Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

51 reviews

hgrimston's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

whilst it took me a while to get into, I think I fell in love with the characters despite the mistakes they make.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

adamparrishlover's review against another edition

challenging emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

it's kinda like gosspil girl for people that are currently debating wether or not they should get a sugar daddy to pay for their expenses. mostly questionable with some strong feminism sprinkled in here and there. 

Ah and also everyone in New York does coke like EVERYONE 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Grief, Death of parent, Addiction, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Abandonment, Mental illness, Drug abuse, and Infidelity

Moderate: Sexual content, Transphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Suicide

mrs_gale's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

Where was the substance? This was nearly four hundred pages and nothing really happens! It took me so long to read because I just wasn’t enjoying it, I'm completely baffled by the hype this book gets.

I kept waiting to read about the way that Cleo and Frank's relationship actually impacted their friends, but it never did!

It's just a variety of characters that somewhat link to Cleo and Frank, with a bunch of additional characters while mentioning a huge number of topics without exploring them much. The characters don't do much except drink and drugs. 

The number of characters is huge, some are only mentioned briefly. I did not care for a single one, not even the main characters. They had no redeeming qualities, just really immature and self-absorbed and not developed well. 

Shocked to discover it took 7 years to write! I did not enjoy this book, I cannot recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Self harm, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Addiction, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: Grief, Sexism, Death of parent, and Transphobia

leils's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.25

Bad plot with some interesting parts popping up a few times. The only reason that I actually bothered to finish it was to see how the conflicts were resolved, and ... safe to say I was disappointed lol. If the author has focused on just Cleo, Frank, Eleanor and Anders the book would have been more solid, but instead 30% of it was dedicated to side characters. The story of the side characters really didn't add to the main storyline, so .. could have easily been chopped and nothing would be missing.

The author does have a way of digesting hard themes with her easily flowing writing style, which made this book actually readable.

Wouldn't recommend this to anyone, but I am going to see what the author comes up with next 🪩⚡🤍

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Blood, Cursing, Drug use, Self harm, and Toxic relationship

elisem04's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

This feels weird to rate bc it was compellingly readable to the point where I couldn’t put it down. But at the same time, it made me feel awful and I didn’t really care about any of the characters. 2.25 stars is a reasonable compromise I guess.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Self harm

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Drug abuse

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

riagibbison's review against another edition

dark emotional funny slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This is really well written and includes a really eclectic group of characters, but at times it was just too pretentious and felt like sometimes diminished darker topics like suicide and drug use. 

The two main characters, and almost all of the rest of the cast are such unlikeable people - you can only really root for Eleanor and Santiago in my eyes. Don’t even start me on Quinton. 

This needed to be more grounded, money just isn’t an issue for people in this book, when Zoe is in debt she has multiple people ready to bail her out and of course the source (without spoiling it) ends up being a really nice person with minimal consequences for her. 

Overall, I enjoyed reading this at the time, but it didn’t blow me away or make me think “wow” at any moment. Well thought out characters but lacking the plot I was after.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Suicide, and Drug use

Minor: Animal cruelty

minimicropup's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Atmosphere: 👌 Largely created through snippets of the characters’ thoughts and interactions, with detailed descriptions of locations peppered throughout in an effective way. It contributes to the overall setting and goings-ons rather than being distracting. 

Main POVs: 👌
-a 24 year old recent fine art graduate who presents as carefree, confident, and adventurous but is harbouring a deep sense of shame, depressive disorders, and unhealthy ego. They blame everyone and everything for their struggles. We get to see them slowly evolve and where it comes from in their past
-a 44 year old functional alcoholic and advertising entrepreneur who is successful and perhaps a “charming” drunk but painfully immature and people-pleasing in a shallow way. We also see them evolve and where this tendency comes from
-a witty, intuitive, cynical 37 year old television/film writer recently forced out of their job and now living with their elderly wise-cracking parent 

Show’n’tell: ❤️
So much show! Though half the time you aren’t quite sure what you’re being shown, it adds to the story. Like bringing a neon crayon set in an unlabelled package, revealing them individually, then passing them around the class. 

Reading Journey: 👌
People-watching on the NY subway from early morning ‘til late night. There will be moments of boredom, confusion, cringing, heartwarmth (?), and laughter. 

Great match if you like:
-literary fiction with character-driven narratives that are infuriating, hilarious, and inspiring
-believable outcomes (follows MCs over a two-year period)
-character studies involving addiction, mental illness, and childhood trauma
-NYC party vibes with consequences included
-a sprinkling of randomness
-wrong time and place romance

Vibes: 😅🥺🥴

Format: Library E-book via Libby

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug abuse, and Drug use

Moderate: Abandonment, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Chronic illness

Minor: Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Toxic friendship, and Vomit

Addiction includes alcoholism (and recovery), food addiction (and recovery), relationship addiction/codependent friendships, meth, and heroin

fatal overdose

. Chronic illness is Parkinson’s and dementia in an elderly parent. Animal death is a short set of scenes

involving a pet marsupial that drowns and was left to roam free in unsafe surroundings

. Sexual content is consenting adults (though sometimes very intoxicated). Adult/minor relationship recounted a bit by one character from her past. Abandonment theme around parental abandonment/rejection of some characters.

simplychloe's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

desireewoodwhite's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Blood, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Toxic relationship, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Sexism, Animal cruelty, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Animal death, and Adult/minor relationship

auteaandtales's review against another edition

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Fatphobia

Moderate: Sexual content, Self harm, Misogyny, Transphobia, Sexual assault, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Homophobia, and Drug use

Minor: Animal death, Racism, Body shaming, and Animal cruelty