Reviews with content warning for Dementia - Cleópatra e Frankenstein

Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

Cleópatra e Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

88 reviews

cayliehausman's review against another edition

5.0

emotional funny reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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.

Content Warnings

meaghanslibrary's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

I’m confused how to rate this book. I’m maybe between a 3.5 and 3.75 because the ending was kind of a “huh, that’s it?” kind of ending to me, but the writing really did have some great quotes. I’ll go 3.76 because I’m feeling generous today but could be lowered.

This book barely has a plot. It is definitely more of character driven studies. My favorite character comes in at what felt like the 75% mark where we get first person narration and chapters almost written like short stories. I found that writing and the quotes in Eleanor’s chapters to be the most engaging. The rest of the book is written in close third-person pov. There is one random chapter following a side character Quentin. And a few chapters that follow a side character Zoe, but otherwise the book mainly follows Cleo with some more sprinkles of Frank.

I did think the writing was very beautiful but this book took quite a while for me to read. It felt like it dragged in parts. I do generally prefer more plot driven books to character driven books. I probably will read another book by this author.

Content Warnings

m3lly's review against another edition

3.0

dark emotional sad tense

Love the writing style of Coco Mellors, but sometimes a story is just not meant to be for everyone. I started reading „Cleopatra & Frankenstein“ with the intention of reading about their love story.

That’s not what happened

Half way through, I thought I could never recommend this book to anyone. Too much trauma. But now that I’ve finished it, it kinda grew on me. They, Frank and Cleo, grew on me. Reading about their relationship, their ups and downs, mainly their downs, did something to me I can’t pinpoint yet. But coming back to my statement from the beginning. Do I think this story was „meant“ for me? No. Does that mean it’s a bad written story? No. It was fun getting to know Frank and Cleo, but I’m happy to say goodbye to them as well.

Content Warnings

lillieeereads's review against another edition

5.0

dark emotional funny hopeful sad slow-paced

Content Warnings

paulawind's review against another edition

1.0

reflective tense slow-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

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

Content Warnings

rhiannon_hall_reads's review against another edition

4.0

dark emotional funny sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A rollercoaster read that takes you through all the emotions.

Content Warnings

lemonyanne's review against another edition

4.0

challenging emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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.

Content Warnings

aaannina's review against another edition

dark emotional funny hopeful lighthearted relaxing sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

meghannleavy's review against another edition

3.75

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense 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

Content Warnings

bethroseellis's review against another edition

3.75

dark 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

Whilst at first it felt a little tropey - a poor, young, beautiful girl falls in love with a rich older man and they have vivacious friends who have wild parties - the introduction of Eleanor brings some much needed balance and grounding to the novel. The novel, and the characters, grew on me as it progressed as it highlighted some of the every day fears we can all see reflected at times.

Content Warnings

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