Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Immortal Longings

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong

41 reviews

liz_cox's review against another edition

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dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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camiclarkbooks's review

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

“Immortal Longings” is very much “Hunger Games” meets “These Violent Delights,” which makes sense since Chloe Gong wrote one of those beloved YA series. Which one? I’ll never tell.

This is Gong’s first foray into the adult novel market and in some ways it shows. The pacing felt slower than in her previous books and the “spice” could have been better integrated, in my opinion.

However, the main characters stayed true to Gong’s signature “Knife Wife” and “Male Wife” pairing. Calla and Anton have tremendous potential and I’m thrilled to see what happens in the sequel!

In all, it was a little heavy on the world building and had long stretches between plot action—although there was plenty of battle action—but has definitely set the stage for a great book two!

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wet_towlette's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Chloe gong really can’t help herself and just has to write the same book over and over again 😭 there’s always a main plot of political unrest and a subplot of culty sciencey murder mystery type shit. And a very tropey romance (but I’m not really complaining about that). It was okay but nothing about it stood out in the way that her some her ya books do

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sydapel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I'm a little surprised with how much I liked this, to be honest. I feel that Chloe Gong is a really young writer, and a lot of the choices she made in the These Violent Delights series reflected that, especially when it came to connecting the characters with their environment. In creating more of her own world of San-Er, it's much easier to see it come alive in all it's capitalist hellscape. Even though most of the book is a set up for a series, there are some really impactful characters and plot points here, especially with the potential to explore themes of greed, revenge and identity. Overall, I wish her writing was more cohesive (found myself skipping past large chunks of descriptions and inner monologue in order to get to the action), but I'm looking forward to the next one!

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mattiedancer's review against another edition

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adventurous dark medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

Writing: 5⭐️/5

I love Chloe Gong’s writing. I think she has immaculate control over her language. I love her descriptions, even when they’re dark or gory. In this novel, her writing really brought the world to life. I felt like I could see the city, see the participants running about, could smell the food and the stink in the alley. I enjoyed reading this novel thoroughly.

Characters: 4.75⭐️/5

Now again, I’m a big Chloe Gong fan, so maybe there’s a bit of bias here, but Gong writes characters incredibly well. Specifically, she writes morally grey characters with pure ease, crafting their motives, their situations, and their desires into the story with ease. I would’ve loved a touch more from our side characters – as well as to not have our background characters feel so background – but these are small gripes.

Plot: 4.5⭐️/5

Alright, Antony and Cleopatra retelling. How does Chloe Gong just reimagine Shakespearean tales in the most interesting way possible? I don’t know, but I do love. The longing, the love, the competition, the forced trust, the game: all of it is so brilliantly written, you can’t help but love it. My only gripe is with the ending, with her twist which leaves us wondering how are two main characters will move forward in love (because they will, right?). I felt like it didn’t need to happen in the way that it happened, strictly for the sense that I knew exactly what had happened to Anton, and I don’t know why that wasn’t a plan Calla and him created, instead of it being a betrayal. I understand that it echoes the betrayal Antony goes through at Cleopatra’s hands, but it felt forced the way it happened – and a little obvious. All in all though, this is a small complaint for a brilliant plot.

Who Should Read This Book?

Fans of Chloe Gong
Fans of Shakespeare and fantasy novels
Fans of enemies to lovers
Fans of Hunger Games, but want it magic

Content Warnings?

Death, murder, blood, injury, injury detail, gore, child death, sexual content, death of parent, cursing, suicidal thoughts, toxic relationship

Post-Reading Rating: 5⭐️/5

Hi, Chloe. Um, I need the next one pretty, pretty please.

Final Rating: 4.75⭐️/5

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shellbell_04's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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timelord10's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This was my first Chloe Gong book, and sadly, I was kind of disappointed. The story was slow a lot where it felt like nothing relevant was really happening, and the world building was repetitive, info dumpy and confusing. Honestly, the only reason I'm probably going to continue the series is because of the twist at the end of the book. The book still got 3 stars because outside of the world building, I liked the language and writing style. There are a lot of good quotes in the book. I also didn't hate the character work. I definitely want to try out Chloe Gong's YA novels to see if I like them better than this one.

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