(Flesh and False Gods #2)
by Chloe Gong
September 10, 2024
Goodreads Summary:
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Chloe Gong comes the thrilling sequel to Immortal Longings, inspired by Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra.
Calla Tuoleimi has succeeded in the impossible. Despite the odds, she has won San-Er’s bloody games and eliminated King Kasa, her tyrant uncle and the former ruler of Talin. She serves now as royal advisor to Kasa’s adopted son, August Shenzhi, who has risen to the throne.
Only Calla knows it isn’t really August.
Anton Makusa is still furious about Calla’s betrayal in the final round of the games. In an impossible feat, he took over August’s body to survive, and has no intention of giving up this newfound power. But when his first love, the beautiful, explosive Otta Avia, awakens from a years-long coma and reveals a secret that threatens the monarchy’s authority over Talin, chaos erupts. As tensions come to a boiling point, Calla and Anton must set their conflicts aside and head to the kingdom’s far reaches to prevent anarchy… even if their empire might be better off burning.
Review
After that soul-crashing ending in Immortal Longings, I have been impatiently waiting for the next chapter of Calla and Anton’s story. Vilest Things did not disappoint- bringing political upheaval, dangerous new forces and more hate/love relationships onto the scene.
Calla is a different kind of badass in Vilest Things. As unwillingly as she was to assume a leadership role in San-Er, she was not bad at it. "...because speaking well is half the push towards winning a battle..." (arc, p 96). With her intuition and persistence, Calla achieved much. She was an unstoppable force- even more so at the end of the book ;)
I love the concept of body-jumping but sometimes it was hard to keep up with the timeline. One twist, which I guessed early on, wasn’t as impactful because I couldn’t recall when certain events happened. I also have questions about the exact nature of the crown which hopefully will be better explained in the next book. One twist that did surprise me was the identity of one of the new POVs. None of my hunches were correct so well played Miss Gong!
I am no less obsessed with Calla and Anton in Vilest Things~ They had a great deal of conflicts to resolve- both internally and externally. For obvious reasons, they were not on friendly terms but to uncover a common enemy, Calla and Anton begrudgingly worked together. I was a total sucker for the tension between them- the sizzling push and pull. As ploys unraveled and plans improvised, Calla and Anton kept each other alive and more ;) I’m so excited to see what they’ll do together!
From Immortal Longings to Vilest Things, the adventure kept getting wilder! Chloe Gong has created a dreadful but rich world with unpredictable characters and unthinkable actions. More please. I can’t wait to find out what book 3 will be called!!!
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not affected in any way. Any quotes included in my review were taken from the copy I received.
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