Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

36 reviews

dreadpiraterudis's review against another edition

dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.5

I didn’t like the start of the book; it felt self indulgent and a little too heavy handed in the romanticizing of the starving artist in New York trope. As they introduced more narrators, I really started to get into the story. It was great to hear characters like Eleanor and Zoe have a bit more of the main stage, but there were so many threads just abandoned when they could have been so interesting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Addiction, Suicide, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Dementia, Adult/minor relationship, Death, Animal death, and Death of parent

joeykills's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Toxic friendship, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Dysphoria, Violence, Suicide attempt, Self harm, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Infidelity, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, and Grief

swetha062's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

4.5

I think in any case that love would sustain you, their life would be a prime contradicting example of that. Cleo and Frank find solace in things except each other. Coco mellors does a great job of catching the intricacies of love between two beings and what makes them want to choose the other. She captures the depth of falls and misses in these moments. Empathy being the key to finding peace, she explains every relationship in the book desperately needing that for themselves. It's beautiful and none of their reasonings fell flat. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Suicide attempt, Mental illness, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Blood, Child abuse, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Abandonment, and Death of parent

mariivee's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective

• Strong character development? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Addiction, Suicide attempt, Blood, and Animal cruelty

ineplanx's review against another edition

dark emotional funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Animal death, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, and Sexual content

hgrimston's review against another edition

emotional hopeful sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

whilst it took me a while to get into, I think I fell in love with the characters despite the mistakes they make.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

goodbyedarling's review against another edition

challenging emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• 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

it's kinda like gosspil girl for people that are currently debating wether or not they should get a sugar daddy to pay for their expenses. mostly questionable with some strong feminism sprinkled in here and there. 

Ah and also everyone in New York does coke like EVERYONE 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Grief, Death of parent, Addiction, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Abandonment, Mental illness, Drug abuse, and Infidelity

Moderate: Sexual content, Transphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Suicide

mrs_gale's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.5

Where was the substance? This was nearly four hundred pages and nothing really happens! It took me so long to read because I just wasn’t enjoying it, I'm completely baffled by the hype this book gets.

I kept waiting to read about the way that Cleo and Frank's relationship actually impacted their friends, but it never did!

It's just a variety of characters that somewhat link to Cleo and Frank, with a bunch of additional characters while mentioning a huge number of topics without exploring them much. The characters don't do much except drink and drugs. 

The number of characters is huge, some are only mentioned briefly. I did not care for a single one, not even the main characters. They had no redeeming qualities, just really immature and self-absorbed and not developed well. 

Shocked to discover it took 7 years to write! I did not enjoy this book, I cannot recommend it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Self harm, and Mental illness

Moderate: Alcoholism, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Addiction, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Drug use, and Drug abuse

Minor: Grief, Sexism, Death of parent, and Transphobia

leils's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

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

1.25

Bad plot with some interesting parts popping up a few times. The only reason that I actually bothered to finish it was to see how the conflicts were resolved, and ... safe to say I was disappointed lol. If the author has focused on just Cleo, Frank, Eleanor and Anders the book would have been more solid, but instead 30% of it was dedicated to side characters. The story of the side characters really didn't add to the main storyline, so .. could have easily been chopped and nothing would be missing.

The author does have a way of digesting hard themes with her easily flowing writing style, which made this book actually readable.

Wouldn't recommend this to anyone, but I am going to see what the author comes up with next 🪩⚡🤍

 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Blood, Cursing, Drug use, Self harm, and Toxic relationship

elisem04's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

This feels weird to rate bc it was compellingly readable to the point where I couldn’t put it down. But at the same time, it made me feel awful and I didn’t really care about any of the characters. 2.25 stars is a reasonable compromise I guess.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Animal death, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Self harm

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, and Drug abuse

Minor: Adult/minor relationship