The power—and seduction of novels that unravel human relationships.

A book review of Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors and Intermezzo by Sally Rooney.

High fantasy and young adult romances are in the zeitgeist. They’re dominating the book community—even reaching the general public. It’s getting to the point where, honestly, I’m getting bored with it.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing bad about these genres. I’ve absolutely devoured my fair share of magical series and angsty love triangles. At the same time, I want to direct more attention to books that don’t whisk you away from reality, but instead pull you deeper into your own mind.

I’m a firm believer that books don’t need dragons or dystopias to be entertaining. I know nobody is really arguing with me here, but it’s an important statement. In the BookTok spaces, I’m seeing so little attention paid to stories outside of fantasy and Y/A.

Take Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors, for example. While I’ll admit that I picked it up for the cover (who hasn’t been guilty of this?), I stayed for the complex characters and intricate storytelling. Cleopatra and Frankenstein follows Cleo, a 24-year-old British artist, and Frank, a New York businessman twenty years her senior. They impulsively marry after a short whirlwind romance. What unfolds isn’t a fairytale, it’s a slow, raw dissection of love, loneliness and addiction. All the cracks that real relationships fall into. Mellors’s writing shines when she leans into messiness, refusing to give her characters easy resolutions, which is painfully beautiful.

That’s right, it’s not just the fantasy bestsellers who can world-build with multiple narratives. Mellors introduces five different characters whose lives messily intertwine, but it’s beautiful and painfully real. It’s a reminder that our choices ripple way beyond ourselves and that connections shape everything. At the centre, Cleo and Frank’s relationship unravels in a way that feels both chaotic and inevitable. Life gets in their way; their dreams get faced with reality, and it’s brutal.

The reaction to Mellors’s debut novel was pretty divisive. People loved or hated it. The majority of the critiques were focused on her dialogue choices, calling it unrealistic or forced, but honestly, that’s exactly the point. Perfect banter like the kind you find in Y/A fantasy or romance is cute, but not real. Mellors leans into the awkwardness, the misunderstandings, the raw vulnerability of how people actually speak to each other. It’s refreshing.

Sally Rooney does something similar in Intermezzo. Her dialogue cracks you open. Intermezzo follows two brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek, as they navigate their father’s death. Their personal grief and the complexities of love and ambition are pulled to the surface during this time. Ivan, who is neurodivergent, experiences connection and conflict in ways that feel deeply personal, and when you’re introduced to other characters’ perspectives, it becomes clear just how much perception shapes reality. Rooney’s minimalist style might not be for everyone, but here it sharpens every emotional blow. She strips back the words so that every breath and space in between words hits just as hard as the dialogue itself.

Now, in the rise of ‘smut’ culture on BookTok, there’s an infatuation with ‘spicy’ scenes. This trope-ification of young adult fiction means selling an entire novel and relying on the sex scenes to carry the sales. The problem with this is that the scenes often lack emotional depth. When we chase sexiness without substance, we miss out on how electric it can be when a book gives us both. In Cleopatra and Frankenstein, the sex scenes aren’t just hot, they’re heavy in meaning. They show how connection and disconnection can be present in the same moment. Meanwhile, Intermezzo reminds us that intimacy can be deeply awkward and fragmented, but still achingly beautiful. Mellors and Rooney prove that you can have emotionally rich stories and sexual tension, with real stakes. Unforgettable.

While neither of these authors are struggling with sales—the genre is in desperate need of attention. There is something so immersive about the narrative hitting almost too close to home. These novels invite you to be introspective about the world and the people around us, which, in a world full of escapism, is rare. Fiction is the best place to explore these themes, with a thin safety net of it not being real. Although, both Mellors and Rooney have the ability to make you so completely immersed, that during the conclusion of their books, you feel like you’re mourning people who were actually in your life. With that level of emotional investment, it curates possibly the sexiest and most thought-provoking depictions of sex that I have ever experienced in fiction.

Just like in real life, thoughts, actions and inner motivations of yourself and others directly correlate to the intensity of your emotions. So, exercise your brain, challenge it, force it to feel more, think more—and watch how much more interesting and sexy fiction can be.