Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

38 reviews

asb51's review

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Chronic illness, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Misogyny, Sexism, and Sexual harassment

lisapisa8's review

challenging dark sad tense 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

3.0

It’s a story about a toxic couple with friends around them who have bad influence on them. It makes the characters live in this devil circle where everyone makes bad decisions. The very very End shows character development. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Chronic illness, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

cayliehausman's review against another edition

emotional funny reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

A proper show of the delicate balance that relationships, big and small, have on one another. Balancing between opinions and perspectives, feelings and foreshadowing, this book beautifully describes the messiness of human relationships, mental health and addiction.
From love, to attention, to jealousy, this books ranges every human emotion there is and brings you to empathize with each character as you watch the tangles of lives over this short year and a half span. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Misogyny, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

random19379's review

• 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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Animal death, Suicide, and Medical content

Minor: Homophobia and Racism

clairebartholomew549's review

dark emotional hopeful reflective 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

This book was really satisfying. I loved the writing style - it felt like we followed each person's thoughts and actions in a natural and interesting way, and Mellors seems to know exactly when to leave a person's perspective for maximum impact. Cleo and Frank are deeply interesting and complex, and the vignettes of their lives over the first year of their marriage paint a thoughtful portrait of two people trying to make when they are so different. I found many parts of this book profound and loved getting insights into the people in Cleo and Frank's lives, especially Zoe, Eleanor, and Santiago. New York City is also a vivid character in this book, which I always love. I found this book really affecting and will definitely be reading more of Mellors' work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Sexual content, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Chronic illness, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Classism

paulawind's review

reflective tense slow-paced

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

1.0

Rich People’s Problems but Wait, They All Have Tragic Backstories: A Novel

The only reason I finished this book was because it is my Book Club novel. I fought and sweated my way through page by page because it’s just so bad. It’s part of the trend for authors to try to make their books “deeper” by flooding every character with trauma. Pain Porn if you prefer. 

The author thought that by giving each character a single-defining struggle she is making them less one-dimensional but because of that they felt almost like cartoon characters. Cleo - beautiful, thin, talented, young BUT WAIT she is depressed and has both mummy and daddy issues; Frank - beautiful, “manly”, successful, rich and older BUT WAIT he had mummy issues and is an alcoholic, Zoe - beautiful, thin, talented BUT WAIT she has seizures, Quentin - beautiful, thin, rich “snarky gay best friend” BUT WAIT he can’t come out of the closet because of his homophobic Polish family (fuck you for that Coc, enforcing Polish stereotypes) and is a drug addict, Anders - beautiful, thin, rich fuckboy BUT WAIT his step-son doesn’t like him anymore and his parents don’t visit him in the US. You see what I mean? The only half-decent characters are Eleanor and Santiago, just because they are not awful to other people, but they rarely are given voice and in the end are pushed into the role of “I can fix him” girl for Frank and “losing weight will let you find love”, respectively. Nauseating. TikTok girlies, wake up, this is not literary fiction you claim it to be.

The book obviously features a lot of content warnings - wouldn’t be a pain porn without it - but I’m not sure if it’s handled even passably well.

Cleo’s depression and its consequences, Frank’s alcoholism, Zoe’s inability to live without a trust fund, Anders’s familial infidelity - all get magically solved by the end, with no depth or mental insight given on any of the aforementioned. Cleo started painting and moved to Italy - depression solved; Frank “got fixed” by his mummy to-be-wife; Zoe just found herself a sugar daddy; and Anders swept the whole issue under the rug. We can’t of course forget that the happy ending is only given to straight people - queers go to hell with our only rep - Quentin - ending up a meth head and most likely dying

This book angered me on so many levels. It was the superficial depth, wannabe literary fiction, over sexualisation of everything (Zoe saying that she is “a real girl” now, after climaxing, nauseated me), disrespectful treatment of a lot of extremely heavy issues and -how could I forget - BLATANT plagiarism of other media (yes, I’m looking at you ripped-off Fleabag dinner scene). Awful

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Chronic illness, Deadnaming, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, and Classism

lemonyanne's review

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

This book feels like you’re invited into the world of well-off socialite New York as a total voyeur. You’d never want to be part of this circle as all the characters are flawed and unlikeable in their own ways. However, Cleo and Frank’s relationship IS interesting and this discussion of how they destroy one another in the mutual distraction of themselves is why you keep reading it. You don’t want to look away from the car crash on the highway. (SPOILERS:) However, Eleanor’s 2 chapters felt really misplaced. First person was the wrong choice for her (esp when then rest of the novel is in third) and felt like an ill-attempt at making her feel normal, relatable or quirky - this I think was the more unsuccessful element of her narrative. I also don’t think she was Frank’s saving grace and I’m unsure if she was written to be. Although, her pining love for Frank could serve as an interesting contrasting how Anders pined for Cleo, as Eleanor’s love showed far more compassion, maturity and self-awareness as opposed to Anders’ vapid, self-absorbed obsession with Cleo was. All in all, this book felt like reading gossip, and for that purpose it worked fabulously. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

irislovescats's review

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

Not my fave kind of story, but the craft of the writing was exceptional 🤍

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Medical content, and Pregnancy

shaleen64's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense 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

3.75

If you’re a reader that likes a true plot then this isn’t really the book for you. However, whilst the majority of characters cannot be described as lovable, all are relatable and the book really explores the difficulties of navigating complex relationships  in the modern day world. 

Several really important topics are covered with enough depth that they’re not trivialised but evoke thought. The title of the book is the most perfect symbolism. However, excluding Santiago, I didn’t have a true connection with the characters hence the rating, but it’s still a book I would recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Alcohol

Moderate: Medical content and Death of parent

Minor: Sexism and Terminal illness

rachel101's review

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad slow-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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, and Death of parent

Minor: Addiction, Animal death, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Toxic friendship