5 Things I Disliked About ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
This is probably, hopefully, and tearfully going to turn into a ‘5 Things I Disliked about that popular book’ series. Where as a reader, I will express how I was lured by high ratings, glowing reviews, snazzy social media pictures, bookstagram community buzz… into reading a novel that simply turned out to be a colossal waste of time and energy. “Why don’t you just DNF* it,” a dear fellow reader-friend advised me, maybe for the second time, and I had to remind her about my ‘self-destructive’ need to finish a book I started, no matter how much I despise it. ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ by Coco Mellors is one such book.
*DNF is a popular term in the book community which is short for ‘Did Not Finish’, but is used like a verb by readers.
You can read my spoiler-free review of Cleopatra and Frankenstein by clicking here, but this is going to be a quick spoiler-laden listicle about the 5 things that irked me about the novel.
1. Cleo the protagonist starts out as a young, fun, even clever character in the first few pages of the book, but quickly becomes the most unlikable thing about the novel. She is largely defined by her beauty. Everybody only keeps harping about how ‘she is so beautiful, oh she is so magnetic’. She is supposed to be an artist, but rarely ever creates any art through the book.
2. ‘Is it a time-traveling fantasy?’ a friend asked me when were discussing the books we were reading and I told her about ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’. I laughed and told her it’s a straightforward contemporary romance. And that’s another complaint I have about this novel: the title is so freaking misleading. It’s simply about a young Artist Cleo, who comes to America to study art, and when her visa is about to expire, she marries Frank, a much older advertising executive she has been dating for a minute. While there’s a lot of physical attraction between the leads, once they’re married, they start to fall out of love quickly.
3. For a contemporary romance novel, ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ is really thin on love. There’s is only a surface level attraction and they never seem to be genuinely in love with each other. Again, except for the first few pages where their connection sounds flirtatiously fun, their relationship begins to feel gratingly superficial. Which makes the novel very annoying to read. Frank at times feels like an older guardian looking out for Cleo, which is sad, considering their relationship lasts less than two years. Imagine passion flying out the window so quickly, you begin to seem more like a parent than romantic partner in a relationship. That’s why it is sad.
4. Not only are the lead characters not very likable, but even some of the crucial supporting characters in ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’ seem to exist merely for token representation. For instance, Frank is a white man, but his step-sister Zoey, a stunning aspiring actor who is half-Black, appears to be included solely for the sake of Black-American representation. She is an extremely privileged brat, her biggest struggle is not being able to get drunk at an upscale pub with her “trust fund” friends. Zoey harbors plenty of rage against the system, even though she herself never faces prejudice or racism.
5. The chapter on Cleo’s close friend Quentin was completely unnecessary. It feels like he exists in the novel only for token queer representation. His character is gay and stereotypical: a rich selfish, self-centered European dude living on his family’s money, blowing all of his allowance on drugs and sex parties. His whole story-line was completely pointless, un-interesting, and does very little to drive the overall plot forward.
There were a few more things that I didn’t like about ‘Cleopatra and Frankenstein’, but I am going to wrap up this article here.
You can find me on Twitter, Instagram & GoodReads.
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