Immortal Longings

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong is a Shakespeare retelling of Antony and Cleopatra, targeting an adult audience this time. I have to admit I didn’t really like her YA retelling of Romeo and Juliet, but an adult retelling of a play I actually do like (I cannot emphasize how much I hate Romeo and Juliet), I have to say I was very interested in reading that.

The beginning was so strong, I loved the setting of a twin city, very grim and dark and reminiscent of Hong Kong. The fantasy element was there in the form of body jumping, like you can take over another person’s body. Enter Hunger Games like gladiator games and add some just as deadly politics to it and it gets very, very interesting. Until it didn’t. I have absolutely no idea how I can be bored with such a competition going on, high stakes for everyone, with so much happening, yet I didn’t care. The characters were all very morally grey, and I couldn’t care less for them. The body count was staggering, and I just felt sorry for all those civilians caught up into this.

The love story of Anton and Calla felt a bit weird to me, as it is a very destructive relationship and it is a bit sudden. It should’ve been epic and to be honest it was very much epic at the end – the end is really what makes this book shine! But the middle just fell flat for me and I wished I could skim a few pages but as this is an arc I didn’t. The world was not big enough for me I guess, we had very similar monologues about the inner workings of the city, but it didn’t go deep and they felt repetitive with no new information. The body jumping is still a bit of a mystery for me, it could’ve been explained better, and the action scenes were fast and gruesome but no more than that. We did get a lot of info on the palace and how the main characters and the crown prince grew up together, but we didn’t really get what was going on right now except the struggle between the king and his heir, only from the heir’s perspective. I have to admit there were a few plot twists that were AMAZING and I didn’t see coming at all, but for me it’s not enough to overpower the overall meh feeling this book gave me, nor did it make me care about the two main characters.

I received an e-arc through Netgalley but it hasn't influenced my opinions.