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Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Cleópatra e Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

32 reviews

dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Tore me apart in the best way. I  love the reflective writing in this book and the raw depiction of human nature and relationships. 

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

I finally fucking finished this book. And I want to cry about it. This was an emotional roller-coaster and a real coming of age story — of all ages. Self-harm, self-hate, self-sabotage, trauma, depression, dysmorfofobia, addiction, alcoholism, co-dependency. I’m really happy I paced myself reading this since it turned out to be one of the best — yet most painful — books I’ve read this year. I feel empty and full at the end of this and through it all still a message of hope, of overcoming once own adversities and somewhat killing your darlings. I genuinly recommend you to read this. However beware — you’re going to need to eat your feelings at the end of it. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Even I cannot deny that this is a well written book. The writing itself is beautiful. However, it felt as if the book had little to no plot, and it also felt as if the characters all had so many issues for the sake of having issues
The book is utterly vulgar throughout, and it seems every character is either toxic, irresponsible, cheating, an alcoholic, or constantly on drugs.
Because of those things, the book only really toed the line of feeling realistic and relatable. The ending was bittersweet, but I wasn’t rooting for the characters to get there, especially since they felt like they had only undergone half a character arc. However the author did manage to establish clear voices for each of the characters, though the decision to include the voice of side characters for only a chapter then pushing them back to ensemble was an interesting choice.

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medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Nothing much of substance.

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I think if thought out further could’ve been a series of books looking into the characters that we saw “snippets” of.

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challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I think in any case that love would sustain you, their life would be a prime contradicting example of that. Cleo and Frank find solace in things except each other. Coco mellors does a great job of catching the intricacies of love between two beings and what makes them want to choose the other. She captures the depth of falls and misses in these moments. Empathy being the key to finding peace, she explains every relationship in the book desperately needing that for themselves. It's beautiful and none of their reasonings fell flat. 

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