Oh wow!
What a debut!
I couldn’t put this book down yet I didn’t want it to end.
Every bit of Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a best bit.
A twenty-something, beautiful and broken artist. A forty-something, half Jewish and alcoholic advertising ace. A closet transvestite with Polish roots and a drug habit. A drop dead gorgeous, permanently broke party girl and actress. A self-obsessed and highly competitive, Scandinavian sex god. Cleo Frank, Quentin, Zoe and Anders got right into my head and right under my skin from the get go.
I’ve never been to The Big Apple yet I felt like a native New Yorker flitting from hotdog street vendor to late-night deli, from Grand Central Oyster Bar to Chinatown, from Little Italy to the suburbs of New Jersey.
I had a special soft spot for super sassy, sweetheart Eleanor Louise Rosenthal - “a Jewish man in drag”. Every line’s a winner in her first person narrative covering two chapters of the book.
Cleopatra and Frankenstein is a little bit of everything.
A love story and a story about love, needing to be loved, lost love, tainted love. Laugh out loud funny and heartbreakingly sad. Graphically shocking and thought-provokingly tragic. Tongue-in-cheek and painfully honest.
It swings from desperation, alienation and depression to happiness, acceptance and hope.
It’s one of a kind! ( )

I wasn’t aware that Cleopatra and Frankenstein had been compared to Sally Rooney novels, otherwise I might not have picked this up. But to me, it’s so much better. Yes, there are intense feelings and yes, there are young people doing dramatic stuff for random reasons but it just worked for me so much better. The plot is rather loose and the characters all have something unlikeable about them but it worked.

Cleo is an English artist in New York when she meets Frank, owner of his own ad agency and twenty years older. They hit it off immediately, falling in love and doing wild, crazy things together before getting married. But they bring along their own emotional baggage and their friends and family, who are as equally fascinating. After meeting both of them, the reader is introduced to those around them. There’s Quentin, Cleo’s rich friend who likes dressing in drag and Zoe, the aspiring actress and half-sister of Frank. Cleo’s father and stepmother make an incredibly awkward appearance and Frank’s friend Anders who has been with most of the women in New York. As the shine wears off Frank and Cleo’s relationship, things become much more caustic between them. They don’t hold back when it comes to hurting each other and all the quirky pretentious things they did just start to grate.

There’s not a great deal of plot in this book – it’s simply the story of falling in and out of love surrounded by a myriad of characters that you hate to love, or love to hate. They fit the cliches – gay best friend, rebellious sibling and plain Jane with a heart of gold. But somehow, it just works. It’s a fascinating read for what these odd characters will do and say next, whether it be a sugar glider for a pet or destroying an ice sculpture and having it mistaken for performance art. The characters and their feelings/actions are what make it hard to tear your eyes away from the story. The characters are very flawed and can be very unlikeable at times. They’re mixed up and falling apart, but they are trying to redeem themselves…slowly.

The language is a bit flowery at times but to me, it fitted the story of the over the top love affair where the couple are the only ones to discover anything, ever. I really think most of the characters would speak and think like that, which is a hallmark of their detailed creation. Each character really could have had their own book, especially Eleanor, who is the most hilarious and down to earth. This might be classed as literary fiction, but it’s an easy midweek read.

http://samstillreading.wordpress.com ( )

Cleopatra en Frankenstein. Door: Coco Mellors.

Oh wow, waauw en dank je. Lees dit indrukwekkende debuut en je weet waarom ik voorgaande zin schreef. Lees het boek niet en mis één van de beste boeken van dit jaar, echt waar. Mellors werkte er zeven jaar aan en dat voel je, dat lees je. Elke zin, elk woord, elk personage, iedere dialoog; alles bevat een volheid en gelaagdheid. Het voelt een beetje alsof je er zelf bij bent maar dan nog dichter. Je zit de personages niet enkel op de huid, je kijkt ook mee in hun hoofd en hart. Het boek lezen is als een goede serie bingen; je brengt zo veel uren met Cleo en Frank door dat zij een soort van vrienden worden.

Qua vibe zou ik Cleopatra en Frankenstein een beetje vergelijken met I may destroy you en La théorie du Y. Net als in die series volg je een hoofdpersoon (of 2) maar loop je ook mee met hun vrienden, geliefden, minnaars. Het is ook een kleine ode, in dit geval aan de stad New York. Het verhaal van Cleo en Frank is romantisch, pijnlijk, heel licht én heel donker maar bovenal herkenbaar en hedendaags. Contemporary dus.

Mellors neemt je mee in de levens en hoofden van Frank en Cleo en hun vrienden, collega’s, familie,… stuk voor stuk boeiende mensen vol originele eigenaardigheden en (soms) grappige tegenstrijdigheden. Je ziet ze voor je ogen tot leven komen, je supportert voor hen, vloekt tegen het papier, zit op het puntje van je stoel, onderlijnt rake zinnen, ware wijsheden. Je leest dit boek als een verslaafde. Cleopatra en Frankenstein sleept je mee als een rollercoaster van een trip. Adembenemend goed. En wat een prachtige cover ook!

Ik wil zo graag meer van Mellors lezen en hoop dat we hierop geen zeven jaar moeten wachten. Een vervolg zou ook welkom zijn én een verfilming (verserie-ing). ( )

Cleopatra and Frankenstein from Coco Mellors takes the reader through a short but turbulent time in the lives of not just Cleo and Frank but their friends and family as well.

The writing grabbed me from the beginning and I liked the first "scenes," though early in the book I was unsure about whether I was reading simply a collection of wonderful vignettes or a novel told in this manner. Turns out it makes for a very good novel once the reader gets into the flow.

While the events in the story certainly propel the plot, it is the reader's interest in each of the characters that propels the reader. You don't have to like them, at least not all the time, but the flaws and the weaknesses each has will strike close to home. Some may be similar to your own flaws, some may bring certain friends to mind. But most will bring their humanity and yours close together.

The characters are neither simplistic nor made of stereotypes. If someone reads 10% of a book and believes they can then talk about the development and nuance of all of the characters, some of whom haven't even been introduced, ignore them. They are delusional and have way too great a belief in their ability to know about characters they haven't even met yet. It is one thing to read a small bit and know you don't care for it. We all do that. To dress up one's lack of interest in faux-intellectualism is classic hubris and very sophomoric (my apologies to any sophomores reading this, high school or university).

I would recommend this to readers who like to get inside troubled minds and relationships and are less concerned with liking or disliking a character. In fact, these characters fluctuate from likeable to, well, less likeable often, which might make you crazy if your opinion of the book changes with every shift.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )