Reviews with content warning for Alcohol - Creature luminose

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

Creature luminose by Shelby Van Pelt

62 reviews

sleeson's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Spectacular. Every bookworm should own this book.

Content Warnings

art_books_chemistry's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I'm not typically one for contemporary general fiction (that's basically what at least half of Facebook is, isn't it?) but Remarkably Bright Creatures appealed to me with it's unique addition of having an octopus (a GPO or Giant Pacific Octopus to be exact) as a sort of fly-on-the-wall perspective in between the fairly average human life stories.

I found Marcellus' (the GPO) interludes to be hilarious and emotional. I could feel his frustration with the human characters perfectly, as it mirrored my own frustration with them. Marcellus was to some extent a voice of the reader who wants to reach into the pages of the book and tweak the circumstances to make the characters see what should be right in front of their faces.

I enjoyed Cameron's mystery plot line and how it was unraveled for the characters but I found it to be extremely predictable. I believe I guessed it the minute he was given his mom's jewelry, before he even started traveling. My note in BookMory says I guessed it at 29% of the way into the book.

I will say that my one frustration was that it took nearly 30% of the book to connect the storylines. Marcellus and Tova's storylines are interwoven from the beginning but then you have Cameron; a completely different person in with a completely unrelated mundane storyline thrown in randomly between the other two's chapters for over a quarter of the book. I struggled to emphasize with Cam's situation in the beginning, which caused me to dislike his sections at first. My final minor gripe is that the audiobook version has a narrator for Marcellus and then a narrator for everyone else. I understand the Octopus vs human narrator split but I feel like it would have been better to also have a male narrator for Cameron's chapters as well.

Thanks to Freedom's Edge Book Club for this February pick, I definitely enjoyed it and recommend it to anyone for a light but emotional story.

Content Warnings

augustar14's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A wonderful book about the connections we make, human and otherwise. Tova, an elderly widow who lost her only son long ago in an accident the town no longer talks about, except in hushed tones if someone somehow doesn't know what happened, cleans the local aquarium at night. She finds purpose in cleaning, and cleaning well, and friendship in the fish and sea life- especially Marcellus, the Giant Pacific Octopus.
Marcellus has been captive for the majority of his short life (about 4 years is the lifespan of his species). He misses the ocean, the dark, good food (though he goes in search of some here, when he really feels his menu needs changing up). Then Tova begins talking to him, and brings up a memory he has from long ago. But how can he communicate with her?
Cameron never knew his dad, and his mom left when he was nine. His life sucks. He was dealt a shit hand, and everything is someone else's fault. But when he gets the chance to go looking for family he might reconnect with, he jumps on it without hesitation, and ends up on an adventure he never would have predicted. But it just might be the best thing that ever happened to him.

Content Warnings

chelseylb1988's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous medium-paced

5.0

Content Warnings

kaitlinlovesbooks's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

thecriticalreader's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I initially picked up Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt because of the beautiful cover (seriously, it’s spectacular), and I decided to buy it after finding the synopsis intriguing.

Blurb:

Tova is a seventy-year-old woman who works as a night cleaner at a local aquarium in a small town in Puget Sound, Washington. She prides herself on her independence and work ethic, two qualities that allow her to remain strong in the face of the recent death of her husband and her son’s tragic disappearance thirty years ago. As she faces new changes, relationships, and challenges in her life, her friendship with the aquarium’s resident octopus, Marcellus, helps her face her future—and understand the past—in surprising ways.

Review:

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a fairly breezy read, and I found myself interested in the story and the characters. The writing, for the most part, is serviceable: some lines come across as a bit trite or out of place, but in general the writing was neither good nor bad enough to draw my attention away from the story.

The main character Tova was fun to read about. Her personality, age, traumas, and relationships make her an interesting and endearing character. Her well-meaning but occasionally tactless group of elderly friends (the ‘Knit-Wits), Ethan the grocery store clerk, and Terry her boss add color to the story. Occasionally, a character would say or do something that seemed a bit artificial, but this happened relatively infrequently.

Of course, the (arguably) central relationship of the story exists between Tova and the Giant Pacific Octopus, Marcellus. I found Marcellus, whose high intelligence gives him a near-perfect memory and the ability to understand English, to be an engaging and fun character. I was willing to suspend my disbelief that an octopus could understand English and insert himself into human affairs for the sake of the story, but a couple of narrative choices made this a bit difficult. For one, I was confused as to how he knows certain words but not others. Supposedly, he learns English by listening to human visitors at the aquarium and reading the aquarium’s plaques. Thus, he knows some English words but not others. But this does not explain why he knows words such as ‘lawnmower’ and ‘cuckold’ but not ‘pacifier,’ the latter of which he collects in his tank? Furthermore, Marcellus’s role in Tova’s story is undeniably far-fetched, even for an octopus who understands English. This story could easily have been told without Marcellus’s interference, so it strikes me as a bit odd that Van Pelt chose to involve him so heavily in the plot. The far-fetched nature of Marcellus’ role contributes to a larger problem of the book, which is that the plot requires a lot of well-placed coincidences to unfold.

If my problems with the book ended with some minor issues with characters, plot, and writing, I would have rated Remarkably Bright Creatures higher. Unfortunately, my enjoyment of the book was mostly ruined by one character: Cameron Cassmore. He is undoubtedly one of the worst fictional characters in existence. He has NO redeeming qualities. He is a lazy, selfish grifter who expects people to bend over backward for him despite his terrible track record as a human being and employee. He practically demands that people give him jobs—despite him blatantly lying on his job applications and having no relevant experience—because he thinks he’s “smart” and deserves a “chance.” He treats the people around him like dirt, especially women. His behavior might be slightly understandable if he were, say, thirteen, but he is thirty and he blames everything that goes wrong in his life on the fact that he was raised by his (non-abusive, loving, middle-class) aunt after being abandoned by his mother at a young age. I understand that being abandoned as a child can cause someone to have problems in their development, but it is no excuse for being an absolute garbage human being, especially at thirty years old. And yes—I understand the author intended to write Cameron as unsympathetic. However, he never really comes to grips with his shitty actions or learns his lesson, despite the story implying otherwise. He continues to be unjustly rewarded and enabled by the people around him, despite showing only minor improvements in his personality. Cameron’s lack of accountability made me want to throw the book across the room. If his character had been written more sympathetically, I would have probably enjoyed Remarkably Bright Creatures a lot more than I did.

The Run-Down:

You will probably like Remarkably Bright Creatures if:

· You enjoy cozy, heart-warming stories with small-town settings

· You love the documentary My Octopus Teacher and/or love stories about human and animal companionship

· You don’t mind sacrificing a bit of believability in exchange for cozy vibes, fun characters, and heartwarming relationships between humans and animals

You might not like Remarkably Bright Creatures if:

· The idea of an octopus who understands English sounds ludicrous to you

· You get annoyed by far-fetched plots

· You want to see unsympathetic or flawed characters face the consequences of their actions and undergo realistic character growth

A Similar Book:

Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen (a personal 4-star read). Similarities between these books include:

· Magical realism

· Cozy, small-town setting

· A large cast of (mostly) likable, quirky characters

· Characters healing from grief and trauma through friendship and community

· A mystery surrounding a young man’s parentage

Content Warnings

midnacine's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional hopeful mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

"Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures."

I'm still crying about this book, tbh.

Marcellus going to die with the remains of Erik's body just fuckin wrecked me.

The only reason I didn't give it five stars was because I had a very hard time getting into it until the halfway mark. The story is very slow and more character-based than plot-based, and Cameron is just annoying (for good reason, but still). I feel like exposition could've been cut down a bit, but overall I really enjoyed this and will 100% be recommending it to my grandmother.

Content Warnings