Update: dropping this to 4.5 because there is one thing that bugs me too much to leave this at a perfect 5. I feel like I just read a book full of characters auditioning to be in a Sally Rooney novel. And all of the side characters serve to hammer home the book's whole point about how a relationship can affect those around the couple. From their first ludicrous encounter to the end, I found the pair simply irritating, nothing more. Neither Cleo nor Frank inspired those same feelings in me. I want her characters to figure it out because for some weird reason I am invested in them. It’s a hard thing to explain to sane humans. I want to strangle the characters because they’re so awkward and annoying and they’re sabotaging their own relationships. What is it? It’s this chilling, anxiety-inducing moroseness. But it brings all the stuff that irks me about Rooney- hipster millennials having endless navel-gazing pseudo-intellectual conversations about themselves and the universe -and misses out the key component that, for me, makes Rooney as engaging an author as she is irritating. I read this because everyone was comparing it to Sally Rooney, which I guess is appealing to me.
Whether it's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender queerness in the wake of Cleo's marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates to support herself after being cut off, or Cleo and Frank themselves as they discover the trials of marriage and mental illness, each character is as absorbing, and painfully relatable, as the last.Īs hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.Įach compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage.
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