Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

43 reviews

robsxo's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful 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

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Self harm

lidia7's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

took me a while to get into it (about 20%) and i thought i was going to dnf but then i ended up reading 80% or more of the book in one night.
love the writing style
a lot of TWs, sorry if i forgot some

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, and Alcohol

Moderate: Animal death, Cursing, Infidelity, Blood, Dementia, Grief, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Homophobia, Sexism, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, Vomit, and Medical content

culown's review against another edition

3.75

Generally good and engaging book, however lost me at times. Also I felt like we got just a glimpse of these characters and I git left wanting to know more. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

kathshiroma's review against another edition

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Toxic relationship, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Addiction, Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Dementia, and Death of parent

Minor: Fatphobia and Sexual assault

Lovely writing and beautifully nuanced characters. But it is so obvious when going into POCs’ POVs that the author is white. The conversation between POC characters, specifically the one between a Japanese man and a Black woman, are especially uncomfortable to read. There is also a chapter that focuses on a character’s weight loss journey, with many comments and themes that can be harmful. An overall gorgeous book, but another example of it being better for authors to either be more careful or to simply write what they know.

wormgirl's review against another edition

dark emotional sad 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Drug use, Self harm, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Animal death

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Blood, Death of parent, and Gaslighting

fvreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense medium-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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, and Suicide attempt

ephemeral_remi's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

skyfluff8's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Self harm, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Dementia, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Outing, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

aiona's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

2.5

There were things I loved about this book, and things I hated. It felt a lot like a Netflix sitcom or something, and a lot of the characters felt really tropey. A gay man who loves princess Diana, super pretentious arty New Yorkers. I didn’t find them relatable at all. But there were some parts, and some characters that I did find relatable. I think Eleanor was probably the best character in this regard. She seemed much less one-dimensional than the others. 

And although to begin with, the overdone, witty quips from Frank and Cleo felt fake and tiring, their doomed relationship developed to the point that I felt quite emotional reading about how fiercely they loved each other, yet could not connect. Seeing them come to that realisation was moving, despite how pretentious their lives seemed in other ways. 

I suppose I wish the author had written about characters that didn’t feel the need to name-drop and live high-flying lives. Why couldn’t Cleo have been working in a cafe or something rather than be an unemployed artist wife to a guy who built up his own ad agency? People this broken do not have such glitzy lives. And this book would have really been incredible if the characters had seemed more real. The author has a real talent with words. But she chose to write about such unrelatable, movie-like characters. I wonder why she made that decision. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Dementia, and Death of parent

ciarakilroy98's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

2.75

I was really enjoying reading about the messy cast of characters and their antics but some of the politics of this book are so questionable and I don’t really feel like the author said or did anything revolutionary besides reaffirming that people with trauma do fucked up things?? The writing was really compelling and kept me engaged for about 200 pages but then it became a sort of chore to finish and could have been about 100 pages shorter.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Physical abuse, Self harm, and Suicide

Moderate: Alcoholism and Domestic abuse