A review by poppywarphan
Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong

adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-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? Yes

4.25

Characters: 7/10
Enjoyment: 8/10
Plot: 9/10
Worldbuilding: 8/10 
Writing: 10/10

I apologise in advance. I have turned into a philosopher. First and foremost, this is my opinion and commentary. Disclaimer, this review is slightly spoilerish, especially when I talk about the relationship of the main romantic pairing plus I talk a bit about the worldbuilding and left in information that is found early in the book. If you want to see the full review with spoilers, check it out here. 

This book is Chloe's debut in the adult genre. Compared to Foul Lady Fortune, which was more fun and entertaining, it is serious and has a darker tone. I see why one could get bored with everything going on and the worldbuilding. If you aren't invested, you might struggle to keep up. I also found it to be slower paced. 

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but it is a bit Hunger-games-esque so if you liked that I think you’d enjoy this too. There also are no explicitly good characters, for the morally grey character lovers. But don't go into this looking for queer rep because there's nothing concrete worth mentioning. 

Everything in this book happens in San-Er, once two cities but now joined under the Tyrannical rule of king Kasa, the capital of Talin. The living conditions of the lower class are bad, which is why people enter The games. What the contestants might get out of them, even if by dying, is explained pretty early, so I’ll skip that, but the victor is greeted by the king and awarded a large sum of money. And that’s why the main character, a traitorous princess Calla, enters the game under a false identity, so she can finish what she started and kill the king. She is immediately discovered by August, the king's adoptive son and heir to the throne, who offers her support and pardon if she does the dirty work for him which would put him on the throne. Early into the games, she also allies with another contestant and grows close to him. But only one of them can become the victor, when they are the last one standing.

Something really interesting in this book is the concept of people being able to transfer into different bodies. But only people with a special gene have that ability. This skill is intertwined with the concept of qi which originates from Chinese culture. I found it quite fascinating. On the other hand, there are people from a certain family tree that are protected from being invaded by jumpers. There are also laws to how jumping works as well as various negative consequences. Everything was very thought out. 

As in Chloe's fashion, the foreshadowing was excellent. I should have seen some things coming.

The book is written in 3rd person, allowing for more deception as we don’t see what’s going on inside the characters, just what is apparent from the outside. But with jumping, the factor of deception is even higher, which leads to many plot twists. Shoutout to Sydney for giving me this cue. Another thing about jumping is that people do not value their bodies (with the exception of the royals, who frown upon jumping into a lower person's body because of classism). They view them just as shells carrying their qi. Appearance doesn’t necessarily tell much, as there could be anyone occupying the body. Although jumping is illegal, it is not uncommon. And since it facilitates crime while being undetectable on surveillance cameras, there is also a great deal of injustice and dilemmas in the judicial system.

There are people who don’t inhabit a different body from their birth one, people who temporarily take over someone else's when convenient for them, or people who don’t even have a permanent one. Which makes you think, who actually are we, or what if our bodies are mere vessels? What defines us? 

Moving on to Calla. Out of all the characters (which I admittedly didn't really care about), she was the one I liked the most. She is strong, independent, ruthless and set on removing the king from the throne, so the world could become a better place. August wishes the same. But I think he would have ended up on the same path as the king before him. He’s calculative and goes by any means necessary to achieve his goal. I didn't particularly like Anton. He's the contestant Calla allied with, and they form a romantic relationship. 

Now, this relationship I found very intriguing. I’m not sure whether it was intentional or not, but I’m hesitant to call what they had love. Anton has a history of being obsessed with his childhood sweetheart. Back to my point. He did not occupy any body permanently (she slept with a random dude?) so it couldn’t have been physical attraction that Calla was feeling for him. But was she truly in love with just his character? I'm not convinced. Their emotional connection came a bit out of nowhere. At the very end, the reason he entered the games in the first place was so that he could pay medical bills for Otta his girlfriend, who had been in an artificial coma preventing her from dying for years. He clings on to her hoping she would awake, all while claiming he was in love with Calla. When she suggests an alternative solution which would keep them both alive, he refuses. The book ends on a cliffhanger, and what happens next is important. I want conflict. There's a lot of potential for drama, interesting and juicy stuff. Basically, I hope there isn't a happily ever after because where's the fun in that? I just love messy relationships and complicated characters. Gives you something to think about. 

There's a lot left unanswered, so I will be looking out for the sequel. 

Ps: If people were so recognisable by eyes alone, why didn't anyone ever think to wear contacts? Do they not exist???

<i>Arc provided by publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review </i>