A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. There’s nothing wrong with writing books that are ripe for adaptation. Literary fiction is full of critically adored authors who hustled other jobs to pay the bills, and novels turned into series have given us some of our greatest television. But the type of enlightenment presented in certain novels, in which easy access to money makes chasing one’s art a matter only of finding oneself, ignores a world on fire with chaos and inequality. And it tends not to make for great TV either. Cleo, a 24-year-old artist from Britain, fled to New York City to start anew and explore her artistic pursuits. As her student visa nears expiration, she meets Frank, a self-made man twenty years her senior, who leads a life of luxury that is entirely foreign to Cleo. Rooney has this way of bothering me. I want her characters to figure it out because for some weird reason I am invested in them. Neither Cleo nor Frank inspired those same feelings in me. From their first ludicrous encounter to the end, I found the pair simply irritating, nothing more. And all of the side characters serve to hammer home the book's whole point about how a relationship can affect those around the couple. None of them felt real or believable. Mellors weaves an enticing tale of companionship and conflict within Cleo and Frank’s marriage. They’re from different walks of life and different generations, but both have demons nipping at their heels. Cleo is dealing with her mother’s passing and her strained relationship with her father. Frank faces similar struggles, with an estranged father and a mother who provided him with a less-than-healthy idea of love. As Frank turns to alcohol to numb his problems, Cleo grows frustrated with his frequent substance use. Despite their problems, the characters still feel deeply considered and relatable.

Everyone Frank knew was the greatest ‘something’ in the world. His half-sister Zoe was the greatest actor, his best friend Anders was the greatest art director and amateur soccer player, and Cleo, well, Cleo was the most talented painter, the deepest thinker, the most beautiful woman on earth. Why? Because Frank wouldn’t have married anyone else”. What is it? It’s this chilling, anxiety-inducing moroseness. I want to strangle the characters because they’re so awkward and annoying and they’re sabotaging their own relationships. But, also, I care. I care so much. It’s a hard thing to explain to sane humans. For me, this is a book of characters. The writing is lovely, but in relation to the people it creates and summons. There isn't much of a plot to speak of, beyond the shifting dynamics and relationships built between them, namely Cleo and Frank, a semi-green-card marriage built mostly on passion and age difference, and those around them: Frank's younger half-sister, Zoë; Frank's friends, Anders, and another more boring and half-hearted inclusion whose name I don't remember; Cleo's best friend Quentin; Zoë's best friend Audrey; and finally, ELEANOR. I guess, considering that it's been a month since I read this and I haven't been able to stop reading or talking or thinking about it, five stars.

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You have to be okay with unlikeable characters to read this book. You have to be willing to go on a journey that doesn't necessarily leave our protagonists shining and shimmering in the end. And I would've appreciated a bit more time to have the characters really dig into their issues, to grapple with the fact that the world is much bigger than just the two of them; though in some ways I think that's part of the point Mellors is trying to make. Marital bliss proves to be a fleeting thingy for these two. Sure, dining in chic restaurants, and taking in the NYC art scene is fine for a while, but before long, things to begin to unravel. Cleo suffers from depression, and feels neglected. Frank drinks way too much, and may actually be falling for one of his employees. (Funny and refreshing, Eleanor, a down-to-earth gal far removed from Frank's more upscale world. I fell for her, too. Hard.) I liked the writing style. It felt fresh and current but it was also full of almost surprising drops of wisdom. The story, though bleak in places, was full of tenderness and hope and I particularly enjoyed the ending. Cleopatra and Frankenstein Book Review: Characters I felt as a whole the mental health aspects, including addiction and depression were handled sensitively. If I was to be slightly critical, I felt Cleo’s depression was slightly glamourised. Beautiful, suicidal Cleo who no man could resist.

Despite there being potentially triggering moments, I didn’t feel depressed when reading Cleopatra and Frankenstein. It was more melancholic than outright depressing. It doesn’t descend into misery porn in the way books like A Little Life did. Book Genre: Adult, Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Fiction, Health, LGBT, Literary Fiction, Mental Health, New York, Romance Cleopatra and Frankenstein offers a shrewd take on the muddle and messiness of modern relationships; and Mellor does a great job of painting a fragmented world full of choice and chaos, and the search for true happiness. A love letter to New York, to the chaos of finding one’s feet, to the intricacies of waning relationships and to what it is to be human, Cleopatra and Frankenstein will no doubt cultivate a legion of loyal fans waiting for Mellors’ next move. Buy Cleopatra and Frankenstein from Bookshop.org, Book Depository or Waterstones. Cleopatra and Frankenstein Summary They meet cute, and begin spouting off impossibly clever lines: all those sharp, witty retorts that you and I only think of twenty minutes after the fact. An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.PDF / EPUB File Name: Cleopatra_and_Frankenstein_-_Coco_Mellors.pdf, Cleopatra_and_Frankenstein_-_Coco_Mellors.epub And also, in addition to this, there was a character I loved so much that I cried through her chapters (of which there are only two), an insanely earnest and vulnerable moment the likes of which has never occurred to me ever.