Immortal Longings is Gong’s first adult book and my first book I’ve read by her, and I freaking LOVED it! Everyone I described this book to, I said it reminded me of the Hunger Games. There’s a competition that is held to entertain the rich and is a way for the lower class to earn a huge sum of money and recognition.

Then in comes Calla and Anton, two players of the game, each trying to become the winner enable to reach their end goal but then decide to team up to become the last two players and just face off with each other at the end.

Of course though, different events and feelings get in the way. I loved the banter and relationship between Calla and Anton so much! The different POVs of the main and some side characters really helped to set the scene for this action packed book. The twists in this book were awesome and I can't wait for the next book in this series!!!

*Thank you to @netgalley and @gallerybooks for my advanced copy. All opinions are my own.*

"Calla can handle pain. She can handle blood. But this - this is somehow all and none of that at once, a wrenching in her very soul.
This is tenderness. And she is more afraid of it than anything else in their forsaken kingdom."

Immortal Longings is the adult debut of Chloe Gong, filled with death and violence and unsuspecting allies. Our protagonist keeps many secrets - like, BIG secrets, literally city-changing secrets - and she is as morally grey as it gets, having butchered her royal family before living her life in hiding. She is partial to power, excitement, and anything that presents as a challenge. Enter Anton Makusa, a body jumping player in the games, who meets her swing for swing and blade to blade. Immediately there is a spark, and the conflagration grows into something deeper than desired on both ends. They have friends in both high and low places, and they do not hesitate to manipulate or exploit them.

Together these two riot across San-Er, a grunge-esque imitation of the real life Kowloon City in Hong Kong, and wreak havoc and mayhem wherever they step foot. With royal intrigue, problematic societies, qi, gods, and a lust for power and righteousness, Immortal Longings is a fantastic debut. Chapter 23 - dare I say more? If you love cliffhangers and self-sought fury, Immortal Longings is sure to deliver for you.

Fans of The Hunger Games, this is perfect for you - a fight to the death, but where civilian and city life are thrown into the mix and its perfectly normal .

I am so torn on how to rate this. The things I enjoyed were enough to keep turning the pages, but the things I didn’t like, I really didn’t like.

Like Gong’s previous published works, Immortal Longings is a Shakespeare retelling. This time Antony and Cleopatra. This was a fun dynamic to play with and when it worked, it really worked. This is Gong’s first adult novel and I’m not sure that really came through. It was violent but nothing worse than here previous books and the sex in the book was pretty perfunctory.

There is a hunger games like event at the center of this book although the participants get to choose it- although it isn’t much choice at all due to the poverty and grime that coats the city. A lot of this felt surface level to me especially when compared to HG.

Gong writes extremely long information dump paragraphs that are extremely hard to read or at least for me and at times my eyes kind of glazed over. I wish some of the page space for those repetitive clumps of information had been given to more room for feelings and character development.

I was both horrified and intrigued by the magic system here which involves basically jumping into other bodies. Gong hand waves this as just something that happens in this world and that physical bodies aren’t actually important but that didn’t make me feel any less grossed out when someone would have their body die because of a jump or when a body would be used for sex? There seems to be iffy consent issues even if in this world it is “ok” because we get one sentence about it.

There’s also sort of a glaring plot hole and I read an ARC so maybe this will be changed in the final version but it sort of ruins the big twist in the middle and also makes no sense?

The very end realllllly worked for me and I will definitely pick up the next book.

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This was one of my most anticipated summer releases. It is such a sweeping, immersive world and such an intriguing premise. I struggled a bit with the somewhat rambling execution and the amount of info dumping, but overall it was a fascinating, really creative retelling of Anthony and Cleopatra. And while I’m not ravenous for the sequel I will pick it up when it comes out.

4.75 stars
This is Chloe Gong's first foray into adult fantasy. I have not read any of her YA books, so I'm not sure if it reads the same. However, parts of this book do have a slight YA feel while most of it is more adult. I didn't know going in that this was supposed to be inspired by Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. For never having read that work I was still really impressed by this book.

Immortal Longings follows Princess Calla Tuoleimi, noble-born Anton Makusa, and Prince August. Interestingly there are chapters that are also from side character perspectives every now and then as well. There is one particular secondary character that you will see several times, this person's connection to the story is a big thing for the background of the world.

Calla is an interesting character. In the same chapter, she can be self-assured in her place and abilities to later be disturbed by her own actions. Everything she has done in the past five years is working towards taking down the monarchy to save the country of Talin. Since she wasn't able to get her uncle she went into hiding while also trying every year to get into the games for another chance at him.

Anton is more straight forward I believe. His goal is money, specifically the prize money that he will get when he wins the games. Like Calla, he has been entering the games under false names for years for his chance. Though his reasoning is also for someone other than himself. He needs the money for the girl he loved who has laid in a hospital bed for seven years. All these years Anton has jumped from body to body to survive the streets of San-Er. Early in the games he seems to try to eliminate contestants of the games by trickery more than killing them. Later though you see that this is not from lack of skill in combat.

Prince August was possibly the most back-and-forth character we saw. He seemed to clear cut, he wants to do this specific thing to save Talin. As the book moves on though you see different aspects of him, his past and the pieces almost align but there are gaps. His plan to move forward sounds reasonably ideal but only a general outline no actual how to make things better. August unlike the others does not seems to care about the individuals if the whole will be better off. This makes him a very dangerous person.

Enough about the characters now some magic. The system in place here is very cool, especially in the way that the people of the book don't think of it as magic just an inherited gene. Jumping between bodies is an ability that most of the population of San-Er has. They see it as your body is just the vessel for a person's qi. If you have stronger qi you can jump more skillfully and have a higher success rate of keeping your own body from being invaded. What the people of San-Er see as magic is things done by the Hollow Temple. One of the characters even mentions this as if that is magic then probably we should consider jumping to be magic as well. The aspects surrounding qi and the body is very interesting though. When your qi is outside of your body it stays in a stasis, unchanging, and if you are wounded it will mend itself if you are not in it.

From the description, we knew there was going to be a grand game. Calla and Anton don't really know each other at the beginning of the games but are drawn together through the competition. It starts with over 80 players and by the end of the games, the final two are always pitted together in the arena. So from the start you know this has to have a tragic end. It draws you in watching as Calla goes from finding Anton annoying to distrusting him to allies to more distrust to love. You see their motivations but several times changing perspectives would show secrets that weren't explained to give the reader a sense of confusion as well.

I'm going to be thinking about this book for a while. There are just so many questions that popped up in my head by the end. Restarted the beginning and then jumped to the last five chapters again. Still didn't come up with my answers. This is intentional for some of the aspects as in the author interview Gong talks about wanting to expand the magic and world building in the next books. I really liked the foundation she laid out. This world has a lot to grow on and magic to discover. So I will be impatiently waiting for the announcements of when the sequel is releasing.

5⭐️ Pub Day Review ⚔️

What an absolute fast paced, violent delight. This book gave me serious Hunger Games, Squid Games, Throne of Glass vibes and I loved it so much!

Set in a fictionalized version of a historical section of Hong Kong, I found the world building to be intricate but easy to follow. I also absolutely LOVED the Chinese philosophical elements (qi) to this book, I thought that made it very unique to other books I’ve read.

There was even a little 🌶️ that caught me off guard and I. LOVED. IT.

And the ENDING! It actually shocked me and I couldn’t sleep after reading 😂 I’m still spiraling and can’t wait until the next book is released!

I’m so glad I ended up snagging this as my BOTM. I was so excited to be able to read it on NetGalley but I’ll want a copy for my shelves 🫶🏻

This was my first book by Chloe Gong but WILL NOT be my last!

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
Narrator: Jeena Yi
Rating: 4 stars
Pub Date: 7/18

This is Chloe Gong’s first Adult Fantasy and a retelling of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. It’s also my first book by this author and won’t be my last.

Princess Calla has been in hiding for the past five years after killing her parents and has spent her time plotting to kill the current king. She will get her chance when she enters and wins the games, which is a Hunger-Games-style fight to the death throughout the streets of San-Er. The winner of the games gets a big cash prize, and the opportunity to shake the hand of the king. That is when Calla will strike.

Anton Makusa has also been in hiding for most of his life. He is an exiled aristocrat who is deep in debt from trying to keep his dying childhood love alive. Winning the games is his best chance to save her.

This book is a whirlwind and it was overwhelming at first. I loved the magic system and the idea of jumping (when a person’s soul can temporarily inhabit another person’s body). This felt like a fresh new idea that really gave the story unlimited possibilities. The book is full of exciting fight scenes, court intrigue, and a slow burn love story between Calla and Anton. The games are fought throughout the city so we get a tour San-Er, and we get to know each of the characters through the multiple POV format.

The audio, read by Jeena Yi, was done really well. The fast action and different POVs made it a quick and exciting listen.

Things got a bit muddled for me in the middle when new magic and characters were introduced. I started to get a little confused with the side plots, but I was able to follow the main story of Calla and Anton and the games with no issue. The romance felt almost like an afterthought to me. There was no chemistry between Calla and Anton at first, and the slow burn was almost too slow.

The story ends on a spectacular cliffhanger that I didn't see coming, and it’s honestly what bumped my rating up from 3.5 to 4 stars. I am now very excited to read the next book.

Thank you so much to Simon Audio for my gifted ALC and to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for my finished copy.

Read if you like:
*fantasy
*fresh new magic systems
*court drama
*revenge plots
*fight scenes

Immortal Longings is available today!

I wanted to love this book. It sounded interesting, and I already had a good history with the author’s writing. It was a hyped book even for the arc, and it should have been true bookish love.

Except, the more I sit with this book, the more I find wrong with it. It is also going to be very hard to write this review spoiler free. But I will do it - if you want more specifics, then please reach out. I would be happy to give you spoiler examples.

The premise of the world is that you can jump into different bodies. Then bodies become more husks and less attachment. This fell flat for me on multiple levels. People were attached, and yet there was still no trauma. People should have been able to jump bodies to stop from being killed…and yet…Then the entire society was built on an individual number. We have that now (at least in the US). It is called a social security number - and how well does that work out for us? In order for that to work, you would have to keep giving out your number to so many people to verify it, making it even less secure. It just wouldn’t hold up for any real security.

When people jump, the color of their eyes stay the same. So you can tell if someone has been invaded if their eye color changes. Especially if there are very rare eye colors like yellow - which only royalty have. How does this work? No idea. But it is supposed to be a constant. And herein lies a massive plot hole - one that I can’t even hint out without spoilers. But once you read the book, come back and read this rule and then thing through the characters and see if you spot the MASSIVE unexplained plot hole.

Also, the ending was both extremely predictable as well as one massive set of confusion to set up for book two. Like it was just decided at the last second not to make it a stand-alone. If it had been a stand-alone, I probably would have liked it better.

There are also random present tense changes that I only hope were caught before publication and some other writing areas that should have been fixed, and I hope were.

If you can ignore all of that, the book is fine. I also completely understand why people DNF’ed it early. I honestly don’t know what to rate this book, so I don’t think I will.

For the publisher - Only royals have yellow eyes. They are rare. The princess has yellow eyes. Except the princess is not the princess she is some peasant WHO HAS YELLOW EYES. Like how was that not explained once we found out who she is? It was just completely ignored.

I wanted to start this review by saying I’ve always been a huge Chloe Gong fan. I followed These Violent Delights from its Publisher’s Weekly announcement to release day, both participating in Gong’s street team and engaging with her on social media (primarily on Twitter, back when the only hellfires on that app were the weekly occurrences of authors being unable to stay off of Goodreads). Being said, it’s an understatement to say I was off-the-walls ecstatic to read Gong’s adult debut—which I had hoped would demonstrate an evolution of her work—a maturation of the same atmospheric historical fantasy that I had come to expect of her, with a grittier, more adult, headspace.

Unfortunately, Immortal Longings failed to deliver on many of its promises.

MAGIC:

The magic system, which appeared to be simple in its initial application, became increasingly convoluted throughout the book, as rules were attached but often quickly disregarded. The way this works is that certain characters in this universe have what is considered the “jumping gene,” which grants them the ability to “jump” their souls (their qi) into other people’s bodies. The only aspect of their birth body that remains visible in their new body is their eye color. Different eye colors also help to differentiate people of different backgrounds; for example, people who cannot be jumped into (called Weisannas) are born with silver eyes. When the principal twist of the novel revealed that Princess Calla wasn’t exactly as royal as she said she was, Gong left a major plot hole as she failed to answer why Calla’s eye color (an aspect of “jumpers” that remains the same even when they enter another body) was still gold/yellow, a color only present in those of royal lineage.

ROMANCE:

When Gong described the love between Antony and Cleopatra (and their connection to Anton and Calla) on her Twitter, she defined it as obsessesive and engulfing. She wanted the novel to question: do these two feel any sort of love towards each other? Maybe they’re simply high on the power and the pain? Maybe their only intentions with each other are to drown out those feelings with misplaced passion? Whatever the intention was, I never felt that obsession. In fact, if I hadn’t read this specific tweet, I never would have considered their relationship to be obsessive at all. Their development from strangers-to-competitors-to-allies-to-lovers happened so fast that it can hardly be called development at all—a lot of the ~feelings~ fell flat to me. :(

Also, a huge incentive for YA romance authors to make the switch into adult is the ability to write spicy scenes without having to fade-to-black, or replace cold, hard terminology with metaphors about invisible strings and quintessential completion. Not only did I feel that the single sex scene was terribly out of place, but the entire scene very quickly glossed over the fact that neither Anton nor Calla were in their own bodies during the scenes. The whole time, they were using the bodies of two NON-CONSENTING people to have sex. I’ll just let that fact sit there. [I was very uncomfortable, needless to say].

POV CHANGES:

IL is weighed down by the incessant use of “headhopping.” Yes, multiple perspectives can be used to a story’s benefit (the way it did in Gong’s debut), but many of the POV characters in IL only existed to serve B, C, D, E, F, e.t.c, plotlines that were left unexplored. While I’m certain that the following two books in the trilogy will give sufficient page time to these arcs and resolve them, their introduction in this book only took away from the overall cohesiveness of the text and the weight of the main conflict. I became particularily frustrated when Gong’s comfort with her omniscient narrator gave repeated page time to characters that existed and died without ever affecting the primary storyline. Maybe I’m just not being patient, but I’ve always hated when characters exist in a novel for absolutely no reason.

ANTAGONIST?:

And then, I get to my last point. Who the fuck is the antagonist? At first, it seemed clear to me that the antagonist was King Kasa. But then: He did nothing! He didn’t even exist in corporeal form until the end of the book, when Calla chopped his head off and he ceased to exist once again! After that, it felt obvious that the antagonist was a side character named Pampi, whose introduction seemed to hint that she would cause problems for Anton and Calla, especially towards their ultimate goal of being the final two players in the games. Nope! She was killed before she had a chance to impact the main conflict in a significant, not round-about, way. THEN, I was CERTAIN the villain was August; it seemed perfect, a manipulative family member who was pulling the strings to get Calla to do his dirty work, so that he could take control over the city? Yeah, no. He ends up possessed by Anton. Which only leads me to one question: was Anton the villain the whole time? Would I even trust someone if they told me Anton was the villain? There was no evidence to corroborate anything of the sort until the very last scene. I love a shocking plot twist as much as the next person, but there has to be some level of foreshadowing. Does no antagonist mean that the book never had any stakes?

For all I know, book 2 could introduce 10 more characters that seem like villains but get killed off without consequence. That seems to be a recurring theme in this book, conflicts getting resolved easily that the stakes for everything feel so damn low. There wasn’t one moment while I was reading where I doubted Calla would get everything she wanted, and that’s frustrating as a reader. I want to be at the edge of my seat, to feel like the character’s life is actually at risk, that they could lose it all. Especially because I was promised something edgy and fun! Overall, I was underwhelmed.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Gong was already pushing age category boundaries with some of the content in These Violent Delights, so I thought that a clear shift into Adult Fiction would come with significant changes in the way she was crafting her stories. Instead, the adult categorization of Immortal Longings just felt like an excuse to have the characters say “fuck” more often.

Maybe I’ll read the next book in the trilogy to see if I’m able to revive my interest in Anton and Calla’s lives, but that’s a problem for next year.

[bumped my initial rating down a star after writing this review because wow! there’s a lot I didn’t like]

DNF @ 25%

Immortal Longings is for the Jude Duarte girlies who also can handle the first 25% of the book being massive infodumping.

I am not a Jude Duarte girlie.

I am also not an Immortal Longings girlie.

For some reason this book has multiple POVs, which does not make sense because they all seem to be the same person. They have different backstories, but they are all bloodthirsty killers. I didn't feel like I got to know any of the characters well enough to root for them.

This book is being pitched as similar to "Hunger Games" but it's an 80ish person arena which is also the actual city and the contestants can jump into other people's bodies, and do so without any mercy or remorse. To be clear, that means they kill random innocent people who did not consent to be in the games, and may or may not kill the actual contestant who was inside that person.

(I didn't get far enough into the book to learn if any of them at some point learn remorse?)

If you like a lot of action without a lot of character development, you might really like this book. I get bored by action, I just want emotion. And I did not get any of that.

Thanks so much to Saga Press and Chloe Gong for the eARC and finished copy of this book. All thoughts are my own.

I’m not sure if I just don’t jive with Chloe’s writing, but I had to skim a lot of this in order to finish it. It was a lot of world building to start, even for me, and I almost DNF at 30%. Anytime the action picked up it felt like we took three steps back to add another rule to the qi swapping or the kingdoms or anything other than the actual competition.

As interesting as the concept of qi swapping is, I really did not care for a few of the scenes that played out as a result. <spoiler>Let me just invade this body to have sex with you then discard it/give it back to its owner after we’re done tomorrow. ICK</spoiler>

I also wasn’t a fan of how poverty was portrayed in this book and subsequently confused as to how Calla was in hiding for years but could still afford a cat. Long live Mao Mao.

I will say, once I started skimming, the story picked up and actually got really interesting. The ending was incredibly satisfying and I actually really want to read what comes next. I can’t wait to see what happens in book two.

A big thanks to NetGalley and Sage Press for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hehehe. WHAT.

Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong is an adult fantasy retelling of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra with some Hunger Game vibes thrown in. If you minus the children killing each and add body jumping instead. Princess Calla Tuoleimi wants nothing more than revenge for her parent's murder, which involves throwing herself into the games with a hope of meeting her killer uncle and ending him once and for all. Anton Makusa, however wishes to save the girl of his dreams, who has been trapped in a coma. But with his crippling debt, he needs more money to keep her alive. Calla must team up with Anton, in hopes of playing to keep herself and her love alive.

Much like the rest of Gong's works, Immortal Longings provided plenty of intricate plotting and horrible character you can't help but root for. I absolutely love Gong's writing style, and I'm always happy to read more from her. Even if it means tearing my heart out of my chest every time.

Immortal Longings is the first book in a new fantasy trilogy by Chloe Gong. Gong is well known for her YA work, beginning with her These Violent Delights duology which took Romeo and Juliet and reimagined it as taking place in 1920s Shanghai, with its conflicts between Communists and Nationalists and between foreign Imperialists jockeying for power from the West and the East and the local peoples. I really liked that duology, which reimagined its Romeo and Juliet type characters in interesting ways, dealt with the impacts of real life historical atrocities of imperialism and even local massacres, and had characters and a story who really worked. I was less enthused by Gong's first book in her follow up duology (Foul Lady Forutne), but I was impressed enough by the first duology that I was certainly interested to check out Gong's first non-YA long fiction, as Immortal Longings is pitched.

And like These Violent Delights (which honestly could be just as easily considered not YA if the protagonists weren't the right age), Immmortal Longings is certainly interesting - filled with a couple of really strong lead characters, some very strong themes of power, Empire, and what it means to try to fix oppression and suffering. Yeah it's all centered around a plot structure that's pretty familiar and Hunger Games-esque, albeit with an Asian-inspired setting, but Gong makes that familiar setup work thanks to some excellent characters and plotting. And with a magical power that most of our characters have to jump bodies, you also have here some interesting questions about the soul and what it means to be one's self/own-person. The result is well worth reading, even if the book's last act featured way too many abrupt ends to plot threads and a VERY abrupt cliffhanger ending.


Plot Summary:
Five Years ago, the Kingdom of Talin was ruled by its two royal families, each of whom ruled from one of the twin cities of San and Er. The two royal families ruled over their kingdom with an iron grip, leading to poverty and misery throughout the kingdom, even in much of the twin cities. But then Princess Calla Tuoleimi of the Kingdom of Er massacred her family in an attempt to dispose of all the royalty at once in hopes of a better country arising in the Kingdom's place....but her failure to kill King Kasa of San has left things much as they were. Now, though the twin cities are now merged and known as "San-Er", King Kasa's oppresive greedy reign remains unchallenged.

But Calla has a plan to finish the job. Every year, the King hosts a contest, by which eighty-eight people are chosen from a lottery. The eighty-eight people are then given a wrist band and the task to eliminate each other: by either killing the rest or by removing the chip from the wristband they carry. The winner of the competition is given vast riches...and more importantly for Calla, they are given a direct congratulations by King Kasa himself. This year, Calla has managed to win the lottery...and when she wins the contest, she will finally have the access she needs to take down the King. And when the King's adopted heir August tracks her down and offers to help her, it seems there's no chance anyone will stop her.

But what Calla didn't count on was Anton Makusa, exiled noble boy who once, along with his beloved, was part of August's team seeking to change power in San-Er. Anton needs the money for winning badly, for the sake of the comatose girl he loves, and he's got one major advantage - he's the best known person at the power of Jumping, the god given power to use one's Qi to take over another's body. Anton takes over bodies as easily as breathing and doesn't know what his original body looked like at this point; by contrast while Calla can jump, she's famous for refusing to do so. And when the two encounter each other, each incredibly deadly, they find themselves oddly drawn to one another...even though only one of them can survive the competition.

But Calla and Anton will have to survive more than each other to get what they want. For something strange is happening in the games and someone is killing Players in ways that don't make sense...and might be coming for Calla and Anton next.


Let's be clear: the general setup here for the contest that provides for much of the action and conflict in this story is just another form of Battle Royale/The Hunger Games or even just a Breads and Circuses type game - a deadly last one standing game meant to distract the populace and people from their own misery though entertaining bloodsport. You've also got a corrupt autocratic ruler at the center of it all, one who is cowardly and too afraid to go out in public but is fully willing to put on a murderous set of games or to kill any dissenters who struggle with taxes. And of course you have those who would seek to change this status quo both through and outside the games, although they differ on how that shold be done. You've seen this all before, even if the Asian inspired background is a little different.

But there's enough here to do some really different and interesting things with this setup and its themes. First our three main point of view characters - Calla, Anton, and August - are really excellent even as they each illustrate different archetypes that you may have seen before. In Calla, you have the woman who is desperate to create a better world - and perhaps more (there's a secret I won't reveal that underlines her motive) - and the only way she can see that happening is to kill the greedy King who allows for and creates the oppressive unjust society she sees all around her...and who is willing to seemingly do whatever it takes, since there's very few people left she carees about. At the same time, Calla kind of hates herself for indulging in such bloodshed, In August, you have the person who has schemed his way into a position of power, one where he may soon be able to replace the King...where he swears he will use that royal power in a more just fashion, even as he treats most people himself as simply tools. And then there's Anton, a former minor noble who was once was part of August's crew - along with Leida, August's closest confidant, and Otta Avia, the girl he fell in love with. Otta has since fallen into a coma as part of an illness related to her Jumping after she and Anton for some reason backed out of the plan - or perhaps August's plan isn't what it seemed the book hints - and Anton is desperate to pay to keep her alive so that she might one day come out of it. For that purpose he will do anything and use his magical power of Jumping to achieve his goal, winning the Games to get the money needed to save her, even if August would prefer he simply disappear.

Ah yes, Jumping, which I've largely ignored in this review but really shouldn't have, for it forms a centerpoint to multiple of the book's themes. Jumping allows a person with strong Qi to transmit their mind into another person's mind....if they're strong enough, they can take over that body, while their own will fall unconscious and empty. Eventually being in another's body long enough will kill the original host mind...but if you jump out a second time, the original person comes back to consciousness. Each of our main characters uses it differently - August jumps into people without any issue, but always ensures his original body is safe to go back to while Anton jumps from body to body at will, trusting he is the strongest jumper there is, such that he has long since lost his original body. Meanwhile Calla is famous for having always, for some reason, refused to jump, despite being able to do so - she always keeps her own original body. This concept of Jumping allows the book to deal in some more unique ways with the questions of power, as well as the question of self - with the ability to jump in and out of others' bodies, what really makes someone themselves? And these questions are only made more complicated when an antagonist uses Jumping in seemingly new and impossible ways (the book also notes that trans people may sometimes jump into the body of another gender, although we never see anyone of that nature in this book).

Immortal Longings uses all of the above to put together an interesting plot and discussion of the above themes, and its characters work in a solid if unexceptional romance. But it's not perfect and there's a few annoying flaws. For one, there's a mystery antagonist - who first seems to be another POV character and then turns out to be someone behind that character - who is teased as being a big deal...and is then dealt with exceedingly easily and abruptly near the end (as is the POV character, who is teased as being incredibly powerful and dangerous and instead is dealt with in like 5 seconds once pinned down). The same goes with the book's final cliffhanger, which the book sets up by featuring most of its last few chapters from only Calla's point of view, to allow for a surprise to end it all. And then not only is the cliffhanger kind of unearned, but it's well just super abrupt, as if the book just was cut off from a larger volume rather than having any particular ending. It's not a bad enough abruptness for me to really be annoyed or unsatisfied, as major plot arcs are resolved in this volume, but it's enough to give me a little bit of annoyance.

Overall though, Immortal Longings is a pretty good adult fantasy novel by Gong, and I look forward to seeing where the story goes in its sequel.

Immortal Longings offers a captivating narrative enriched by its remarkable worldbuilding, exhilarating action sequences, and a delightful touch of mischief.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc! I have very mixed feelings about Immortal Longings. It fell a bit flat for me in many aspects and that pains me so much to say because I love Chloe’s books so much 😭 I was waiting to be grabbed but it never happened. None of the POVs were particularly interesting and I thought the world-building was not very fleshed out. I’m not sure how I feel about Calla and Anton’s love, there isn’t much chemistry between them. I will still be reading IL2 because I want to know what happens! I see the potential that IL has.

As per usual, I love Chloe Gong's writing style and how the how she builds her characters. I'm excited to see where she takes the next book. I still think I enjoy some of her other works better, but as her debut into the adult fantasy world, this feels like a good start. For some people I know that the details can feel a bit info-dumpy, but as a person who is very into world building I didn't mind it.

I loved Chloe Gong's first YA duology, so I naturally jumped at the chance to read her adult debut. The premise of this book is really compelling, but I felt like the execution just didn't quite reach its full potential. I struggled through the first third of the book, but once the action picked up and Anton and Calla were finally in each other's main orbit, I found myself more compelled.

I felt like we either needed to delve into the crescent society subplot more, or we needed more of August's POV to show his motivations for his actions because I got tired of this book dropping bits and pieces of compelling side plots in and never delivering on developing those side plots fully. So much was being orchestrated outside of Anton and Calla's awareness, and I wish we had gotten more than brief glimpses interspersed around their perspectives. The tendency to swap whose perspective was being described mid-chapter threw me off multiple times and made understanding the difference between Anton and August, two men with 'A' names and black eyes, really difficult in the beginning. Eventually, their perspectives and involvements were different enough for me to tell them apart, but in the first quarter of the book, I was constantly confused by whose perspective I was reading.

The first big twist had me immediately needing to read more, but when I thought about it, it made absolutely no sense within the rules of the world Gong has set up, for the exact same reasons that the final twist works so well. I couldn't focus on the second main twist and struggled to fully appreciate the final twist because I just kept going back to how the first main twist made no sense and didn't work. Hopefully, it gets explained further in the next two books, but I was majorly thrown off by the rules established throughout the book being thrown out the window because it made multiple things that happened prior fall apart.

I'm interested to see whether books two and three end up with a love triangle aspect, but I finished this book confused and frustrated enough that I'm not super likely to pick those books up when they come out. By no means was this a terrible adult debut, but the disregard for the worldbuilding she established within the same book has me unlikely to continue.

3.5 stars rounded up.
First off, I love Chloe Gong. I have loved everything she has written so far and I couldn’t wait to pick this book up.

Immortal Longings feels like a book by Chloe Gong. The way she constructs her worlds and her characters always pulls me right in. This book was no exception. The vibes were fantastic if you want a fantasy book with Hunger Games vibes and an enemies to lovers sub plot.

One of the things I really enjoyed about this book is the unique urban setting for the tournament. I’m used to tournaments in books being set in an arena but the fact that the action was happening around regular civilians was really interesting. You never knew who or where was safe which made for a fun time.

I also found the conflict between Calla, August, and Anton to be really interesting. While I understand why this book was so focused on Calla and Anton, I’m hoping we get more information about August in the next.

My biggest overall problem with Immortal Longings was the lack of discussion surrounding the moral implications of body hopping. I think in an adult book, those discussions would only make the overall story more interesting and I think it’s an important aspect that was missed. I didn’t always feel comfortable with this mechanic. I think if Chloe delved deeper into the moral conflict, I would have had an easier time accepting it. (Mainly looking at the sexual component and the idea of consent while inhabiting someone else’s body.)

As always in a Chloe Gong book, we are left with a massive cliffhanger. Overall, I’m looking forward to the next book. I hope that some of the things I mentioned get solved because I think this series has the potential to be another favorite of mine.

Think Hunger Games for adults, with a better imagined world of the Capitol, better writing, and somehow even more blood. Each year, the twin cities of San-Er gathers 88 desperate citizens to compete in a citywide fight to the death, with the winner getting enough money to live in comfort in the provinces. This year, there are two ringers in the mix: Anton, a former palace favorite who was forced out because of his use of "jumping" powers, which let him (and many others in San-Er) take control of other's bodies, and Princess Calla, in hiding after murdering the royal family of Er. Anton, who jumps with abandon, and Calla, who refuses to jump on principle, soon gather attention from the feeds due to their prolific killing and style. Drawn together in an alliance of convenience, Anton and Calla inevitably must face each other to claim the top prize. The cyberpunk world of San-Er pulses with life, and Gong's writing sparkles. All the passion she brought to her YA books is apparent here, The political elements, the romance, the blood - all balance well and left me desperate to read the next one.

Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra inspired story with a dash of Hunger Games set in a sci-fi esque setting... a deadly competition, betrayal, politics, and forbidden romance! Princess Calla Tuoleimi is known as the princess who murdered her parents and a whole room of other people and disappeared, now she’s hiding, plotting to kill King Kasa, the king responsible for the rot in the city. Calla will do anything to kill the King, even enter into a deadly competition and team up with her cousin.... the current heir to the throne all to just get a chance at giving the kingdom of Talin a chance to be free. Calla was trained to be deadly, she’s a killer and a good one. When the kingdom’s deadly game starts, Calla is already a member. In this kingdom there is a deadly game where contestants are given free reign to kill off all the other players until there is only one left and the winner is given power and money beyond imagination, and in a kingdom filled with poverty, starvation, and sickness, everybody wants to win. Calla’s only goal is to win so the moment she gets a moment alone with the King she will cut his head off and when her cousin August makes an offer to help her win the games in exchange for the promise that she will kill his father and make him king and he’ll free her once he is, what’s a girl to do but agree? Cue Anton Makusa, the exiled aristocrat and former best friend of August who has been spending his years paying the hospital bills to keep his childhood love who is in a coma alive... the same childhood love that is August’s sister. Anton is severely in debt and entering into these games would be a chance for him to clear it and help pay off the bills. Anton is one of the best jumpers in the city (in this kingdom people with special genes can jump bodies, and royalty have a distinct color to their eyes despite their body jumping). Anton purposes an alliance to Calla, they both help each other kill off all the other contestants until its just the two of them... but something more is happening as the more time Anton spends around Calla the more he is falling in love (vice versa)... but August has other plans... and betrayal is bond to occur because no one can trust each other and this is a game with high stakes. This is the first book in the series and the ending has me already begging to see where the second book goes. This was a really interesting story and it had an overall fun storyline especially with the citywide death game. My only issues were the constant info dumps that were thrown at us, seriously I’m positive this book could have been shaved down 50-80 pages of info dump of this world that we did not need. The other issue was the romance, I really did not buy the slow burn romance because honestly it just felt out of nowhere and suddenly it was like all at once. Calla and Anton spend about 70% of the book being allies and then suddenly they are throwing I love yous at each other?? I dont believe it. I liked the romance because the betrayal later makes it all the more fun and the angst was delicious but I just wish their romance was explored more so I could feel more invested and I could actually believe in their romance. Like Anton went form someone obsessed with saving Otta to being like: yeah she was my childhood crush but I’m in love with Calla now?? SIR???? REALLY??? August was definitely a really interesting character and I had fun seeing the political workings in his head and just how far he is willing to go to get the throne. Calla was a really fun protagonist and I am so excited to see what she does in the next book! Overall it was a super fun read and I can’t wait to see what happens next!

*Thanks Netgalley and Gallery Books, Gallery / Saga Press for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*