20. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

listened on Libby/borrowed from the library

2022
360 pgs.
Adult Magical Realism
Finished 3/10/23
Goodreads rating: 4.41
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary coastal Washington state

My comments: Okay, I loved this book.  It was different and interesting and although you knew exactly what was coming and how it would end, it was the route that it took to get there that was so fascinating.  A cantankerous 70-year-old woman, an elderly octopus living out his life in captivity, and a 30-year-old young man abandoned by his mother and raised by his aunt are the three main characters.  All unique and wonderful.  Michael Uri read the character of Marcellus, the octopus, perfectly, oh so perfectly!  Sure, a lot of sadness, but brilliantly done ... a perfect title for this story!  Five star setting: small town on the ocean just north of Seattle, WA.  Genre: magical realism?  To be able to hear the thoughts of an octopus would make it that, I think, the rest is definitely realistic fiction.

Goodreads synopsis:  Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.