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A review by art_books_chemistry
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
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.
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
Graphic: Abandonment, Grief, and Death
Minor: Suicide attempt and Alcohol