Book Review: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
The colourful debut novel Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt had been on my radar for awhile; it made a big splash (no pun intended) when it was first published in 2022, and it seems to keep popping up in recommendations ever since. There were a bunch of copies available at the book sale I attended last month, so I ran out of excuses and finally picked it up. Bookworms from across North America have probably heard about it as least once – it’s the book with the octopus narrator Marcellus; he has only very short chapters written from his perspective, but they are all authentic and ring surprisingly true. He’s definitely the highlight of this book, and more impressively, the instigator of its entire plot line.
Plot Summary
Tova Sullivan lives a small, quiet, but content life in the seaside town of Sowell Bay. Her son Erik mysteriously disappeared from a small boat when he was 18, yet her and her husband persevered, continuing to live and work until Tova’s husband’s death. Since then, Tova has worked the night shift at the local aquarium, cleaning to keep herself busy and cope with the losses of her life. While there she befriends the giant Pacific octopus Marcellus, who sensing his intelligence and desire for connection, begins to talk to him while she cleans, even returning him to his tank occasionally when he’s managed to escape. Meanwhile, a young man named Cameron Cassmore has just been fired from yet another job, and kicked out of his ex-girlfriend’s house for good. Out of money and housing options, he goes in search of his estranged father who he believes is a rich developer also living in Sowell Bay. Cameron’s mother abandoned him to his aunt when he was young, never to be heard from again, so his options for parental support are limited. While in Sowell Bay he meets Tova and they strike up an unlikely friendship, helped along by Marcellus and his penchant for finding shiny or lost things that need to be returned to their rightful owner. Together, Tova and Cameron learn about the importance of forgiveness and building new connections, while the other residents of Sowell Bay (sea creatures and otherwise) help them along their new paths.
My Thoughts
This book is perfect for fans of Fredrik Backman, which I also happen to be. It’s a character-driven novel that relies on previous hurts, personality idiosyncrasies and unlikely coincidences to create the suspense. Is some of it unbelievable? Yes of course, especially considering the incredible feats of Marcellus and his ability to sense the needs and desires of humans outside his tank. Still, like most Backman novels, it’s a feel-good tale that lays bare the messiness of life, but forces us to see the beauty in the madness anyway.
The blend of octopus narration, light humour, and easy reading make this book the perfect option for discussion among book clubs, which is likely part of the reason it’s so popular. At its heart lies a mystery that doesn’t take too much brainpower to solve, and the truth is basically revealed by Marcellus within the last third of the novel, so we turn our focus to the character’s emotional fallout rather than the reveal of what actually happened. If you’re the type of reader that gets frustrated with missed connections or mixed communications that delay the inevitable, you will likely be frustrated by this book; like a rom-com, many of the problems could easily be solved by people just talking directly to one another in a straightforward manner, but where’s the fun in that?
As I mentioned above, grief and forgiveness are major themes in this one, which I personally can’t get enough of in my fiction. Maybe because they seem like such universal problems that we can all relate to and share, but I always love a book that deals with these emotions, I always learn something new from the characters that are going through them. There are no heavy-handed lessons in this one, other than perhaps the nudge that connecting with others is always a good thing, even if you’re a sea creature with multiple hearts.
Hmm, I don’t have a good track record with talking animals in fiction! Mind you, it’s better than talking trees, I suppose, which caused me to abandon the book! ;)
The octopus sections are quite short, and not at all…fantasy like, if that makes sense. Technically, everything that happens in this book could still conceivably happen, it doesn’t really stray into magical realism at all.
This one crops up so often that I feel like I’m missing out because I haven’t read it. However, it sounds a bit too sweet for me, a bit too much like everything works out and the characters acknowledge that they are sad, and sadness is okay.
Yah that’s pretty much it! hahah I totally get the FOMO though, especially in the book world.
This is in constant demand in the local library…as you say, lots of appealing ways into a story like this. And such an eye-catching cover too!
And the inside is done quite well too – every octopus chapter has a soft shadow of an octopus at the beginning of the chapter. It’s very cute!
I haven’t read this because I feared it would be too sad! Losing a son is my absolute worst nightmare. Also I am wary about sentient animal characters – sometimes they’re too sad.
I totally understand your hesitate Laila, but honestly I didn’t find this book too sad. Many have asked me about it, and I didn’t find it all that bad, it’s mostly focused on the present. That being said – you do you! haha
I’m reading this book right now, about 50 pages in, which is where I decide to keep reading or toss it, and if it weren’t for one of my book groups, this one would be tossed. The writing is very bad. The narrative voice makes little sense. We have chapters from Tova’s p.o.v. and from Cameron’s, but the narration is the same: trying to hard to be clever, failing, and clumsily telling us a ton of backstory instead of constructing scenes so that we can learn what we need to know.
It sounds as if it was written to please Van Pelt’s writers’ group and with more than one eye on a sale to television.
That’s a good point about their voices – the POVs are very similar, and considering how different these two characters are, there’s not much excuse. That being said, I really enjoyed this one! And I wouldn’t be surprised if it was sold for tv rights already. I wouldn’t say this scores high on the ‘literary merit’ scale, but I can’t deny that I was entertained by it – in a good way :)