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Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

Cleópatra e Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

268 reviews

emotional 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

Heartbroken. That's all I'm going to say.

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challenging emotional fast-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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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-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

A good read, I enjoyed this. I can’t say I always felt the parts made sense, and the phrasing is awkward in places. But that is part of a debut novel! 

If you like sad romances, this will be a book you enjoy. The characters are interesting, and keep you invested in the story and where it’s going.

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

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emotional reflective sad 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

I somehow loved and hated all the characters at the same time and I was rooting for them but at the same time I wasn't and by the last pages I was so upset but also so moved. 

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

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emotional reflective medium-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

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

There were things I loved about this book, and things I hated. It felt a lot like a Netflix sitcom or something, and a lot of the characters felt really tropey. A gay man who loves princess Diana, super pretentious arty New Yorkers. I didn’t find them relatable at all. But there were some parts, and some characters that I did find relatable. I think Eleanor was probably the best character in this regard. She seemed much less one-dimensional than the others. 

And although to begin with, the overdone, witty quips from Frank and Cleo felt fake and tiring, their doomed relationship developed to the point that I felt quite emotional reading about how fiercely they loved each other, yet could not connect. Seeing them come to that realisation was moving, despite how pretentious their lives seemed in other ways. 

I suppose I wish the author had written about characters that didn’t feel the need to name-drop and live high-flying lives. Why couldn’t Cleo have been working in a cafe or something rather than be an unemployed artist wife to a guy who built up his own ad agency? People this broken do not have such glitzy lives. And this book would have really been incredible if the characters had seemed more real. The author has a real talent with words. But she chose to write about such unrelatable, movie-like characters. I wonder why she made that decision. 

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