In Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Juliet cannot freely marry, not only because of the blood feud between the Montagues and the Capulets, but also because of patriarchal society in medieval Italy. Until Roma reached into his jacket pocket and drew his gun, and Juliette had no choice but to jolt herself out of her daze.

Then, in Our Violent Ends, the Scarlets fight Juliette’s plan to make a free vaccine that’s accessible to all. For a moment, she was certain she had merely been mistaken, that perhaps a lock of hair had come undone from her front curl and fallen into her eyes.

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, the beads along her sleeves clinking loudly against the beads dangling from her front. You can create your map as a time line, an aesthetic board or video, a series of tweets, diary entries, or something else. And let me tell you, it gives us so many choice moments of being thrown against a wall, being stabbed, etc. Juliette didn’t need her earpiece, not just because she could read English, but because she wasn’t really watching the film. It was the way the people moved about—the extra bounce in their toes and the twinkle in their eye as they leaned over the seats of the Grand Theatre to whisper to their companion.

No matter how carefully the Scarlets cooperated with the Nationalists, every single person in this city could feel something shifting, could see the gatherings grow larger and larger each time the Communists attempted a strike. At some point, he had traded his dark suits for lighter colors: for a cream jacket and a golden tie, for cuff links that caught the light each time the screen flashed white. Unfortunately, it would have been more useful if she were actually down there herself, mingling with the merchant she had been sent here for, rather than staring at him from high above. Teens will relate to Roma and Juliette's frustration with the unending cycle of violence, and with having no voice in decisions that affect their lives. If Juliette were actually guilty of the crime Roma believes she committed, his rejection might sting less.

Divide the class into two sides (Scarlets and White Flowers), and debate whether revolution is possible without violence.

Throughout most of the book, Roma struggles with his love for Juliette and the notion of being a traitor.She already knew that, of course, from the reports that came back to her about dead gangsters with Korean characters slashed in blood beside them. When the choice was between protecting those you loved and sparing the lives of strangers, who would ever think that to be a hard decision?

I am grateful that our roles are not switched, for I would have dove headfirst into the Huangpu should I be left in this world without you. Considering where the insects and monsters come from and who is releasing them into the city, do you think the sickness is a metaphor? Instead their thoughts circled retribution, and honor, and as different mouths ran different accounts of what had happened between the inner circles of the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers that day, the only definitive truths that came out were this: in a tiny hospital along the edges of Shanghai, Roma Montagov had shot at Tyler Cai, and to protect her cousin, Juliette Cai had killed Marshall Seo in cold blood.Now the White Flowers were pressing down on the Scarlet Gang with a renewed urgency, and the Scarlet Gang were fighting back just as hard. After sacrificing her relationship with Roma to protect him from the blood feud, Juliette has been a girl on a mission. Given that this sort of thing normally annoys me, I actually thought Chloe Gong did a great job in Our Violent Ends to make that feel reasonable. For those who have read or seen Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, characters and specific scenes from Gong’s adaptation will seem familiar. OUR VIOLENT ENDS finds Roma and Juliette, heirs to rival gangs in 1920s Shanghai, forced to work together once again to save their city from plague-bringing monsters.