Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“With the bucket comes a sensation of total nothingness, which, in most ways, is more pleasant than the everything-ness.”
“Young humans would fail abysmally in the sea.”
“Hiding spots ought to be sacred.”
“’Conscience does make cowards of us all.’”
Remarkably Bright Creatures is about a woman who cleans an aquarium at night named Tova and a giant Pacific octopus named Marcellus. Marcellus lives in a tank that Tova sees every night. We find out that Tova’s son disappeared years ago and she recently lost her husband. We are also introduced to Cameron who doesn’t seem to have his life together and is struggling. Tova and Marcellus strike up a friendship and from what Marcellus observes, there is something that needs solving. Will the mystery be solved? Will Cameron get his life together? How will Tova get along?
Shelby Van Pelt wrote a very interesting novel and it was different in a way I like. She intersplices chapters from the point of view of Marcellus. It does not come across as outlandish or too far-fetched. His chapters are funny and I could totally picture an octopus saying it. “It leads many humans to assume I am a squid, which is an insult of the worst sort.” His first chapter starts off extremely sad and adds an element of tension to the whole book. Marcellus’ chapters lend a depth and perspective to the story that is unique. I think he was my favorite character in the book. I did like most of the characters but at one point Cameron was not my favorite. He came across as creepy and whiny. He used the victim card one too many times. I love Vegas and whenever a book mentions Vegas I light up. Here the author has a character say “’Who spends a holiday in Las Vegas?” Well, me, I do. I spent my 40th birthday in Las Vegas at Christmas. There are subtle clues sprinkled throughout and whenever I read one, I got a little giddy like I added another piece to the puzzle. It had some good life lessons and the author made you think. “’No, the deal is never anyone’s fault. But you control the way you play.’” Some words/phrases that I pulled out are deadheading and incredulity. I found the ending very heartwarming. Even though I could kind of see what was coming, I think this was a well-crafted book and an enjoyable read. This is exactly the type of book I would recommend to a book club, anyone who loves octopuses, or dealing with grief.
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Tag: disappear
Scottish Matriarchy And The Disappearing Good Writing
*SPOILERS*
“Fear can make something beautiful appear ugly.”
“Sometimes I think we are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives.”
Beautiful Ugly is about a husband, Grady, who is an author, and a wife, Abby, who is a journalist. She disappears on the night of him learning some exciting news then the book jumps to a year later. The story is told mostly from the perspective of Grady. It does have a few chapters from Abby’s perspective though. Grady is having trouble sleeping and is struggling with writing. He moves to a secluded, Scottish island to hopefully get his life together. One day he ends up seeing his wife who disappeared…or does he?
Alice Feeney is the author of this book and this is only the second book I have read by her. So far, not a good track record. I gave the first book I read by her a 2 and this one is right in that ballpark as well. First off, I am not a fan of unreliable narrators so when it was revealed that Grady hasn’t slept well and tends to default to drinking (is he an alcoholic?) when the slightest thing goes wrong plus at one point is introduced to tea that might be more than he bargained for, I sort of rolled my eyes. I tend not to like it when authors resort to using alcohol as a crutch for a character’s faults and their problems. I find it mostly cliché and unimaginative. I wish someone would do something unique with it. I wonder if this is something that Alice defaults to because there is a sentence that appears in both the books I have read by her. It is not exactly word for word but close enough and in this one it goes like this, “Not everyone likes to drown in their sorrows, some people like to swim in them.” Look at my review for Daisy Darker to see that quote from that book. Secondly, none of the characters stood out to me as memorable or particularly likeable. They were just blah. Thirdly, the scenery could have had such an impression. It had such potential but I don’t think it was used to its fullest. There were these redwoods which was the raison d’etre of the islanders. The sea and landscape could have been characters. As readers, we were told how beautiful it was but we weren’t shown it and I didn’t feel it. It wasn’t vivid enough. Fourthly, throughout the book there were a lot of cliché sounding phrases that just didn’t land with me. It felt forced a bit like “He’s chasing something he’ll never find, but we’re all guilty of that.” There was a chapter that contained a preachy monologue by Abby that had me rolling my eyes too. There were some good phrases though that were funny and that I liked such as “I’m not insulting you; I’m describing you” or “The only thing I don’t like about being alone is the amount of time it forces me to spend with myself.” Fifthly, the writing didn’t make sense at points. The plane meeting…he asked someone to move but then only two in the aisle? Grady says his nan was the only person he considered family but he loved Abby and she was not considered family? Finally, the “twist” and general plot didn’t fully line up or make sense to me. Different people with the same name? Come on. I will stop railing on this book because you get the drift. Read at your own peril. I did kind of like the chapter titles and the “Buried Lovers” story though. This is exactly the type of book you could tell was phoned in and used cheap tactics.