Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Tova Sullivan is a widow in her seventies who works the night shift cleaning at a small Puget Sound aquarium, quietly grieving a son who disappeared decades earlier under circumstances that were never fully explained. Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus with a sharp wit, a talent for escape artistry, and an uncanny understanding of humans. When a young man named Cameron drifts into town chasing answers about his own absent father, his path crosses with Tova's in ways neither of them expects, and Marcellus ends up being the one to quietly pull the threads of their stories together.

This one took me a little while to fall into. The early chapters spend a lot of time laying framework, and I found the pacing a bit slow at the onset. But once the pieces started coming together, I found myself completely won over. Shelby Van Pelt built something genuinely heartfelt here, and the characters, Tova and Marcellus especially, earned a real place in my heart by the end. The emotional payoff took a beat to arrive, but it was well worth the wait; I closed this book with a serious case of the warm fuzzies. Beyond the emotion, I thought the novel was wonderfully imaginative. I give Remarkably Bright Creatures 3.8 stars.

If you're the kind of reader who needs to be hooked from page one, the slow build might test your patience a little. But if you can settle in and trust the story to unfold, Remarkably Bright Creatures rewards that patience with real heart, real imagination, and one of the most unlikely, endearing companionships I've read in a long time.

I am a proud affiliate of Bookshop.org and this post contains links to purchase this book through their platform. This means that I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you if you follow one of my links and make a Bookshop.org purchase. With that said, I am in no way being compensated for this review or my opinions of this novel. I love supporting local, independent, women-owned, and BIPOC bookstores. Bookshop.org ensures that every purchase supports an indie bookstore of your choice! Happy reading, from my written world to yours <3