A review by sarasreading
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

challenging dark reflective sad slow-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

3.25

 This book is mostly all vibes no plot, but the vibes were not great for me. It’s that kind of contemporary book where most of the characters are a combination of too cool, too pretty, too rich, too traumatized, and/or too dependent on substances to feel like real people to me. They are most definitely made up to be in a book exactly like this. Except for Eleanor. 
 
Around a third of the way into this book is when I started considering DNF-ing, but then Eleanor showed up and I was back in the game! But then she disappeared again, and so did my interest. And then Anders had that moment in that public bathroom and I thought about not picking it up again. That entire scene was a big weird no thank you. There are also a lot of other uncomfortable to read explicit sexual scenes, which is also apparently a staple of this particular kind of contemporary novel. 
 
I stuck with it and my final thoughts are these: The prose is incredible. I loved the descriptions and turns of phrase. I should have written them down to save and savor later. Eleanor’s story arc is the best one in the book by far, and she saved this book for me. I’m not sure that was enough for it to be a five-star read though. In a cast of characters whose sole purpose seems to be, to be interesting, the most interesting character is Eleanor, who isn’t trying to be interesting at all. Was that the author’s purpose? It worked if so, but also, it meant that the majority of the time I did not care about anyone I was reading about. So it also didn’t work for me, in the end. 
 
Although I did like the end actually. It made sense and was satisfying. It could have been a four-star read for me, except for so much explicit, and sometimes disturbingly violent scenes. 
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