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The smash National bestseller and Goodreads Choice Award finalist--perfect 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.
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. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.
Each 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. 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.
As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.
"Mellors' remarkably assured and sensitive debut … strongly evoke[s] Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life, but Mellors also cultivates a sprightlier style that keeps the novel's familiar tropes from feeling clichéd or reducing her characters to types … 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)
"Mellors dissects the tumultuous relationship between two magnetic and damaged people … an enticing aura glows at this work's heart." ―Publishers Weekly
"Deeply engrossing and easily lovable, perfect for fans of Sally Rooney and Lauren Groff." ―Booklist
This information about Cleopatra and Frankenstein was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Coco Mellors grew up in London and New York. She has an MFA from New York University, where she was a recipient of the Goldwater Fellowship. She currently lives in Los Angeles, California with her husband.
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