Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Generally good and engaging book, however lost me at times. Also I felt like we got just a glimpse of these characters and I git left wanting to know more.

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notlikethebeer's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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? It's complicated

4.75

Ya know what. I read loads of bad reviews about this, and I was really apprehensive. And yeah, it had it's moments. But for the most part, I bloody adored it.

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kayleejanes's review against another edition

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emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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sarasreading's review

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challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.25

This book is mostly all vibes no plot, but the vibes were not great for me. It’s that kind of contemporary book where most of the characters are a combination of too cool, too pretty, too rich, too traumatized, and/or too dependent on substances to feel like real people to me. They are most definitely made up to be in a book exactly like this. Except for Eleanor.

Around a third of the way into this book is when I started considering DNF-ing, but then Eleanor showed up and I was back in the game! But then she disappeared again, and so did my interest. And then Anders had that moment in that public bathroom and I thought about not picking it up again. That entire scene was a big weird no thank you. There are also a lot of other uncomfortable to read explicit sexual scenes, which is also apparently a staple of this particular kind of contemporary novel.

I stuck with it and my final thoughts are these: The prose is incredible. I loved the descriptions and turns of phrase. I should have written them down to save and savor later. Eleanor’s story arc is the best one in the book by far, and she saved this book for me. I’m not sure that was enough for it to be a five-star read though. In a cast of characters whose sole purpose seems to be, to be interesting, the most interesting character is Eleanor, who isn’t trying to be interesting at all. Was that the author’s purpose? It worked if so, but also, it meant that the majority of the time I did not care about anyone I was reading about. So it also didn’t work for me, in the end.

Although I did like the end actually. It made sense and was satisfying. It could have been a four-star read for me, except for so much explicit, and sometimes disturbingly violent scenes.

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tolu_odejide's review

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challenging dark emotional 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

4.0

I have a penchant of reading books too fast. This book was so uncomfortably reflective that I had to rush through it or else I’d stop and never come back.

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.

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