Remarkably Bright Creatures
by Shelby Van Pelt
2022

This was a lovely fun book that I should have enjoyed more than I did, and I’m not sure if the problem was that I was tired and out-of-sorts and not ready to properly enjoy any book or if it was just similar enough to others that I have read and enjoyed more such that it suffered from the contrast.*

The main characters are Tova — a recent widow who’s teenage son died thirty-some years ago, Cameron — a thirty-something guy who keeps failing at life and blames his deadbeat mom and unknown father, and Marcellus — a giant pacific octopus who lives in the aquarium where Tova works and who knows a great deal about what’s going on. There’s also a significantly wider cast of other characters who are all interesting and quirky in their own ways, having both helpful and annoying qualities such as real people do.

This is a relaxing tale of learning to let people in and find lost family, with the only real stress being that they’ll miss these connections and continue going on their regular lives when they could have been better. Tova is stand-offish but learns to let other people help her. Cameron is unfortunately very recognizable as the kind of young man who is very smart but lacking some of the executive function to turn potential into accomplishment and then feels hard done by when he isn’t accomplished. He (rather less believably in my opinion) learns to put in the work to keep a good situation going. Marcellus is a bit of a deus ex machina for getting these characters interacting and communicating. The way in which all the characters, not just the main ones, are both interconnected and assisted in improving their lives by means of an intelligent animal, reminded me of The Full Moon Coffee Shop, although this book has less overt magical realism.

One unequivocal positive is that while there are love interests aplenty, there’s also a solid acknowledgement that men and women can be good friends without having any romantic connection. Another unequivocal positive is that this is the first new book in a while that I’ve actually read cover to cover despite been feeling burnt-out. So: Excellent!

^{* Tova and her friend group vaguely reminded me of a less charming version of the group in The Thursday Murder Club, which is admittedly an extremely high bar and thus might be a compliment that the comparison was there at all.}