Remarkably Bright Creatures
I got this to read due to running out of books at the end of 2023 and needing to start a new list for 2024 and this popped up as “available now!” in the libby app. Books in this list only gives you 7 days! so off i went to reading it speed-like.
And glad of it I am! The book is quite good. The premise is decent, a guy who’s trying to find his dad to shake him down for child support finds himself in a sleepy town with a dark secret. But the real star of the book is really the octopus (name of marcellus mcsquiddles) and you get to see how intelligent it is. We all kinda know how intelligent octopi are, and this takes a few liberties by giving us an extra smart one (not unreasonable, since we all know the range of human intelligence can take).
The book starts off with a quick intro to the octopus in question before it delves into the more mundane lives of the much more boring humans. There’s a bit of a mystery in that one of the other main characters have dead relatives, some of which is unresolved (and actually remains unresolved), but that really isn’t the point of the book. the point of the book is mostly to get you to read about sleepy pacific northwest town, get you intrigued in a mystery that really isn’t resolved, and get you to care about another mystery that really wasn’t really a mystery until about 3/4s into the book.
And you know what? it works. I’m not sure what it is, but I’m sure the octopus is at the heart of it. If there was no ocotpus in the book, i probably would have stopped about 1/3 in. =)
the other main character is quite relatable in the sense that she’s an elderly woman that’s deciding what to do with her life now that her lifelong partner is gone, and her kid is gone. there’s a minor cast of other characters, but really, its just 3 characters driving the whole book. and the scenery of course. I actually wouldn’t mind watching a movie on this book.
At its heart, the entire book is charming. And that’s probably what kept me reading. =) Great start to 2023 though, can’t ask for a more heartwarming start.