Reviews with content warning for Violence - Cleopatra and Frankenstein

This book was recommended to me by a friend. They said it was heartbreaking, and it was the best thing they’d ever read. I’ve had this book for about a year now, but with all of my university reading, I kept putting off, but last month, I finally got round to reading it.

We follow Cleo and Frank as they meet, Cleo from England and Frank from America. She’s visiting America, but wants to stay, and her and Frank have this really quick marriage, made up mostly of physical attraction, and that means she has the Visa to stay in America.

They don’t have a conventional marriage, and, suffice it to say, it doesn’t end well, or last very long. Cleo is trying to be an artist, but her mother committed suicide, and she herself is on antidepressants, and being with Frank makes that worse for her. She struggles to find the motivation to make art every day, so sits at home and doesn’t really do much, which means she doesn’t get to become an artist whilst with him. Frank has an alcoholic as a mother, and he often drinks his life away. He was also falling for one of his work colleagues, Eleanor, and Cleo read the emails. She wanted a change, wanted him to change, and asked Frank to stop drinking, but he didn’t, and she self-harmed. He found her, bleeding out, and she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital. They realised soon after that they wouldn’t work, and they separated. It wasn’t until Frank got back in touch with Eleanor, and they started dating - he was no longer a drunk, and was in an AA group - that he realised he was happy. Eleanor made him go and check that she was okay, and they knew they were going to have to start the process of a divorce.

Eleanor’s dad died, and she had to sit Shiva. He had been suffering for ages, with a neurodegenerative disease. Her brother manages to find the time to come and see him whilst he’s dying, and they find out his girlfriend, Min, is actually pregnant. All the whilst, she knows she wants Frank, so finally gets him to come over.

By this time, Cleo and Frank’s friendship groups merge. Anders is a classic fuckboy, who Cleo actually slept with after Frank was too busy drinking to see her. She fell for him, but he left before she could get closure, and she holds it against him. As it is he has a son which isn’t biologically is, but emotionally is, called Jonah. He gets on well with Jonah’s mum, after dating her for 6 years, but when he moves away, Jonah no longer comes to visit him. He spends his days with other women, and he has a puppy whom he doesn’t really know how to care for.

Zoe, Frank’s half sister, doesn’t like Cleo at first, but she finds her and Audrey, Cleo’s friend, are better friends to her than anyone else has been, so she grows on her. Zoe doesn’t have a lot of money, and Frank doesn’t give her any more after a while, so she has to earn money herself. She ends up finding the pleasure that is masturbation, and becomes a sugar baby, where she gets paid to keep someone company: enter Jiro.

Santiago is trying to lose weight, having always been the ‘fat friend’ in his group. The leader, Dominique, he ends up asking out. He falls in love with her, and they get married.

Quentin, well, the less said about him, the better. He becomes a raging drug addict. His boyfriend at the time, Johnny, is mean to him, so they break up. Quentin likes to dress up in women’s clothes, which Johnny doesn’t like. He goes to a group orgy and he meets Alex, who gets him more into drugs than he already is. Cleo and Quentin used to be friends, but he got angry and distant when Cleo married Frank, and was a really awful, passive aggressive friend to her. Eventually, he is spending all his time with Alex and he invites Cleo over. He says he has run out of money, and needs some of hers, and attacks her. Fortunately, she manages to escape, and she tries to get him help, but he has no one, and she doesn’t know where he is anymore, as they’ve lost contact.

This took me ages to finish. I don’t know what it was, I just could not get into it. For me, there wasn’t a clear storyline or plot. I went into it thinking it was a relationship, and then I found out it wasn’t really a conventional relationship at all. Which I actually quite like, because there are a lot of books which are very corny, cliched, and this definitely wasn’t, and I really liked that aspect. I liked all the ‘taboo’ subjects which aren’t too often talked about, like the addiction, alcoholism, weight loss, mental health, etc etc. I like the fact that each character is facing their own battle, because I think that’s really realistic, and it shows that you never know what someone is going through really. Despite this, I think the thing for me was that I just didn’t understand it. To me, it felt like it wasn’t really going anywhere, there was a lot of stuff happening all at once, and it was very confusing. I didn’t bond well with the characters, although I think their humour was the best part about the novel, and I think that there were so many different POVs, and, in my opinion, they could have all be different books. This book, for me, wasn’t really about Cleo and Frank, even though they’re the ones that brought everyone together. There were a lot of other people I found - dare I say it - much more interesting, that I think would benefit from telling their own story. I would have happily read a whole story about Zoe and Jiro, or even just Eleanor (Eleanor was my favourite character, if you want to know). Also, the ending was a little bit anticlimactic, and it feels like there should have been a more distinct ending. If they had had separate books, I could have found out what happened to them all after the divorce, what Anders and Santiago was up to - and I was intrigued about his weight loss journey - and, most importantly how Zoe was getting on. I even felt like I didn’t really know what happened to Quentin after, which I suppose isn’t the worst thing, but we move. If the endings were done to symbolise Cleo and Frank separating and moving on, then that’s a great ending, but I need to see a continuance novel to give it a higher rating. I’m a little disappointed, I can’t lie, but I’m glad I got it finished.

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ktwoolen's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense 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

5.0

Tore me apart in the best way. I love the reflective writing in this book and the raw depiction of human nature and relationships.

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jordkuba's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

Very good book, well written and nice to read. Unfortunately, it contained a number of topics that difficult for me. That somewhat diminished my enjoyment. I'm sure I could have liked it more at a different time in my life .

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emudds's review against another edition

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truly choosing the worst books to read through a breakup right now.

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aleilvandrea's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

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

3.0

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lostintime_73's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective sad tense 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

I'm so glad I stepped outside my confort zone and listened to this. The writing was beautiful and the characters were so deep and real. I would happily read this again, even if it was an emotional rollercoaster.

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anh_read's review against another edition

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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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