Reviews tagging 'Grief'

Cléopâtre et Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

86 reviews

fairyko's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-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

2.25

 Often I have walked past this book in the bookstore and thought about buying it. At the request of a friend, I did, because she said she would need someone at the end to exchange her thoughts about it and quickly it became clear to me why she said that. Right at the beginning a big warning. Please read the trigger warnings on the internet if you plan to buy this book. I did not know that certain topics are discussed so intensively and I claim to be able to handle a lot well - but here even I felt sick to my stomach now and then. A content warning at the beginning of the book would have been good in my opinion. Now about the content. I did not like the characters. Except for Santiago, I found every single person introduced annoying, boring, tiring, or just plain mean. Or all at once. The relationship between Cleo and Frank was doomed to fail from the start and you practically watch the two of them gradually destroy themselves and each other. Other characters (especially Quentin) leave too much room for interpretation and are there, but ultimately do not contribute to the development of the plot. They are all tragic in their own way, but only superficially so. Each character has their own story, their own trauma, and their own fate, but each character would need their own book to properly deal with all of this and not just skim over it. Coco Mellors does a poor job of addressing the problems of each individual and illuminating them in a light that does them justice. The wounds of each character are opened, but then not treated with the necessary sensitivity. At best, a small plaster is put on the metaphorical stab wound, but the reader does not get more. It was a very frustrating experience and from halfway through I prayed on every third page for a quick end to my reading experience. The novel presents itself as a shimmering, profound love story between a successful middle-aged man and a nearly childlike artist, but brings the reader nothing but pain. Not even because the story is so tragic, but because it just drags on. What one must credit Coco Mellors with is that she achieves her goal. People talk about her book, it stays in the mind for a long time and one thinks a lot about it, as each of these characters leaves a strange feeling in the stomach. Her writing style is also very appealing and especially graphic. She has certainly mastered "show, don't tell" as few others have. If she now also creates a story that does not claim to be something it is not, I can certainly imagine reading something from her again. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Toxic relationship, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Chronic illness, Sexual harassment, Blood, Cursing, Vomit, Emotional abuse, Grief, Death of parent, and Animal death

anh_read's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

While the novel centers around the relationship/marriage between Cleo and Frank, it also depicts its impact on their surroundings. As the novel follows a different character in each chapter, the reader gets a more in-depth look into their relationship

Therefore, the reader gets a better understanding why things didn’t work out between Cleo and Frank.

 

As I am not a big fan of romance novels, I am relieved that this novel didn’t turn out to be a typical and cheesy love story. Moreover, if you like Sex and the city, it definitely catches the vibe - just in a darker manner.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Mental illness, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Chronic illness, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Body horror, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, and Alcohol

Moderate: Violence, Infidelity, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Animal death and Sexual harassment

saskiasreading's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

3.25

I didn’t like how it jumped from character to character. I didn’t care about quinton or anders etc etc i wanted more of frank and cleo

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Animal death, Alcoholism, Dementia, Eating disorder, Self harm, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Infidelity

emm4reads's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful reflective 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Addiction, Blood, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Grief, Infidelity, Death of parent, Mental illness, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

adaora_ble's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Chronic illness, Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Dementia, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Blood, Suicide attempt, Animal death, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Drug abuse, Medical trauma, Self harm, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Gaslighting, and Grief

Moderate: Transphobia, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, Vomit, Sexual content, Sexual assault, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

anna456's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug abuse, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Grief, and Animal death

aestinson's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I'm slightly biased on my review because this story really hit home for me. It was too painful for me to even pick it up again after a year. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcohol, Drug abuse, Drug use, Grief, Infidelity, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Moderate: Gaslighting, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

celticthistle's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

A bit like Marmite. You'll either love it or hate!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Self harm, Grief, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Body shaming, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Drug abuse, Addiction, Mental illness, Physical abuse, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Drug use, Emotional abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Addiction, and Blood

eliseilou's review against another edition

dark 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

4.0

The pacing was a bit off and some of the side characters were more interesting than Cleo and Frank but a good book that I couldn’t put down!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Mental illness, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Blood, and Drug use

Moderate: Grief, Infidelity, and Death of parent

solspringsreads's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I enjoyed this book, but I definitely wish I’d known about several big trigger warnings that were complete shocks to me (including multiple graphic animal deaths and transphobia that results in violence—I had no clue that this book involved animals OR queer people before reading). These missing warnings didn’t negatively impact my reading of the book, but they feel symptomatic of what is maybe a larger issue I had with the book: there were a lot of scenes that felt maybe gratuitously violent/detailed in a way that was almost unnecessary for the actual plot.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is pretty much what it says on the tin (and the plot summary): a book about a couple with a large age gap who are both deeply flawed individuals, and the ways their relationship affects the people in their lives as well as how their lives are affected in turn. I didn’t expect this book to have shifting perspectives in each chapter and to focus so heavily on characters aside from the two titular protagonists, but I actually found myself preferring the chapters that gave us insight into the larger context of Cleo and Frank’s relationship. Although I wish I could get more context for certain characters and the changes in their lives, it almost felt true to life: sometimes the people you care about extremely deeply will have major life changes that you know almost nothing about, and you don’t get closure. This also felt like it was reflective of how self-absorbed Cleo and Frank were, in that their friends like Quentin and Zoe were going through some significant life changes and crises of their own, but by the end of the book we get little to no information on the outcomes of these events. From a realism standpoint, this was amazing… but from a reader’s standpoint, I definitely felt sad that the most of an ending I could get for my favorite characters was “They hopefully aren’t dead in a ditch.” On the other hand, during each characters’ respective chapter, we got a significant amount of insight into their personal lives with only limited references to the titular characters in a way that felt kind of unnecessary to the plot; sure, I get that pointing out the irony of an overweight culinary master who’s on a pretty strict diet is Fun Social Commentary™ and the fact that Cleo and Frank barely know about this characters’ struggle or reference it during their chapters is reflective of their self-involvement, but like… again, as a reader, part of me feels like these scenes are such unnecessary tangents to the protagonists’ actual character arcs. Most of the changes and “growth” that Cleo and Frank have and go through feel random and unearned, like the novel has to explicitly tell us that they’ve changed because we spent so much time focusing on Anders’s strained relationship with his son.

Relatedly, the dialogue in this book gets kinda silly. I listened to the audiobook so my impressions of certain scenes might be very different than those of a reader of a physical copy, but there were several bits of dialogue that had me rolling my eyes. Chapter 13 is one particularly example of this issue: somehow, the dialogue between Cleo and Frank felt simultaneously too realistic and too forced, like the author couldn’t decide if she wanted to capture what arguments were actually like (including the awkward pauses, the ways people cut each other off) or what arguments felt like (focusing on the inner turmoil of each character between the lines or the minute cues of body language to show how they feel). The characters constantly talked around their issues, which is again, true to life, but unfortunately the nothing-dialogue can lead to some pretty lackluster “big fight” scenes.

There are lots of stereotypes abound in a way that is almost maybe social commentary until you look up the author and see that she is a conventionally attractive cis blonde woman and suddenly you go, “Wow, this is a book that has a lot of transphobia during the narration from a character who is heavily implied if not outright stated to be a trans woman, and while it’s positioned in a way that feels like it’s supposed to be representative of internalized transphobia, this does maybe feel weird in the broader context of this being a book about the relationship between two flawed mostly-heterosexual cisgender people!” Likewise, LOTS of really random comments about race and ethnic stereotypes that feel like they should maybe be satire except that they’re completely unchallenged… or challenged in a way that the book immediately mocks. Maybe there’s an argument that the book as a whole is satirical, and while it does have moments where that feels clear, it often clumsily treads the fine line between making fun of stereotypes and perpetuating those same stereotypes.

Despite everything, though, I was totally wrapped up in this book. I binged the whole audiobook during a knitting-induced frenzy (which resulted in an all-nighter) and still felt so awed by how beautiful certain parts of the prose sounded, especially during Santiago and Eleanor’s chapters, and the philosophical ideas explored during Zoe’s chapters. I became emotionally invested in these somewhat stereotypical characters for an evening, and I truly do feel like there are moments and scenes from this book that will stay with me even now that I’ve finished it.

Overall, this was a pretty standard entry in the subcategory of litfic about beautiful yet waifish blondes who do a lot of drugs in New York and feel miserable about the older men and so-called friends with which they surround themselves. Somehow, the hype is completely understandable and yet overdone in a way that’s to be expected for this type of novel. (There’s always hype around books about sad beautiful women with addictions living in big cities, even if those books are mostly the same.) Despite my many criticisms and the fact that this book isn’t particularly unique in its plot or commentary, I still mostly enjoyed this and would (VERY VERY tentatively and with many caveats and warnings) recommend this  to others, if only to discuss some of the things I might take issue with in the book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Gore, Abandonment, Classism, Fatphobia, Transphobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual violence, Dysphoria, Outing, Addiction, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Alcoholism, Animal death, Drug use, Suicide attempt, Violence, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Physical abuse, Hate crime, Death of parent, Xenophobia, Mental illness, Death, Dementia, Drug abuse, Sexism, Infidelity, and Alcohol