REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES
by Shelby van Pelt
Have you ever noticed that sometimes you start to sense the building presence of a book in the zeitgeist before you actually register it as something to put on your reading list? For months my brain was half-aware of “that book with an octopus on the cover.” And then one morning in a mad book-buying spree in Target, I bought it and brought it home. Who can resist those 30% off stickers?
Set primarily in California and the Pacific Northwest, Remarkably Bright Creatures shares the narration between several quirky characters, most memorably a giant Pacific octopus.The first human narrator we meet, Tova, cleans the aquarium at night for something to keep her busy after the deaths of her husband and son. The more time she spends around Marcellus the octopus, the more she realizes how much he understands and what he is capable of doing when no one is looking.
The other main narrator is Cameron, a young man with no family and seemingly no future. After being fired from yet another job and being kicked out of his girlfriend's motor home, he decides to take a roadtrip to track down the father he has never met. With little to go on, he starts driving north and when he settles in Sowell Bay for a while, his and Tova's stories start to intertwine.
Van Pelt writes in an engaging and inventive style and this debut novel held me in its tentacles from start to finish. Remarkably Bright Creatures is a love story, filled with tragedy and mystery. I promise you will never feel the same about a visit to the aquarium after reading this book. (Lily)
