April 4, 2024 | ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT | By Greta Patterson
Another Block, another round of reading to escape the dread of thinking about my future! Just kidding, everyone reads for different reasons and all of them are valid. For my favorite book this Block, I have to give a shout out to my brother who chose this one for our family book club — great pick, Xwell. This is Shelby Van Pelt’s debut novel, an impressive feat in itself, and I’m excited to see what she puts out next. So, let’s get into “Remarkably Bright Creatures.”
When I was first starting this book, it took me a session or two to get into the story because the beginning is a bit slow. We are first introduced to Tova, an older woman who has experienced immense tragedy in her life, from losing her husband to cancer to her son going missing at sea. She takes the night shift at Sowell Bay Aquarium, forming a peculiar connection with a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus.
What’s fun about this book is the shifting perspectives with most of the chapters being narrated in third-person, following Tova and other chapters written in first-person perspective as Marcellus narrates. With this, you get to know Marcellus in a unique way which I haven’t experienced in other animal stories.
Don’t let my previous sentence confuse you, for this is not exactly an animal story. Rather, it’s a beautiful story about how loss changes a person and their decisions. Tova’s past seems like something one might want to forget, but by confronting and understanding the past, the future becomes a little less scary.
When it comes to the writing, I found the prose to be very beautiful. I also loved how Van Pelt was able to switch the dialect very dramatically between Marcellus’ perspective and Tova’s narrator. It was both humorous and heartbreaking in ways that didn’t feel artificial.
I love myself a plot twist (this is actually only kinda true; I like spoiling movies for myself), and this book delivers a plot twist in a unique way. Rather than having the whole twist happen at one moment, it is slowly introduced throughout the book as bits and pieces of information are dropped through the perspective of Marcellus. I didn’t find that this took away from the end surprise, as it was still deeply moving to watch the characters realize the twist for themselves.
As with any good book, I did shed a tear or two at the end, but not because the ending was sad. Quite the contrary in fact, the book ended in such a heartwarming and accepting way that I had no choice but to cry about how happy I felt for the characters.
Again, as with any good book, there were a few things I found rather annoying. For one, a character who gets introduced later in the book, Cameron, becomes remarkably annoying as the story progresses. His continuous self-sabotage and inability to have any personal motivation began to irk me. He seemed to blame everyone else for his struggles instead of taking personal responsibility.
In the end, I thought “Remarkably Bright Creatures” was a beautiful portrayal of close-knit communities, personal and communal grief, reflections of the past, acceptance of the future and ultimately how cool octopi are. If you’re ever in California and get the chance to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, my favorite, maybe spend a little extra time with the giant Pacific octopus there and see what you learn. You may even come away with a trinket or two.