A review by bosco29
The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness by Sy Montgomery

informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

The tidbits about octopuses throughout were fascinating but the rest of the book was mostly about the author, coworkers, and their life stories that I found uninteresting, drawn out, and unnecessary even for storytelling.  For example, one of her co-workers lost a friend to suicide and that took up a chunk of an entire chapter.  You learn about the person who died, their families, etc, the grief of the coworker, etc and it had absolutely nothing to do with octopuses or her coworkers work at the aquarium so it felt out of place.  It was also shocking because you went from playing with the octopus happily to her coworker's friends death very quickly and again, it had nothing to add or take away from the storyline so it felt like it was used as a page filler.

Some parts of the book were a lot more religious/spiritual than I expected.  Yes, the title is Soul of an Octopus, but it felt a little "woo" at times which detracts from the science of it for me. 

Good book for the octopus facts and stories about the octopuses though!  I wish it had been more of that and less about her home life and the home and profe sional lives of her colleagues. 
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