt is developed better (but still mega forced), and I can finally tell the difference between Rosalind and Kathleen/Celia a tiny bit more than the first book. R&J’s dynamic is also better portrayed once they get out of their YA UST rut. I finally understand in this book that the Scarlets are meant to be aligned with the Nationalists and the White Flowers with the Communists.

That said, as a retelling it can’t help but feel unsatisfying. Juliette has typical YA Strong Female Protagonist Syndrome out the wazoo and while Roma finally gets his Shakespearean backbone in the sequel, he is still more auxiliary than equal partner to Juliette. The Shanghaiese politics continue to be wishy-washy and riddling, and the magic realist monster thing? Should never have happened. As Gong’s hypothetical editor, I would have put that first on the list to go. Another would have been a choice between the gang warfare angle or Nationalist/Communist/Western imperialist power struggle angle as the feud. But both is way too much.

As it is, Gong’s novel becomes a gumbo soup of too many ideas, too many plots, period. Two star-crossed lovers would have been quite enough, with Marshall/Benedikt forming the B plot, but there really should only have been one. Marshall/Benedikt are different enough from their Shakespearean counterparts to make a romance plausible, thank goodness, but their riddling, hazy characterization makes it really hard to be invested in. R&J suffer from contradictory characterization and start-and-stop development as well, with a couple of nicely written insightful lines.

Above all, though, this series is mired by the truly relentless and unearned thematic link between love and violence Gong establishes early on. R&J’s love really has nothing to do with the feud, but here Gong blends the lines like a sexually frustrated Catholic Tomist. One of my pet peeves is linking (consensual, requited) eros and violence, and I am not impressed. At least Hungarian RetJ had Rómeó and Júlia in their happy little world that did not really touch on the feud. At least WSS’s Tony and Maria were distant from that mess, with only ex-gangster Tony getting roped in. Here R&J are very much active participants in the very thing that makes them impossible to get together. Hence the vacillating they-are-my-enemy-no-they are-my-love wangst. For almost 500 pages. -.- No. Just no.

(Also. The whole everyone-knows-about-R&J thing is really done better in the French musical. Here it just sucks out all the tension and secrecy and mystery out of the relationship, as well as leaving major plot holes. How the hell can the Cais and Montagovs not know about R&J already what with Juliette failing to kill Roma and killing Tyler instead? It’s a Presgurvic-only thing, I guess.)

In sum, I suppose this is what you get when you try to fit an R&J-shaped story in a YA enemies-to-lovers peg. A mess, but an entertaining one. I’ll just stick to my Shakespearean nyases.