Both stories follow the main characters breaking down these social barriers. The gangs and the cliques provide safety and security, but also limit what people can do. The parallels between the cliques in Bratz: The Movie (2007) and the rival gangs in These Violent Delights (2020) both comment on how dividing people up into ultra rigid groups is detrimental to everyone involved and isn't a good way to run society. My favorite part of the book, however, was the similarities it had to Bratz: The Movie (2007). I thought the two leads, Juliette and Roma, both had bratitude (without it becoming that attitude). The characters all felt very fleshed out, and the enemies to lovers arc was very well done, and (even though they repeatedly tried to kill each other) never felt unhealthy, since they had a pretty balanced power dynamic. The setting of 1920's Shanghai is fabulous and helps set the tone for the book. The girlbossification of Juliette was something I didn't expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. The book is a rowdy and real retelling of Romeo and Juliet, and it keeps enough of the original source material, but changes it enough that the book is still funky and fly. You know it's all about Chloe Gong's 2020 young adult fantasy novel These Violent Delights.
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