Reviews with content warning for Mental illness - CLEOPATRA AND FRANKENSTEIN

This book was recommended to me by a friend. They said it was heartbreaking, and it was the best thing they’d ever read. I’ve had this book for about a year now, but with all of my university reading, I kept putting off, but last month, I finally got round to reading it.

We follow Cleo and Frank as they meet, Cleo from England and Frank from America. She’s visiting America, but wants to stay, and her and Frank have this really quick marriage, made up mostly of physical attraction, and that means she has the Visa to stay in America.

They don’t have a conventional marriage, and, suffice it to say, it doesn’t end well, or last very long. Cleo is trying to be an artist, but her mother committed suicide, and she herself is on antidepressants, and being with Frank makes that worse for her. She struggles to find the motivation to make art every day, so sits at home and doesn’t really do much, which means she doesn’t get to become an artist whilst with him. Frank has an alcoholic as a mother, and he often drinks his life away. He was also falling for one of his work colleagues, Eleanor, and Cleo read the emails. She wanted a change, wanted him to change, and asked Frank to stop drinking, but he didn’t, and she self-harmed. He found her, bleeding out, and she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. They realised soon after that they wouldn’t work, and they separated. It wasn’t until Frank got back in touch with Eleanor, and they started dating - he was no longer a drunk, and was in an AA group - that he realised he was happy. Eleanor made him go and check that she was okay, and they knew they were going to have to start the process of a divorce.

Eleanor’s dad died, and she had to sit Shiva. He had been suffering for ages, with a neurodegenerative disease. Her brother manages to find the time to come and see him whilst he’s dying, and they find out his girlfriend, Min, is actually pregnant. All the whilst, she knows she wants Frank, so finally gets him to come over.

By this time, Cleo and Frank’s friendship groups merge. Anders is a classic fuckboy, who Cleo actually slept with after Frank was too busy drinking to see her. She fell for him, but he left before she could get closure, and she holds it against him. As it is he has a son which isn’t biologically is, but emotionally is, called Jonah. He gets on well with Jonah’s mum, after dating her for 6 years, but when he moves away, Jonah no longer comes to visit him. He spends his days with other women, and he has a puppy whom he doesn’t really know how to care for.

Zoe, Frank’s half sister, doesn’t like Cleo at first, but she finds her and Audrey, Cleo’s friend, are better friends to her than anyone else has been, so she grows on her. Zoe doesn’t have a lot of money, and Frank doesn’t give her any more after a while, so she has to earn money herself. She ends up finding the pleasure that is masturbation, and becomes a sugar baby, where she gets paid to keep someone company: enter Jiro.

Santiago is trying to lose weight, having always been the ‘fat friend’ in his group. The leader, Dominique, he ends up asking out. He falls in love with her, and they get married.

Quentin, well, the less said about him, the better. He becomes a raging drug addict. His boyfriend at the time, Johnny, is mean to him, so they break up. Quentin likes to dress up in women’s clothes, which Johnny doesn’t like. He goes to a group orgy and he meets Alex, who gets him more into drugs than he already is. Cleo and Quentin used to be friends, but he got angry and distant when Cleo married Frank, and was a really awful, passive aggressive friend to her. Eventually, he is spending all his time with Alex and he invites Cleo over. He says he has run out of money, and needs some of hers, and attacks her. Fortunately, she manages to escape, and she tries to get him help, but he has no one, and she doesn’t know where he is anymore, as they’ve lost contact.

This took me ages to finish. I don’t know what it was, I just could not get into it. For me, there wasn’t a clear storyline or plot. I went into it thinking it was a relationship, and then I found out it wasn’t really a conventional relationship at all. Which I actually quite like, because there are a lot of books which are very corny, cliched, and this definitely wasn’t, and I really liked that aspect. I liked all the ‘taboo’ subjects which aren’t too often talked about, like the addiction, alcoholism, weight loss, mental health, etc etc. I like the fact that each character is facing their own battle, because I think that’s really realistic, and it shows that you never know what someone is going through really. Despite this, I think the thing for me was that I just didn’t understand it. To me, it felt like it wasn’t really going anywhere, there was a lot of stuff happening all at once, and it was very confusing. I didn’t bond well with the characters, although I think their humour was the best part about the novel, and I think that there were so many different POVs, and, in my opinion, they could have all be different books. This book, for me, wasn’t really about Cleo and Frank, even though they’re the ones that brought everyone together. There were a lot of other people I found - dare I say it - much more interesting, that I think would benefit from telling their own story. I would have happily read a whole story about Zoe and Jiro, or even just Eleanor (Eleanor was my favourite character, if you want to know). Also, the ending was a little bit anticlimactic, and it feels like there should have been a more distinct ending. If they had had separate books, I could have found out what happened to them all after the divorce, what Anders and Santiago was up to - and I was intrigued about his weight loss journey - and, most importantly how Zoe was getting on. I even felt like I didn’t really know what happened to Quentin after, which I suppose isn’t the worst thing, but we move. If the endings were done to symbolise Cleo and Frank separating and moving on, then that’s a great ending, but I need to see a continuance novel to give it a higher rating. I’m a little disappointed, I can’t lie, but I’m glad I got it finished.

Content Warnings

laurevannieuwenhove's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.5

Content Warnings

st333phanie's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense 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

5.0

I could tell after the first chapter that this was going to be an all time favourite book of mine. So beautiful and heartbreaking and human. I fell in love with every character despite their flaws and how they’d anger me at certain points but I wanted the best for each and every one of them.

The fact that this story took 7 years to flesh out completely is evident by the amount of care taken in the way this story of told, so beautifully written. I can tell I’m going to be revisiting this book for years to come.

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delaneydunster's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.75

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marianajosefa's review against another edition

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dark funny reflective sad tense 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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jancaissemal's review against another edition

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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

3.5

Content Warnings

____nique's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny sad tense 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

1.5

I saw this on Fully Booked– the cover page piqued my interest and made me want to read it when I read its blurb. Thankfully, I fought the urge to buy the physical copy of this book because I would be so disappointed if I did as I didn’t enjoy reading it. The first chapter of it was eye-catching and it was the main reason why I continued reading it. However, the chapters following that were disappointing. Maybe the story was not just for me, but I really can’t see the logic and sense of reading a story without an actual plot (I mean, I would get it if the story is non-fiction, but a fiction book without a plot? Oh, come on!)

Since it has no plot, I found the book very tedious and tiring to read– it took me 2 weeks to finish it which was unusual for me as I only read books at least a week. The chapters were just too long; I found the descriptive words very detailed; and the stories in each chapter were not really linked to the main storyline (if a storyline/plot really does exist in this book). Some readers prefer this kind of writing, but I found it unnecessary which prevented me from connecting with the story.

I can see the similarities between this book and The Year of Rest and Relaxation. They both gave me mixed feelings towards the book because I genuinely think that the story, characters, and overall setting of this book have potential, but something in the writing was lacking that made the story feel lost somewhere. So sad, I would’ve loved to enjoy reading these kinds of stories, but my impatient ass cannot stand it.

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alexandram's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-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

i don’t usually cry reading books but i cried reading this one. it was a fucking journey and i lived every second of it. my heart ached so much for the characters and i really felt like i learnt a lot. and it’s so well written like aghhhh!! i’m not much of a re-reader either but i’d read this again.

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