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A review by v_elke
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
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
4.75
(Most of the review is a spoiler, to be honest)
When you read the first chapter of this book, you'd think you're going to read an exciting love story between two remarkable, slightly strange but still interesting people: Cleo, 25, and Frank, fortysomething. I won't lie: the opening chapter most definitely had me hooked completely with the way the dialogue between these two strangers who meet at a NYE party flows, despite my earlier inhibitions. I bought this book anyway, even though I saw a lot of comparisons to Sally Rooney. And I started it anyway, even though I also saw a comparison to "A Little Life" - which is one of my favourite books of all time, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to put myself through all of the pain of reading a book similar to it.
This is the story of Cleo and Frank and layer by layer we uncover that however magical this relationship might start, what it really is, is toxic. These are two broken people who do not necessarily love themselves. Sure, they love each other, or maybe the idea of each other, but chapter upon chapter we find out that that's not necessarily enough. They both have personality traits that I admire or recognise in myself (for Cleo, for example, it's the empathy she showcases often in the book towards her friends and also towards Frank, at times).
We only spend the course of a year in their company and the cracks in the marriage, the cracks in Frank and Cleo, start to show very soon and in a very delicate, almost devastating way. I went through various emotions, exploring their love story and contemplating on various things they said or did. (like how cruel Cleo can be when they are fighting, how she completely disregards Frank's childhood and upbringing as if hers is worse - the empathy she's shown so often before completely vanished in this scene. Or Frank's ideas about manhood, his worries about being emasculated whenever Cleo does something for him that he feels the man in the relationship should do. The way he goes at her in a very defensive way when she tells him he drinks too much...)
Obviously, as soon as you've finished the book and see its conclusion, you know that they've got no other way but to communicate than being completely unhealthy. They've never known, never did anything else. At times, when I was reading this book, it reminded me of "Fates & Furies" by Lauren Groff and during one particular argument between Cleo and Frank also "Revolutionary Road".
This book is extremely character-driven, and it's almost as much about all of the side characters - the crowd Cleo and Frank surround themselves with in New York - than it is about their own story. Man, how much I have hated all of the characters upon reading through their various chapters... Zoe and especially Quentin - whose jealousy about Frank and Cleo's relationship, whose fear about being abandoned by them now that they had each other, I first recognised but later found extremely toxic and suffocating (in Quentin's case especially). Anders. One particular scene in an Anders POV-chapter even made me rate down this book from the five stars I was willing to give it because I just couldn't make sense of why such a violent fantasy was necessary in this story at all. But these side characters, their "friends" who often can't really be friends at all though, as soon as you're completely through the book, you get an inkling of understanding about why they are the way they are and you start thinking about nature and nurture. The way they behave is down to the circumstances, maybe, but you've got to wonder if they also do not have a choice in certain manners. If they can't make different choices and completely change their lives - most of them, granted, do, except for Quentin, which probably makes his story the most tragic.
Luckily there are also a few characters in this book that I absolutely adored. I thought Santiago was the only person either Frank or Cleo could truly call a friend. Sure, he was struggling with himself too, and his life certainly also hasn't been a walk in the park, having lost the love of his life in tragic circumstances. But he successfully tries to make things better for himself. And he shows up when Frank or Cleo needs him.
And then there's Eleanor, of course. Eleanor and her mum. In normal circumstances, I wouldn't much like the fact that one of the main characters in the book fell in love with someone else while in a marriage. But in this case, it just makes <i>sense</i>. Eleanor and Frank's relationship starts in the most natural, healthy of ways: I loved the two of them sending each other funny e-mails at work, I loved them building a friendship first and then only a relationship later, as soon as it was obvious that Cleo and Frank's is beyond saving. Other than that, Eleanor is just wholesome and I loved her and her mother so much. Also the way she convinces Frank to go and visit Cleo in Italy under the guise of sisterhood is incredible.
That final chapter in Rome is perfect. The way they're both working on healing. The way they want to be better people, even though in all the chapters before, maybe they've been too self-involved to really do that. The way that we find out in a most natural way where the other characters are. And the way this story concludes, the only way it ever could, the way you knew it would end up the moment you read the first chapter, regardless of how magical that was.
I spent the better part of the last couple of days with these characters and I'm sorry to have to let them go now. I'm glad this is a book that I read now at the age I have, when I've realised that not everything (or everyone) is black and white, that these characters are human beings with flaws. And that we as characters can try to make sense of these flaws, of how these people are and why.
This book is definitely one of the best I've read so far this year and I can definitely see myself getting back to it at some point in the future.
When you read the first chapter of this book, you'd think you're going to read an exciting love story between two remarkable, slightly strange but still interesting people: Cleo, 25, and Frank, fortysomething. I won't lie: the opening chapter most definitely had me hooked completely with the way the dialogue between these two strangers who meet at a NYE party flows, despite my earlier inhibitions. I bought this book anyway, even though I saw a lot of comparisons to Sally Rooney. And I started it anyway, even though I also saw a comparison to "A Little Life" - which is one of my favourite books of all time, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to put myself through all of the pain of reading a book similar to it.
This is the story of Cleo and Frank and layer by layer we uncover that however magical this relationship might start, what it really is, is toxic. These are two broken people who do not necessarily love themselves. Sure, they love each other, or maybe the idea of each other, but chapter upon chapter we find out that that's not necessarily enough. They both have personality traits that I admire or recognise in myself (for Cleo, for example, it's the empathy she showcases often in the book towards her friends and also towards Frank, at times).
We only spend the course of a year in their company and the cracks in the marriage, the cracks in Frank and Cleo, start to show very soon and in a very delicate, almost devastating way. I went through various emotions, exploring their love story and contemplating on various things they said or did. (like how cruel Cleo can be when they are fighting, how she completely disregards Frank's childhood and upbringing as if hers is worse - the empathy she's shown so often before completely vanished in this scene. Or Frank's ideas about manhood, his worries about being emasculated whenever Cleo does something for him that he feels the man in the relationship should do. The way he goes at her in a very defensive way when she tells him he drinks too much...)
Obviously, as soon as you've finished the book and see its conclusion, you know that they've got no other way but to communicate than being completely unhealthy. They've never known, never did anything else. At times, when I was reading this book, it reminded me of "Fates & Furies" by Lauren Groff and during one particular argument between Cleo and Frank also "Revolutionary Road".
This book is extremely character-driven, and it's almost as much about all of the side characters - the crowd Cleo and Frank surround themselves with in New York - than it is about their own story. Man, how much I have hated all of the characters upon reading through their various chapters... Zoe and especially Quentin - whose jealousy about Frank and Cleo's relationship, whose fear about being abandoned by them now that they had each other, I first recognised but later found extremely toxic and suffocating (in Quentin's case especially). Anders. One particular scene in an Anders POV-chapter even made me rate down this book from the five stars I was willing to give it because I just couldn't make sense of why such a violent fantasy was necessary in this story at all. But these side characters, their "friends" who often can't really be friends at all though, as soon as you're completely through the book, you get an inkling of understanding about why they are the way they are and you start thinking about nature and nurture. The way they behave is down to the circumstances, maybe, but you've got to wonder if they also do not have a choice in certain manners. If they can't make different choices and completely change their lives - most of them, granted, do, except for Quentin, which probably makes his story the most tragic.
Luckily there are also a few characters in this book that I absolutely adored. I thought Santiago was the only person either Frank or Cleo could truly call a friend. Sure, he was struggling with himself too, and his life certainly also hasn't been a walk in the park, having lost the love of his life in tragic circumstances. But he successfully tries to make things better for himself. And he shows up when Frank or Cleo needs him.
And then there's Eleanor, of course. Eleanor and her mum. In normal circumstances, I wouldn't much like the fact that one of the main characters in the book fell in love with someone else while in a marriage. But in this case, it just makes <i>sense</i>. Eleanor and Frank's relationship starts in the most natural, healthy of ways: I loved the two of them sending each other funny e-mails at work, I loved them building a friendship first and then only a relationship later, as soon as it was obvious that Cleo and Frank's is beyond saving. Other than that, Eleanor is just wholesome and I loved her and her mother so much. Also the way she convinces Frank to go and visit Cleo in Italy under the guise of sisterhood is incredible.
That final chapter in Rome is perfect. The way they're both working on healing. The way they want to be better people, even though in all the chapters before, maybe they've been too self-involved to really do that. The way that we find out in a most natural way where the other characters are. And the way this story concludes, the only way it ever could, the way you knew it would end up the moment you read the first chapter, regardless of how magical that was.
I spent the better part of the last couple of days with these characters and I'm sorry to have to let them go now. I'm glad this is a book that I read now at the age I have, when I've realised that not everything (or everyone) is black and white, that these characters are human beings with flaws. And that we as characters can try to make sense of these flaws, of how these people are and why.
This book is definitely one of the best I've read so far this year and I can definitely see myself getting back to it at some point in the future.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Suicide, Violence, and Drug abuse
Moderate: Self harm