I am really sad to say that this book is not for me. I was tragically bored throughout. I LOVE Chloe Gong's other works, but for some reason her urban, hunger games, style sci-fi story did not work at all. I will of course read her work in the future but this story might be enough for me (if it becomes a series). I just don't think she leaned in hard enough to sci-fi conventions in order to make this fully work with both the narrative and tech/magic system? I will admit I am still a confused reader with this one....

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book!

I REALLY enjoyed this book. The "body jumping" magic system was super unique to me, and I felt like it was explained well right from the beginning, which is always helpful! I've never read any of the authors previous books, so I don't have any comparison to that. Though this was a retelling, it still felt innovative and new to me.

I have seen some comparison of this to the hunger games, and I will say that I think if you go in with that expectation you may be disappointed. This was more of a political fantasy/dystopian book, with a battle to win a competition as a plot device, more so than the focus of the plot. But I still really liked it!

This book was just not for me. The concept for this book was good but it just didn’t deliver in my opinion. I do believe the way people were hyping up this book, comparing it to the hunger game did affect my reading experience. So this is one of those “It’s not you it’s me” type of situation.

This review is quite late only because I have officially decided to dnf this book. I do not rate dnf books because it doesn't seem fair since I did not even get to the end; however since I have to for this review, I'll rate what I have read so far (34%). The world building felt heavy and like the author was trying to make a word count. I also did not care about what happened to the characters. Overall it felt like too much and I just can't force myself to finish this.

Thank you NetGalley, Gallery Books, Gallery / Saga Press, for the chance to read this book in exchange of an honest review.

Every year, thousands in the kingdom of Talin will go to its capital twin cities, where the palace hosts a set of games. For those able to jump between bodies, competitors across San-Er will fight to the death to achieve riches. Princess Calla Tuoleimi hides since a massacre killed her parents and left the palace of Er empty and she was who did it. Before the king's forces catches her, she plans to win the game and since her King uncle will personally greet the winner, she will have her chance to kill him and bring the monarchy down.
On the other side there's Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat and his childhood love is in coma since they were kicked out of the palace. He's in debt to keep her alive. He's one of the best jumpers, flitting from body to body, in the kingdom and winning the game could help him save her. Calla finds unexpected allies in Anton and in the king's adopted son, August, willing to change the kingdom for the best, but the three of them have their own goals and the relationship between Calla and Anton is becoming more and more intense. Calla has to decide what's she's playing for, her kingdom or her lover.

Immortal Longings is Chloe Gong's adult epic fantasy debut and a fierce inspired story by Shakespeakere's Antony and Cleopatra, a story filled with power plays, violence, bloody romance and deadly games. Now set in a game with powerful players, jumpers, all fighting to get their own goals: freedom, vengeance, money to save their loved ones.
It's my first Chloe Gong's book and I fell in love with this writing style, the brilliant and intriguing worldbuilding and these complex characters, whose relationships with one other make the story even more convoluted and filled with plot twists and intriguing moments.
I really enyoyed reading this book, even though I predicted some things in the story, overall it's a very good book.

I haven't read a book by Chloe Gong that I haven't liked. I have looked forward to Immortal Longings and the step into adult fantasy. plus its another Shakespeare retelling and I am ALWAYS here for a Shakespeare retelling. I struggled with some of the characters, but it was more in a way that I didn't have strong feelings towards any of them. but the plot twists were 10/10 and I CAN NOT wait for the next book to come out!

From the first page, I was not feeling the book. I ended up not finishing. It felt soulless and uninteresting. It was missing a spark and the writing felt super dry.

I'm still kind of reeling from the reveals at the end of this book. I really loved the world and the magic system and the concept of the game. I have a feeling that this game won't be as big of a part of the overall series but was the driving force of this first book that truly was a set up for the series. I bought in to the romance, even tho it doesn't follow a "typical" romance trajectory. There were some characters I would have liked to see more from and some scenes that could have been built out a bit more. Overall, I really liked it and will continue on in the series.

“That’s the first time a princess has ever whimpered for me.”

I had such a fun time with this one. I am not a big fan of retellings only because more often than not I feel like I don’t know the original story or myth and then I think I’m missing something crucial to the story. That thankfully wasn’t the case with this one.

It’s supposedly an Antony and Cleopatra retelling, but I only recently acknowledged which character was Antony…yes…there is a character named Anton so I should have known better but alas.

The magic system in this involves JUMPING into people’s bodies which was just so unique. I really enjoyed it and loved all the little twists and turns with it. Add in a city-wide game where the winner gets *unimaginable riches* and all the winner has to do is kill everyone else in the game… yeah things are bound to get wild.

It’s the beginning of a new series, but I personally think it ends in a place where you could call it a standalone and feel okay about it…which is probably what I’ll do.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

Unfortunately I found this super boring and not what I was expecting at all. I think I’ll try it again sometime as I’ve never read this author before and will definitely try previous books but for now I must move on. Thank you to Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book!

I had such high expectations for Immortal Longings because I love all of Chloe Gong's prior works, and find myself quite obsessed with them. I'm not sure if it's that she's trying for a different writing style or something with this one, but I didn't love it and found it to be very different from what I expected. I feel like I didn't learn enough about the characters to love them, but I have hopes for the future of this series.

This severely let me down... I can tell Chloe knows what she wanted to write but she missed the mark. It was like 90s sci fi meets gothic gamer city where everyone is sad and poor but no real depth to poverty and desperation. I think she was really going for a Jady City type vibe and it just didn't hit unfortunately.

Inspired by the Shakespeare play Anthony and Cleopatra, Immortal Longings moves the setting to a cyberpunk dystopia. There is a lot of discussion of politics and economic issues that are very prevalent today.

I'm on the fence with this one. There are many things that I liked about this book, and there are things that feel a bit ethically dubious. It could just be me being a bit sensitive on an issue, but body swapping is already dubious, when you mix sex with body swapping, that's when I feel very uncomfortable. It's no longer a love story, but an ethical examination of consent. It really gets weird when the author does not even examine this. How do you not even say something in a wold where Wonder Woman 1984 existed?

The ending was great, and I may read the next book. But I really think this got in the way of me actually connecting to the characters.

I was excited to read this as I am a fan of Chloe’s previous work.

Unfortunately, I tried picking this book up on two separate occasions and it was just not for me. I had a hard time following the initial dive Into the world.
The second time I picked this book up, I got about 15% in before I decided this book might just not be for me, and decided to put it down!

I usually am most interested in characters at the initial start of a story and felt I was maybe too overwhelmed with the plot before diving deeper into the rest of the story’s elements.

I had higher expectations for this book because I have enjoyed the authors previous works. The description was compelling and the body switching was interesting, but I found the story hard to get into. You meet the characters and you see them interact with other characters, but you don't really learn a lot about them. I think the book was an interesting to start to a series, but I hope the next books are better.

I am bone-deep obsessed with Chloe Gong's other works, but whew doggy. She's a talented writer but this didn't showcase it. The rest of the series can be redeemed if she tightens it up. Please empower her editor to cut down on the approximately 12 storylines and 57 characters!!
As always, a forehead kiss to the darling publicist at Gallery who accepted my request!! Thanks to you and S&S and Netgalley in general.

I went into Immortal Longings hoping for the morally gray characters I love. Sadly that was one of the only parts of the book I actually liked. I know this is Chloe Gong’s first foray into adult fiction. It didn’t hit the mark for me. The writing felt very juvenile. The relationship between Anton and Calla also missed the mark for me. It didn’t feel believable. The best character in the book was Mao Mao the cat. Overall it was a disappointing read.

Well this was my most disappointing read of the year. I gave this a 1.5. Which is heart breaking, because I LOVED Chloe's previous series, These Violent Delights. I was so incredibly disappointed and I wish I could rate this better.

For a supposed adult fantasy book this story was painfully under developed- the plot, the characters, the world building, all of it. It felt like someone hadn't done enough editing and this was a first draft.

One of my biggest issues is that I was bored. I didn't care about the story, and it took forever to get through. the ending was a let down and I finished not caring. Also, the idea of jumping between bodies without consent gave me the ICK and really turned me off to this book.

For the first half of this book, I thought I’d rate it 3 stars. The world building is confusing/convoluted, and the “games” are hard to follow. However, I did find myself entertained by this book especially in the second half. I think maybe if this had come out before hunger games I would have liked it more. But I did feel an attitude of “been there done that” while reading. Another reviewer compared it to “a tv show you put on while cleaning” and I think that’s the perfect way to describe it. But the ending… the ending yall. It definitely convinced me to continue to the series!