Cleopatra and Frankenstein cover art

Cleopatra and Frankenstein

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Cleopatra and Frankenstein

By: Coco Mellors
Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
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About this listen

‘A tender, devastating and funny exploration of love and friendship and the yearning for self-evisceration. Coco Mellors is an elegant and exciting new voice’ PANDORA SYKES

New York is slipping from Cleo’s grasp. Sure, she’s at a different party every other night, but she barely knows anyone. Her student visa is running out, and she doesn’t even have money for cigarettes. But then she meets Frank. Twenty years older, Frank's life is full of all the success and excess that Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a green card. She offers him a life imbued with beauty and art—and, hopefully, a reason to cut back on his drinking. He is everything she needs right now.

Cleo and Frank run head-first into a romance that neither of them can quite keep up with. It reshapes their lives and the lives of those around them, whether that’s Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender identity in the wake of her marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates after being cut off. Ultimately, this chance meeting between two strangers outside of a New Year’s Eve party changes everything, for better or worse.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an astounding and painfully relatable debut novel about the spontaneous decisions that shape our entire lives and those imperfect relationships born of unexpectedly perfect evenings.

©2022 Coco Mellors (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
City Life Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Urban Heartfelt Scary Tear-jerking Witty Inspiring Thought-Provoking Marriage

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Critic reviews

Positively inhalable. I was intensely consumed by the world of Cleopatra and Frankenstein for a few happy days’ The Evening Standard

‘Friends who couldn’t get enough of Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends will fall head over heels for Coco Mellor’s debut novel’ ES Magazine

Cleopatra and Frankenstein, the luminous debut novel from Coco Mellors, is a book about many things: It's a great, swooning love story; a shattering depiction of how addiction and mental illness warp our lives; and a perceptive, witty portrait of globalized New York. But most of all, Mellors has written a devastatingly human book, at turns sharp and tender, that marks her as the rare writer whose sentences are as beautiful as they are wise. An unforgettable read’ Sam Lansky, author of The Gilded Razor and Broken People

A character driven epic thoroughly engrossing and entirely magnificent. It is thrilling to read a book that articles with nuance and compassion the way gender impacts every part of our lives. Sometimes you can just tell that a debut novel has been percolating and perfecting inside an author's mind until it is ready to leap into-and ultimately change-the world’ Adam Eli, author of The Queer Conscience

“Mellors’ remarkably assured and sensitive debut … strongly evoke[s] Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life… At its core, it’s a novel about how love and lovers are easily misinterpreted and how romantic troubles affect friends and family. A canny and engrossing rewiring of the big-city romance.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

‘Insistent, stylish and utterly captivating, the prose just sings.’ Heidi James, author of, The Sound Mirror

All stars
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the writing style is gorgeous. Descriptive in a way that adds such depth to each character. Follows the lives of several characters over the course of a year or so, and definitely character led rather than plot based but it is such a nice depiction of people and they felt so real. Will likely buy a physical copy to have for years to come!

Beautiful

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You get to know the characters so well, and so many messages for life. Wonderful.

Loved it

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the way Coco writes is beautiful for an audiobook, perfectly descriptive offering a clear view of the narratives of the characters. would recommend

delicately beautiful

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The words felt like silk; the descriptions were vivid. I also loved the insights into the other characters’ lives.

Beautiful writing, beautifully read

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Gripping and raw, yet gentle and beautiful at the same time, with some recognisable characters.
Very much enjoyed the narration too

Beautiful

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Such a good book and the performance!? when they were arguing i thought i was there with them. she was so good. very interesting and gripping story.

Amazing

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Somewhat interesting story and portrayal of different relationships but characters just felt underdeveloped and weren’t really brought to life. It’s okay and covers some important topics re mental health, the life of artists etc but not really too new

It’s Ok

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Loved this book from beginning to end - a book about love, addiction, mental health and attachment

Moving

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I was astonished at the sheer quality of the writing in this book and the brilliant narration. There are several protagonists and I found myself caring about them all. Although the title suggested an impending tragedy, I found the story had hope and lots of humour.

Brilliant !

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The characters were deep and dark, and very much like real life, which is what I want from a book, and never realised quite how much it was missing. These people were flawed and fucked, but there was beauty in all of them. I could have kept listening to their lives for decades. I’m sad it’s over. The only thing I was a bit annoyed with is there wasn’t a conclusion to Anders.

Beautifully written, and it sounded like the author herself did the audio.

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