The Procrastinators Book Club discussion
This topic is about
Cleopatra and Frankenstein
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
★Buddy/Group Read Retirement★
>
Cleopatra and Frankenstein (March 2024) Buddy Read Discussion - Jen & Sophie
date
newest »
newest »
I started it last night. I always google for book club questions when I read a book with a group, and here's one:Each chapter of Cleopatra and Frankenstein is told from a different character’s point of view. How does the changing perspective affect how we read the book?
I like the different perspectives so far. For example in the first chapter we don't get how unique Frank is because he doesn't think about what he's wearing. But then he manages to outshine his bride on their wedding day, though she is wearing a vintage nightgown. I'm guessing we're going to get chapters featuring Quentin, Zoe and Anders as we go along. Maybe the chef as well. We also don't see how potentially self-destructive Frank is in chapter 1. The fact that a man in his 40s is still hosting wild parties with drugs and he's trying to play with fireworks on the rooftop despite being very not sober is worrying. I might expect it of the 25 year old characters, but not a business owner.
Mod
Except for Zoe, I’m finding that the rest of the characters are pretty forgettable. I think the Zoe-Cleo dynamic is going to be an interesting one to see come to fruition.
I haven’t yet read today’s chapters, however I found a mistake in the schedule. The one that’s listed above is is incorrect, I think it was the first one I suggested that you needed altering, so I’m going to copy and paste the second (and our agreed) schedule below.
Mod
10th: chapters 3-5
11th: chapters 6-7
12th: chapter 8
13th: chapters 9-10
14th: chapters 11-12
15th: chapters 13-14
16th: chapter 15
17th: chapters 16-17
Mod
Yeah, I think I made the schedule and thread before you posted this one.. It's now updated to your new schedule.
I've only read up to chapter 4 by now anyway. Next question:
The novel is filled with descriptions of lavish parties and hedonistic behavior. How do these descriptions change as the novel progresses?
I don't even find the ones at the beginning to be lavish, I already find them pretty seedy. But I hate crowded, loud parties where people are smoking, let along putting out their cigarettes in the glasses for someone else to fish out and dispose of later. That wedding isn't even happening at Frank's house, it's the poor chef. So after cleaning up after a bunch of people who didn't even eat his dessert, he'll have to go into his bedroom and find that the lovebirds probably knocked everything off the top of his dresser when they tried to have sex and broke his mirror. Though I'd also be upset if people had sex in my bed, and that would have been true when I was 25 as well. I also can't imagine the party Quentin goes to where he has to be naked and there's not even any alcohol to ease the awkwardness. I'm guessing this is the high point, though, and it will all go downhill from here.
I don't find it a particularly character-driven novel yet either. It's more about the situations they find themselves in so far. I'm assuming we'll get more insight in later chapters.
Mod
The generational differences between Cleo are becoming increasingly prevalent throughout each chapter. You can really see Franks age in the way he talks.
I’d like to find out more about Cleo’s past, particularly the aftermath of her mother’s suicide, we’ve had little hints but nothing substantial. I felt a lack of an emotional connection to Cleo in the scene with her father and stepmother, and typically, those kind of moments hit me hard, whether it makes me sad or angry, but in this scenario I felt nothing.
Zoe’s age really did show in her chapter, but I don’t think it represented her in a bad way. Like I said before, she’s one of the characters that most intrigued me, and I feel as though there is a lot of potential when it comes to exploring her character, from her medical condition, family issues, being an interracial child and how that looks both in the home and out in the public.
In theory, Quentin’s chapter should’ve been the most interesting one yet, however it was very lacklustre and unrealistic. I am curious to see how his gender dysphoria plays out further along in the book.
I'll be honest and say that I don't think the pace is going to be realistic for me. Each chapter is 20+ pages, which is about 30 minutes for me, and that's all the time I have for at least this week. I got to Zoe's chapter last night and I at least liked the first part, where she's seeing the value of having older female friends who can help her navigate going out. Though of course it ends with them still doing drugs and drinking on the balcony until like 3am. Oh, and it includes the line that Cleo has Frank's credit card, so she's buying who knows how many expensive cocktails for 3. It is a good parallel to Zoe's temptation to be a sugar baby though.
What did you find unrealistic about Quentin's chapter? I live in a place with a huge gay scene and a party like the one he attends isn't beyond imagination, at least from the club advertisements I see.
Mod
Regarding Quentin’s chapter, it wasn’t necessarily the situation itself that I found unrealistic, more so the way it was executed. It came across as trying too hard to be pure? Clean? Proper? I don’t know, it just didn’t feel natural.
I’ll hide the remaining in a spoiler until you’re caught up-chapters 9 & 10
(view spoiler)
I really don't care about spoilers. I'm up to the honeymoon and I've been drawn into one of those details that just bugs me. She says Frank was a high dive champion on the 10-metre springboard. Except the highest springboards you'll find are 3 meters. And also, if Frank has dived off a 10-metre board before, he sure knows what risk he's taking of severe injury and death if he jumps even feet-first into a pool that's less than 5 meters deep, which there's no way this one is.
Mod
I found that Zoe’s youth really shows in a subtle, clever way. It’s more prevalent when she’s with someone much older than her, we saw it when she was with her brother and the way she treated Cleo, and now we’ve seen it when she’s with Jiro. It’s a dynamic that I didn’t expect to be thrown in but I don’t mind it. Their connection appears to be platonic at this point, pretty much due to Jiro’s insistence on not wanting to cheat on his wife, but I feel that could change soon.
Is it bad to say that I loved Cleo and Frank’s explosive argument at the cabin? I’m a sucker for drama and it had my heart and head at war with each other. Sometimes I wholly agreed with one character and completely disagreed with the other, and then it would reverse. I’m curious to see how they’ll move forward. With where I’m up to, they’ve been separated for two months, but we only really know what Cleo has been doing. I suspect that Frank is seeing Eleanor in some way shape or form, of whom we’ve on,y seen briefly.
I like books that I feel passionate about and have strong opinions on, positive or negative. It shows good writing to me, so I’m surprisingly really enjoying this one.
Oh no. The second these 2 adopted a pet it was obvious they were going to kill it in some stupidly negligent way while drunk or high. RIP Jesus the sugar glider, you deserved better than these idiots. I doubt this will make one bit of difference in Frank's drinking, and I'm upset that we don't get to see Cleo's reaction or that she doesn't leave him the second she realizes what happens. Don't stay with someone who killed your pet through alcohol!
It's one thing to have unlikeable characters. Those are fine, they're much more fun than saccharine goody two-shoes. But these ones seem mostly incoherent now. Suddenly Cleo is in love with Anders, a man she slept with one time and who was a jerk afterwards? But she's been pining for him ever since? And he's really bad at sex even though he lived with a woman for six years? And now they've spent 2 weeks in bed together, but she's going to leave Frank for him? I get that Cleo has no family support system and that although Quentin can and would support her financially, he's probably not going to be good emotional support for her. But is her only real plan in life to be supported by rich-ish men unless and until she makes it as an artist? Are both she and Zoe only destined to be sugar babies?
Okay, finally around page 230 an actual story emerges that doesn't revolve around them all getting wasted at parties. I think I would like this book better if the first part was edited down to a trim 100 pages or so setting up the crisis and now the resolution.
Mod
I finished it. It's fine. Nothing amazing. I finished Emma Cline's The Guest earlier this month, which is also about drug addiction and louche parties in New York, but which I found way more compelling than this book.
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Each day we will be reading by chapters or page numbers. Page numbers are an approximation based on the hardcover or paperback that is the default on Goodreads. The suggested Buddy Read discussion schedule is as follows:
Week of 03/09
March 9th: chapters 1-2
March 10th: chapters 3-5
Week of 03/11
March 11th: chapters 6-7
March 12th: chapter 8
March 13th: chapters 9-10
March 14th: chapters 11-12
March 15th: chapters 13-14
March 16th: chapter 15
March 17th: chapters 16-17
PARTICIPANTS
~ Jen
~ Sophie