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Cleopatra and Frankenstein
- Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
- Length: 14 hrs and 31 mins
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Cleopatra and Frankenstein
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Summary
‘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, author of How Do We Know We’re Doing It Right
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.
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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
What listeners say about Cleopatra and Frankenstein
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Katy Pocock
- 29-03-23
Beautiful
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!
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 10-01-23
Loved it
You get to know the characters so well, and so many messages for life. Wonderful.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Gmaggie
- 08-02-24
delicately beautiful
the way Coco writes is beautiful for an audiobook, perfectly descriptive offering a clear view of the narratives of the characters. would recommend
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- E
- 17-12-22
Beautiful writing, beautifully read
The words felt like silk; the descriptions were vivid. I also loved the insights into the other characters’ lives.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Angelina 3000
- 26-04-23
Beautiful
Gripping and raw, yet gentle and beautiful at the same time, with some recognisable characters.
Very much enjoyed the narration too
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- julia
- 19-01-24
Amazing
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.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 18-09-23
It’s Ok
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
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 12-05-23
Moving
Loved this book from beginning to end - a book about love, addiction, mental health and attachment
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Derry girl
- 19-02-24
Brilliant !
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.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Kim Burrows
- 30-07-24
Beautifully written, and it sounded like the author herself did the audio.
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.
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