Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Cleópatra e Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

292 reviews

laurafrances's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Grief, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Gaslighting

ludmireads's review against another edition

5.0

emotional reflective sad fast-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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Abandonment, Alcohol

ineplanx's review against another edition

1.0

dark emotional funny fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt

culown's review against another edition

3.75

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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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Toxic friendship

kayleejanes's review against another edition

5.0

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Alcohol

jlswitchblades's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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These characters start out as absolutely insufferable and kind of insane as a reader, and to an extent, this is their truth in the book itself. They are terrible people but I ended up invested in their messily intertwined lives.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Infidelity, Sexual content

Moderate: Drug abuse, Suicide attempt

dexlud's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring 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

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Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a stunning novel, especially as a debut one. Coco Mellors puts so much passion into this novel and it just makes you love the characters and then rips them apart. I love this book so much! Mellors may have written my current all-time favourite! I will 100% be reading her other works!

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a book whose narrative changes as the story goes on. LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD FOR STRUCTURE -

During the start, when everything is happy and fine, the narrative is joyful and happy, however once everything goes downhill, it switches to an emotional and beautiful narrative that honestly just makes you want to cry. Once everything begins to get better, the narrative once again changes, this time back to the start, where everything is getting better, however it's like the narrative is like the start, but with experience from the middle part.

For people who would like to read this, be warned that there is a lot of drug use and sex throughout this book, and some topics that some people may dislike or be triggered by!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Pedophilia, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cursing, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship

mpeach's review against another edition

4.25

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Drug use, Mental illness, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Alcohol

Moderate: Cursing, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexual content, Blood, Grief, Death of parent

Minor: Fatphobia

addie's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Grief, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Fatphobia, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Abandonment

Minor: Adult/minor relationship

sarasreading's review against another edition

3.25

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt

Moderate: Drug abuse, Fatphobia

The sexual violence is imagined, but very explicit.