Cleopatra and Frankenstein

I just finished reading Coco Mellors’ Cleopatra and Frankenstein. You can see what I thought in my very quick GoodReads review. Beware spoilers ahead:

Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Generally, I really enjoyed this book. But wow are there some problems with it, too. It is, for the most part, an interesting exploration of relationships and how they affect other people in our lives. The book feels weirdly inconsistent, though, and I do find the sudden bait and switch at the end from 'sympathise only with Cleo' to 'sympathise with Frank, too, guys!' in the tone odd.

I also think that the graphic description of 'the incident' as it is referred to is really unnecessary and experts have long said that describing/showing these events at all let alone in such detail is ill-advised at best and dangerous at worst (see experts' reactions to Netflix's 13 Reasons Why adaptation).

My biggest issue is with Quentin, however. I really don't understand what they add outside of the 'friends are affected by relationships, too' theme. I also really feel that Mellors' handling of Quentin's gender identity is... not great. Everyone still constantly calls Quentin 'him', the way Johnny says 'he thinks he's a girl', and outside of this the most it is referred to that Quentin is questioning is with wearing 'women's clothes' and in a sex scene with Alex (a whole other can of worms). As a non-binary person this just comes across as icky at best and purposely transphobic at worst (I don't think Mellors was trying to be transphobic with the portrayal but it really doesn't come across as great).

The most interesting sections of the book (somewhat unfortunately) are the two that follow Eleanor instead of the members of Frank and Cleo's friendship circles. The change in prose style works really well (if not better than the rest of the novel), and Eleanor, Jacky and Eleanor's mum are easily the most interesting characters featured (possibly followed by Zoe). It's such a shame that there are only two sections like this, they made me really confront the issues I had with the rest of the novel.

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