I highly, highly recommend Immortal Longings and its later sequels to someone looking for a Shakespearean tragic, politically intriguing, and hopelessly romantic fantasy. I adore this book, and its characters, and although I’d never want to call San-Er my home, Chloe’s writing has always been a safe and comforting escape to me, so even though it hurts to even think about IL, I’ll be returning time and time again.

Chloe Gong has become so known for her badass female characters that aren't afraid to fight (literally) for what they want. Men and whoever be damned.
This book was no different.
It's a retelling that'll leave you hooked. Fans of the Hunger Games, Divergent and the Maze Runner will adore the nostalgic feeling of a dystopian novel. You won't regret picking this up and the ending alone will leave you wanting more!
There were a few moments where I felt like the plot felt long-winded. However, this book is definitely a marathon and not a race. You're constantly being fed little bits of information and when they all come together? You'll be left speechless.

I had to sit with this book a while to write this review and I'm glad I did. I'll be looking out for the next book when it comes!

Also, this cover is gorgeous!

Wasn't sure if I'd like this. And tbh, I didn't love it and I didn't hate. I thought it was a decent story with a decent plot. I haven't read this author's other books but I would definitely consider it to see where I land.

Thank you to NetGalley and the published for the e-arc. I was looking forward to this adult debut having enjoyed the secret Shanghai series. However, I found this book lacking in almost very aspect. The tone throughout was very young adult although the book is marketed as adult. The world building was flimsy and at many points did not make sense. In particular in regard to the rules around 'jumping'. I also find the concept of having intimate relationships in a body where the original occupant is trapped and unable to resist very disturbing even though the author claims that bodies are seen as objects clearly that is not the case for all as a decent percentage of the population are stated to be unable to jump. The concept of the games themselves was also flimsy, despite it being compared to the hunger games this book was far less successful in selling the concept of the games and why they exist. I also found the characters rather one dimensional and I did not enjoy the romance aspect.

thank you NetGalley and HodderBooks for the e-ARC!

4.3-4 stars.

this is chloe gongs adult debut, and from the first chapter itself you can see the difference from her other works. the writing was so different but so beautiful; i loved the descriptions of everything you could truly imagine how everything was and how san-er looked.

the plot is SO complex, and has soo many layers, as do the characters. the magic system was truly very unique, but, not going to lie, it did take me some time to understand it. chloe gong books always make me feel like making one of those crime board things where you connect different things with red string, and this book absolutely delivered on that.

i could never guess what was going to happen next, and the plot twists got me reeling and staring at the wall ahead of me in disbelief.

the romance did happen a bit too fast, but i still really liked them together. they are both such complex characters and go through a lot. we are definitely going to get a lot of development for them, particularly anton because that ending oh my GOD i still cant get over it.

now, as much as i enjoyed this book, there was still something missing. this is definitely not one of my favorite of her books, because for some reason there was something that just didn't click. i dont know what it is, but something is just keeping me from loving this book.

anyway, to sum it up, this was one heck of a journey and i am in desperate need for the next book. i really hope we get more mao mao (callas cat) in the next book <3

Thank you to netgalley and Hodder& Stoughton for an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating:5+/5
Absolutely mind-blowing...... I have found a new all time favourite! I've really enjoyed Chloe Gong's YA works before, with Foul lady fortune being another one of my all time favourites, but her adult debut was fantastic on a whole another level. It was a little hard to get into because of the complicated world building and the magic system, but once I got fully invested, I couldn't stop reading!
Immortal Longings is a retelling of the Shakespearean tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, inspired by Kowloon walled city. I loved the morally grey characters and, of course, MAO MAO!!! I want more of him in the next book. Immortal Longings is completely different (and much darker) than Gong's previous works.
And that ending.........not to spoil anything but I NEED BOOK 2😭😭.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an Arc in exchange for an honest review.

This book was one of my most anticipated reads and I was so happy to receive an Arc months before this book is supposed to come out.
Going in to this I had a lot of expectations as I had read and loved all books the author released before. And I think because of these high expectations I was really let down a lot. The story was really slow to begin and I felt detached from the world. So I had a hard time reading this up to the 60% mark. Then came a plot twist that had me in a grip until the very end. And I am saying “a” plot twist instead of “the” plot twist because the ending was on a whole different level!! Honestly, the ending and the very first plot twist were the reason for the 3.5 stars.
Suffice to say: this was not the authors best book I’ve read but I liked the ending and will definitely read the second book.

A princess who murdered her family wants to finish the job by killing the king, and her only way to get close enough is by winning a vicious fight to the death known as the games. But there are others who need to win at any cost, and they may just be skilled enough to stop her.

This book was such a drag. About 20% longer than it needed to be, I spent so much time bored and just wanting it to get to the point. The only reason I stuck it out was because I LOVED the magic system - jumping between bodies is intriguing and the rules around it fascinating. Unfortunately, it just wasn't executed in a way that I found particularly gripping. Maybe it's time to give up on this author, because her books just don't seem to be to my taste!

I received a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Ooooh. That was good.
At one point I had very strong Hunger Games vibes, but this went in a very different direction.
Packed full of action, with some great twists thrown in, this one is destined to be a crowd pleaser, much like the games around which it revolves. You can feel the dust and the grime of the streets of San-Er as the contestants snake around the dimly lit streets, squinting through the darkness and trying to stay one step ahead of each other. Of course, they’re not the only players in the games, because this is entertainment for the masses, and as we all know, the odds are never in your favour.
There’s just the right amount of suspense to keep you guessing but with the satisfaction of being able to pick up on enough clues to make some educated guesses too.
Calla, Anton and August make for three solid main characters, and the tension between them builds all the well to the very last line.
Whatever you do, DO NOT read the final page first!
With thanks to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for the ARC, Immortal Longings publishes on the 25th July.

Well. Unfortunately for the book and me, it took me a hot minute to get into the story and the world and anything involved with it. I had similar issues with These Violent Delights.
But, also, fortunately for the book and me, we did manage to find common ground.

The book follows mainly 3 characters: Calla and Anton, the protagonists and active players of the game, and August, the future king. I enjoyed following everyone’s pov and getting an idea and understanding for their motives to participate in the game, one way or another.

The game itself takes place across the city of San-Er, which makes every citizen of San-Er basically part of the game, if they want to or not. A further good point of how brutal this game is.

One of the more interesting parts of the story is the ability to jump between bodies based on a gene (“qi”). Some people do it as often as some of us change their underwear (hopefully often enough), basically “wearing” a new body every day, others don’t even dare to jump and leave their birth body. Some people jump once and never jump back and become someone new, essentially erasing the person that used to own said body.
Which I think raises the question: How much of our appearance is part of our identity? What even is one’s identity anymore? The qi? A number in a system ?

There were some repetitive parts about San-Er, its history and society I guess, about the kingdom, Talin, as well as the body jumping, which could have been avoided or reduced. Some of those parts seemed weirdly out of place.
There were also some flashbacks, which could have been made more clear for the reader's eye, because it went from current scene, to flashback and back to current scene. Not sure though, if this will be the same in the final version of the book.

If you were confused about San-Er and other things while reading, well, let me tell you the more confusing part for me was the relationship between Calla and Anton.
Early in the games, they started an alliance (ok, great!), but at some point this alliance turned into more. A relationship. Even love. And I have yet to pinpoint the moment where they actually fell in love. They had great chemistry when they literally fought not only each other but also with each other. But as soon as their “relationship” started I guess, the chemistry went *puff*.
Funny enough, I had similar issues with the love-part in the Hunger Games. It felt very off.

Nonetheless I enjoyed this book, especially after the ending, and I’m eager for the sequel.
Chloe has crafted a world, where a deadly game becomes an actual alternative to basically everything else.
If you enjoyed Chloe’s writing in her Secret Shanghai series, you probably will enjoy this. If you enjoyed the Hunger Games, you will find some kick with the way the games work here. It’s like almost everyone throwing their name into the lottery is from District 1 and 2, but they all participate voluntarily. And then the killing starts.

“Don’t worry if your babies drop dead because they have hollowed into starved husks, King Kasa declares. Don’t worry that your elderly must sleep in cages because there is no more apartment space; don’t worry that the neon light from the strip club across the alleyway keeps you awake night after night. Put your name in the lottery, slaughter only eighty-seven of your fellow citizens, and be awarded with riches beyond your wildest dreams.”

With a few paragraphs, Gong sets the scene: a cyberpunk city of corruption on the verge of rebellion, futuristic and yet deprived; an arena where the desperate will fight for ascension to the heights, and royal politics made murky by the exercise of strange body-jumping powers.

“They trained her for war. And she rose up to wage it on them.”

I was already ensnared by the pitch: an Anthony/Cleopatra retelling - but the setting makes this even more delicious. This is Altered Carbon meets The Hunger Games, with a stellar cast list: the princess in hiding, wanted for murder; the cynical prince who will do what he must; the rogue who was once his best friend, now living a life of crime.

“All he knows is this: He ’ll always choose the easiest path. Not the most honorable, not the cleanest, not the messiest. If he ’s offered an opportunity, he will take it.”

Secrets, politics and assassinations; cults and rebellions and murder- the action and story is constantly moving in fast and dangerous ways. You may have to suspend your disbelief as to how this society is still even standing. But amidst this, somehow, is this a love story - a romance, or just passion fuelled by rage and lust?

“This is tenderness. And she is more afraid of it than anything else in their forsaken kingdom.”

“No throne is built on bloodless ground.”

And what an ending! I am screaming!

Chloe is a great writer and knows how to weave a gripping narrative and I really enjoyed reading this mad retelling of Anthony and Cleopatra but, I could never work out what in the hell was going on with the tech level. At first it read like it was 90s tech level with landlines and cyber cafes and basic mobiles but then August’s main mode of transport was on horseback? Then the tech seemed to have improved beyond the 90s. It pulled me out of the story basically.

That said I was invested enough in the characters of Calla and Anton enough to overlook it, August is likeably loatheable and I was genuinely attached to many of the side characters, Yilas and Chami particularly.
In typical Gong fashion, she kept pulling twists, believable but brilliant twists on the reader till the very last sentence. I’ll definitely be reading the second!

I've never rated a novel by Chloe Gong as any less than 4/5 stars, so this was a real surprise for me. The premise sounded incredible and Antony and Cleopatra is an incredible plot - but this fell a bit short for me. Take out a few of Gong's staple patterns and prose and this felt like any other urban fantasy/sci-fi/dystopian novel. (I'm also unconvinced this is entirely new adult, what with having the characters in their early twenties and very little gore or other mature content - if we weren't explicitly told Anton and Calla's ages, I would have placed their characters as 17/18 based on their POVs).

Anton and Calla had incredible potential to become incredible love interests and strong characters. However there were only moments that felt like they had potential, and none of this added up to the lovers expectation at the end. Having everyone as the best fighter that has ever lived quickly got boring, too - one outlawed princess being able to take on a whole legion of experienced fighters wasn't exciting when you know she's going to win almost every time.

I hate to say that the ending also felt quite predictable - but that being said, I am excited to see what Gong does with the sequel. I'm hoping for more of an enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies that I feel has incredible potential to give us the duo that we were promised.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Hm. I don't really know what to think.
Chloe Gong has always been hit-or-miss for me. I loved Foul Lady Fortune but hated her debut duology. And while I am SO GLAD she has finally left the world of that duology to write something new, this book is a slam-dunk in the middle of the murky New Adult Fantasy pool.

Immortal Longings is being marketed as Chloe Gong's first big step into Adult Fantasy, but, to be honest, it still feels very much YA. The characters being in their early twenties and one very tame sex scene cannot really change that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not entirely mad about it, but going into this expecting something challenging and complex will just end up in dissapointment.

Not that this book doesn't have its interesting moments. Calla and August are two characters with very high potential, though they both just aren't getting the respect that they're due. I think with Calla, we will see some very interesting character development in future installments of this series, though August ... well, it's pretty disappointing. Here you have this excellent character, and he is simply not utilized enough. It's a shame, really. I hope I am proven wrong, but the way Gong deals with August ... I don't wanna spoil anything, but she could've done so much with the character, and he simply doesn't get enough "screen time".

Instead of August, we get an incredibly lukewarm romance. There just wasn't any spark between Anton and Calla, at least not one that justifies them telling each other "I love you" after one night together. Not to mention the fact that there is a love triangle with a literal comatose woman. Literally losing my mind about this. Why.

Where this book really starts to lose me, however, is the lack of focus. There's just so much going on, so much crammed into these 350 pages, that nothing is focused on with any depth. There's body jumping, a blatant mash-up of The Hunger Games and Squid Games, royalty drama, royal guard betrayal, regicide, surveillance states, more regicide, identity theft (x3), the goddamn comatose girlfriend, body snatchers, qi, city politics, dictatorship, urbanization, dystopia, border conflicts, and more that I already forgot about. The body jumping alone gets incredibly confusing, and I found myself having to concentrate really hard to keep up with who is who in which body. Meanwhile the Games, which serve as the main way to drive the plot forward, just seemingly exist to pit our main characters against each other and provide a means to call this book an enemies to lovers romance. Where are the social-political implications of 88 citizens, voluntarily might I add, taking part in what is basically city-wide hunger games every single year? I'm very confused.

Anyway, tldr: Very confusing. Potential is there, but it's simply not realized yet. I'm willing to give the rest of a series a chance, though.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of Chloe Gong’s previous works, and she has once again met all my expectations and more!

San Er, two cities combined but full of poverty, and a kingdom that hosts a competition with the victor winning a life-changing amount of money. However, in this game, the competitors have to kill each other to win. The book follows Calla and Anton, two competitors, and August the Crown Prince of San Er.

I loved every single character, they were all well-written and multi-dimensional that I could not help falling in love and rooting for them! The three Povs were also fantastic, usually when books have multiple Povs there are a few that I dislike, but that was definitely not the case here. Call and Anton were also my favourite to read, they had so much chemistry and I especially enjoyed their scenes together — I was rooting for them to get together, even when I shouldn’t have.

The setting and world building was really fantastic! Gong’s writing is exceptional and I felt as if I were transported to San Er — while the beginning of the book was a lot of information-dumping, I actually enjoyed it because you could really get a sense of the world and immerse yourself in! Also the magic system was incredibly intriguing!! I have never read anything like it before, the idea of a qi and jumping did hook me from the beginning due to its uniqueness.

I absolutely loved the ending as well and will be highly anticipating the sequel it was so exciting. All of the plot twists had me gasping I could not put the book down — even more so because I had guessed the twist two chapters before!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this ARC, I am absolutely obsessed with everything about this book and author!

I've quite enjoyed Gong's previous work, primarily her Violent Delights duology, so I was excited to see what she would do in her adult debut. And then one inspired by Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra? Yeah, colour me intrigued! "Immortal Longings" does many things right, it's a creative piece of fiction with an interesting magical premise - which is basically that people's consciousness can jump between bodies - and a new fantastic world to explore. But despite its strength it just couldn't captivate me. At all.

The writing is good as usual, though nothing special. My main issues were really the incredible amount of infodumping, the slow pacing and the characters I felt absolutely nothing about. These are, obviously, highly objective issues, so take them with a grain of salt. "Immortal Longings" starts slow, and it doesn't pick up pace until the very last chapters. It is constantly being dragged down by too much information, thrown at the reader in pure infodumping fashion instead of letting us explore these things throughout the story. There is also a lot of repetitive information, just worded a little differently or provided by a different character, which I do hope will be fixed in the final version - I was reading an arc, after all. It's an arc that needs a lot of editing still.

The plot should be absolutely exciting - there is, after all, a tournament going on throughout the plot in which the participants are constantly trying to kill each other all over the twin city of San-Er. Hunger Games-esque, but not restricted by the walls of any arena. But honestly? It's so boring?? There is no tension, no excitement, it just drags and never managed to make me feel even a little bit anxious about the fact that our main characters are involved in a life or death match. It didn't help, for me personally, that the characters are rather flat and onedimensional, and Calla feels like another version of These Violent Delight's Juliet. The romance was uninteresting because neither Calla nor Anton are particularly engaging characters, and they're not as morally grey as Gong pretends they are just by letting them coldly kill people. August is probably the most interesting character in the novel because he's not entirely predictable.
Though, admittedly, I was actually surprised by a certain plot twist near the end, but I'm pretty sure it's because I was skim reading at some point.

All in all, this is an okay-ish story in desperate need of an editor, but the lackuster characters will sadly prevent me from reading the next book. 2 stars.

4.5

As I sit to write this review all that’s running through my brain is a incomprehensible screeching. Once again Chloe Gong has left me speechless and desperate for more.

To preface this review I want to say that i’ve never read Anthony and Cleopatra by Shakespeare (although I have just googled it to make sure I was getting the name right and it says tragedy so I fear once again Chloe Gong is going to be tearing my heart out and ripping it to shreds (please can we have a comedy retelling next time, my heart can’t take anymore tragedies)) so I was truly going into this blind.

The cast of characters in this book are fantastic. I loved every single one; even the ones who were minor and only appeared in a chapter or two. I think that that is one of the things that Gong does best. The variety within her books when it comes to characters is beautiful and her ability to write multiple POVs whilst still maintaining a depth to all of her characters is truly stellar. Also big love to Calla, I can see her becoming a new favourite character for me. I love her, and she can do no wrong.

The setting and “world-building” in this book are also fantastic, especially as someone with aphantasia, the way that the descriptions are written in this book really help. Also the atmosphere of the book is great. It did take me a while to wrap my head around the fact that this was set in the 90s but once I grasped that everything else just fell into place.

For me, the beginning of the book was a bit slow and I think that was because there was obviously a bit of world-building to be done, but once you’re past the 20% mark the pacing really falls into place and it’s not difficult to turn page after page. Also all the plot twists! I was trying to get ahead and work them out but alas, I failed and was left shocked and reeling every time something happened.

Once again, Gong has written a wonderful book (and transitioned seamlessly from YA to adult) and it is definitely on its way to being an incredible trilogy filled with twists and turns. It has once again left me cursing myself, for now I have to wait to find out what happens next.

A big, big, big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for letting me have an ARC of this book in exchange for a review!

If I had to compare Immortal Longings to other books it would be something like Mistborn meets Battle Royale meets The Selection but it's actually mostly like none of those things.

Set in a fantasy world with many ques taken from Chinese culture, Immortal Longings follows three different young adults as they try to change the future of their cities for the greater good (although their ideas about how this will happen are wildly differing).

One of these young adults is crown prince August who has been scheming for years about how to make his country better; another is an exiled royal, Anton whose past plans have not worked out and whose childhood sweetheart is deathly ill; and one is Calla - a fugitive on the run for killing one royal family in the past and a huge secret.

Working sometimes in tandem, the three are involved in a fight to the death competition which gains the winner immense riches and an audience with the King, where their real goals will be revealed.

This was so exciting! I loved all the characters although many of them were hugely flawed and genuinely rooted for them all. The pacing was really good and though I did find the last plot twist somewhat predictable there were lots of plotpoints that surprised me and I didn't see coming. The slighly romance plotline was relatively realistic so I enjoyed that aspect since it worked well with the rest of the plot.

My favourite aspect of this novel however was the world-building and magic system. The idea that a person with the right gene can have their qi (or essentially, soul) jump into another person's body (essentially possessing them for a length of time) was really new and intriguing and I am excited to see how this expands in the next few books and there were many related plotlines I didn't feel were completely tied up by the end of Book 1. My favourite from Chloe Gong so far: I highly anticipate her future releases!

What a disappointment.
I was really excited to receive an ARC of Immortal Longings because of how Chloe Gong’s YA has been praised. I’m still interested in reading These Violent Delights but I don’t think I will be continuing with this series.
To begin with, I think that the writing style is just not for me, and that’s okay because it’s really just a preference thing but I had a huge problem with how the world was built. It didn’t feel like a world that existed and we happened to read a story set in that world. It felt like a story which needed a world and therefore this one was created around the need of the story. It was so info-dumpy and very unclear at the same time. It felt like I was given partial information and never full fleshed information that would help me understand what was actually going on. It was so frustrating.
The magic system does not make any sense. Jumping, the ability to transport your qi from a body to another, is illegal in this kingdom but wait, everybody does it. I understand that it would be extremely difficult to forbid this kind of magic but then just don’t make it illegal, just for the sake of consistency.
Now, the games. I always thought that a game implied rules, apparently in this one it does not. The whole city is the playground of this game, but wait there’s actually one rule, the citizens not partaking in the game shan’t be casualties. Oh but wait, jumping is allowed during the game, so everyone just jumps from body to body and players just kill everyone no matter what body they occupy. I’m sorry but it doesn’t make any sense. Players are supposed to kill other players yet they also kill the bodies (and therefore the people in said bodies) but not always the players that use these bodies. Maybe I did not understand this part, but it certainly feels like murder and somewhat against the rules, to me.
The romance was underwhelming. The characters only interact at the 40% mark and they say ily at 80%. Considering that they only interact for 40% before being all lovey covey, it feel really insta lovey (for me). I won’t lie though the steamy scene were steamy, “I’m want to kill you, no wait, I want you to fuck me” kind of steamy. However, it’s not really spicy, there’s only one sex scene, don’t get your hopes to high for that.
The end was kind of obvious because there just wasn’t any other way this could go, and I wanted to be surprised.
I still want to say that the second half of the book as better, partly due to the fact that it was way less info-dumpy. I also really liked the fact that the magic system was a mystery to the characters themselves.

My first Chloe Gong novel was Immortal Longings, and I have to say that I am absolutely blown away. Why I haven't read any of her other works sooner is beyond me. I'm at a loss for words when it comes to how much I adore this book. I simply can't wait for the next book after that finish, oh my god! The storyline and design of this reminded me a lot of The Hunger Games and Cyberpunk 2077. This was just so amazing to me. I was waiting impatiently to see what would happen next as a result of it. The plot took so many unexpected turns, almost all of which were absolutely unanticipated. They never failed to completely astound me. I'll admit that at first when attempting to make sense of the lore and geography, I was a little lost. However, I believe that when you first start a fantasy or science fiction book, it is the same. But once I finally understood it, the book just flowed and I couldn't put it down. Nothing I could ever say could possibly express how strongly I want you to hurry out as soon as this is released and grab it. It was a phenomenal book and well deserving of five stars.

“For five years, Calla Tuoleimi has been biding and biding her time, tending to the fury that burns beneath her ribs. There is but one task left in her vengeance: King Kasa’s head plucked from his spine and flung across the coliseum.”

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.