Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Creature luminose

I hate to admit it when hype books are good but OH MY GOODNESS THIS WAS A DELIGHT. I loved loved loved it. It's sweet and nuanced and there are character redemption arcs, and just everything. No complaints.

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ehoustonmyatt's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

I listened to this one and the narrators were great, especially the one for Marcellus. This was a very sweet story about grief and how we move forward through it.

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alienguy's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful 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? It's complicated

5.0

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aepritchard's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes

5.0

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socolorfull's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad slow-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

3.0

I think my expectations for this book were too high. Everybody I know absolutely LOVED it. Alas, I did not. I did not hate it, but it was not a favorite.

First, the good: the Audiobook was fantastically narrated. Definitely a treat for your ears. The cast of characters was a loveable lot... Well... Mostly loveable. Cameron was annoying. Sweet little Tova stole the show, but the shopkeeper was a close second, and Tova's group of friends who loved her so much were just the sweetest bunch of elderly folks. I hope to have a group of friends like that when I'm a little old person. Jane was also a hoot. I even enjoyed Terry, the head boss of the aquarium, who we don't see much of but when we do see him, he seems like a nice, slightly eccentric guy.

Now, the bad: predictable. Which made it boring because why did it take so freaking long to get to the most predictable ending of all time? The book opens with all of these different, seemingly unrelated characters. I found it difficult to follow the jumping back and forth between the two groups of characters - the ones in California and the ones in Washington.

But you know that if you are jumping back and forth between two sets of characters that they are going to be related somehow. And then when you find out more about both sets of characters, you can easily guess how it will all end.

By the end of the first 25% of the book, you know what's going to happen. You don't know exactly how you're going to get there, but you basically know how the book will end.

For those who enjoy the journey, and don't really care about a predictable story, I guess the journey is fine. I found it to be a little long, drawn out and boring, personally. The book takes FOREVER to get going. Was all that back story REALLY necessary? Like almost 50% of the book worth of back story?

I also wish Marcellus the Octopus had more of a presence. I felt like the book was billed as being narrated by an Octopus but I feel like 90% of the book was narrated by humans. I thought it was going to be all about the Octopus when, in fact, it was mostly about humans. I guess most people want to read about humans but I read a lot of stories about humans and have never read one about an Octopus so I was excited by that.

Anyways, I don't think it lived up to the hype but I'm in the minority (as usual) so give it a go if you want a sweet little story about finding family and love when you feel like you've got nobody and nothing.

If you like books with animal narrators, check out Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton. Do yourself the favor of pretending the sequel doesn't exist though - it's not really that good.

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jasmine_aimable's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted reflective slow-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

2.5

This book was just okay. Thats the best way I can describe it. Just okay. It had good moments and super slow moments but overall I found it a bit hard to follow and there were a lot of underlying things I feel weren’t explained as well as they should’ve been. The ending wrapped up WAAAAYY too fast. Probably needed another 75-ish pages to really tie up all of the loose ends and answer some of the bigger issues that were presented during the book.

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