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jordkuba's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Animal cruelty, Alcoholism, Addiction, Mental illness, Sexual content, and Sexual assault
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Death of parent, Infidelity, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Dementia, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, Fatphobia, and Grief
Minor: Self harm, Violence, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, and Dysphoria
aleilvandrea's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Violence, Alcohol, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Animal death, Blood, Death, Dementia, Drug use, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Self harm, Sexual content, Body horror, Alcoholism, and Infidelity
Moderate: Classism, Gore, Abandonment, and Grief
Minor: Acephobia/Arophobia, Dysphoria, Fire/Fire injury, Transphobia, Ableism, and Antisemitism
theraindiary's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Abandonment, Animal death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Drug abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Dysphoria, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Death of parent, Misogyny, and Transphobia
fatimaelf's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Everyone else was fucked up, but I’ll give Mellors credit in that you fully understand why they’re fucked up, and you empathize with them. The character I was most disappointed by was Quentin. He got one chapter, which sort of examined his gender dysphoria and then
There were two things that took away from the enjoyment of the book for me: first, and most glaringly, once you realize that Cleo is just a self-insert for the author, it’s very hard to take the book seriously. Especially with the amount of time Cleo’s complimented on her beauty, and how everyone loves her, and how in comparison Eleanor is “sturdy” like a fucking tree — yeah, it’s weird. Every time Cleo was mentioned it was impossible to forget she was functionally the author because of her long flowing blonde hair and mysterious air — buddy, you could’ve at least made her brunette for plausible deniability.
The second problem was the fact that Cleo felt it was appropriate
Side note: nobody in this fucking book deserved to have a pet. Yeah, I’m looking at you too, Anders, you shithead.
In the end, I think the book did what it set out to do — show the dysfunction in interpersonal relationships — and I think the writing was good, and the characters were interesting. I didn’t hate it, but I wouldn’t say I loved it.
Graphic: Dysphoria, Alcoholism, and Suicide attempt
Moderate: Addiction
adaora_ble's review against another edition
- 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
3.75
Graphic: Chronic illness, Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Dementia, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Blood, Suicide attempt, Animal death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Drug abuse, Medical trauma, Self harm, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Gaslighting, and Grief
Moderate: Transphobia, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis
solspringsreads's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Cleopatra and Frankenstein is pretty much what it says on the tin (and the plot summary): a book about a couple with a large age gap who are both deeply flawed individuals, and the ways their relationship affects the people in their lives as well as how their lives are affected in turn. I didn’t expect this book to have shifting perspectives in each chapter and to focus so heavily on characters aside from the two titular protagonists, but I actually found myself preferring the chapters that gave us insight into the larger context of Cleo and Frank’s relationship. Although I wish I could get more context for certain characters and the changes in their lives, it almost felt true to life: sometimes the people you care about extremely deeply will have major life changes that you know almost nothing about, and you don’t get closure. This also felt like it was reflective of how self-absorbed Cleo and Frank were, in that their friends like Quentin and Zoe were going through some significant life changes and crises of their own, but by the end of the book we get little to no information on the outcomes of these events. From a realism standpoint, this was amazing… but from a reader’s standpoint, I definitely felt sad that the most of an ending I could get for my favorite characters was “They hopefully aren’t dead in a ditch.” On the other hand, during each characters’ respective chapter, we got a significant amount of insight into their personal lives with only limited references to the titular characters in a way that felt kind of unnecessary to the plot; sure, I get that pointing out the irony of an overweight culinary master who’s on a pretty strict diet is Fun Social Commentary™ and the fact that Cleo and Frank barely know about this characters’ struggle or reference it during their chapters is reflective of their self-involvement, but like… again, as a reader, part of me feels like these scenes are such unnecessary tangents to the protagonists’ actual character arcs. Most of the changes and “growth” that Cleo and Frank have and go through feel random and unearned, like the novel has to explicitly tell us that they’ve changed because we spent so much time focusing on Anders’s strained relationship with his son.
Relatedly, the dialogue in this book gets kinda silly. I listened to the audiobook so my impressions of certain scenes might be very different than those of a reader of a physical copy, but there were several bits of dialogue that had me rolling my eyes. Chapter 13 is one particularly example of this issue: somehow, the dialogue between Cleo and Frank felt simultaneously too realistic and too forced, like the author couldn’t decide if she wanted to capture what arguments were actually like (including the awkward pauses, the ways people cut each other off) or what arguments felt like (focusing on the inner turmoil of each character between the lines or the minute cues of body language to show how they feel). The characters constantly talked around their issues, which is again, true to life, but unfortunately the nothing-dialogue can lead to some pretty lackluster “big fight” scenes.
There are lots of stereotypes abound in a way that is almost maybe social commentary until you look up the author and see that she is a conventionally attractive cis blonde woman and suddenly you go, “Wow, this is a book that has a lot of transphobia during the narration from a character who is heavily implied if not outright stated to be a trans woman, and while it’s positioned in a way that feels like it’s supposed to be representative of internalized transphobia, this does maybe feel weird in the broader context of this being a book about the relationship between two flawed mostly-heterosexual cisgender people!” Likewise, LOTS of really random comments about race and ethnic stereotypes that feel like they should maybe be satire except that they’re completely unchallenged… or challenged in a way that the book immediately mocks. Maybe there’s an argument that the book as a whole is satirical, and while it does have moments where that feels clear, it often clumsily treads the fine line between making fun of stereotypes and perpetuating those same stereotypes.
Despite everything, though, I was totally wrapped up in this book. I binged the whole audiobook during a knitting-induced frenzy (which resulted in an all-nighter) and still felt so awed by how beautiful certain parts of the prose sounded, especially during Santiago and Eleanor’s chapters, and the philosophical ideas explored during Zoe’s chapters. I became emotionally invested in these somewhat stereotypical characters for an evening, and I truly do feel like there are moments and scenes from this book that will stay with me even now that I’ve finished it.
Overall, this was a pretty standard entry in the subcategory of litfic about beautiful yet waifish blondes who do a lot of drugs in New York and feel miserable about the older men and so-called friends with which they surround themselves. Somehow, the hype is completely understandable and yet overdone in a way that’s to be expected for this type of novel. (There’s always hype around books about sad beautiful women with addictions living in big cities, even if those books are mostly the same.) Despite my many criticisms and the fact that this book isn’t particularly unique in its plot or commentary, I still mostly enjoyed this and would (VERY VERY tentatively and with many caveats and warnings) recommend this to others, if only to discuss some of the things I might take issue with in the book.
Graphic: Suicide, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Gore, Abandonment, Classism, Fatphobia, Transphobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Dysphoria, Outing, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Violence, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Mental illness, Death, Dementia, Drug abuse, Sexism, Infidelity, and Alcohol
joeykills's review against another edition
- 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
3.0
Graphic: Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Dysphoria, Violence, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Infidelity, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, and Grief
nenya's review against another edition
- 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
5.0
the book felt like an anti-romanticizing telltale of several New Yorker lifestyles while also being deeply philosophical and thought provoking
Graphic: Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Blood, Body horror, Drug use, Dysphoria, Grief, Self harm, Sexual content, Addiction, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Mental illness, Suicide, Alcohol, Toxic friendship, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
hanhantap's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Homophobia, Transphobia, Gaslighting, and Toxic friendship
Minor: Dysphoria
tolu_odejide's review against another edition
- 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
4.0
Mellors writes in the modern style, I first encountered when I read “Girl. Woman. Other.” It’s pervasive, a book on my tbr list, “I’m a Fan” is also written in a similar style. Morally grey characters who make morally ambiguous decisions. Cheat on their partners, humiliate themselves in public and are never sober.
I can never read more than a couple of these books a year. They’re too modern. I prefer confronting my emotions through several layers of illusion. This one, was brilliant however.
The characters are well-crafted, written with such empathy that it’s easy to see yourself reflected back in them, even the bad bits. Frank’s story particularly resonated with me.
Theme exploration in this book felt like a caress. It felt like someone had dug deep underneath my defences and helped rearrange things. Finishing this felt like I’d shaken something out of a favourite coat. I understand myself better now.
Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Self harm, and Misogyny
Moderate: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Dysphoria
Minor: Animal death