Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Remarkably Bright Creatures

Author: Shelby Van Pelt

Genre: Fiction

Publish Date: May 2022

Read: May 2025

Favorite Quote: They are wired for survival, and perhaps expert at that function, but no other creature here possesses intelligence like mine.

Story Synopsis: Marcellus, a Giant Pacific Octopus, lives at a small, run-down aquarium outside of Seattle. Tova, the evening cleaner, catches Marcellus outside of his tank sneaking human food one night and helps him back to the tank. There, they begin an unlikely friendship. Cameron - a bright man from California who just can’t quite get his life together, thinks he has found his father and heads to Sowell Bay to find him (and extort him for 18 years of child support). However, Cameron finds family in a different way when he ends up working at the aquarium.

Why does this book beguile? Remarkably Bright Creatures got a lot of hype when it was published. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely story and I very much enjoyed it, but it took me about half the book to get invested in the human characters. I’m so glad more people appreciate the intelligence of Octopi (I call them our underwater overlords). The story was very sweet and I read it in just two days, so very easy to get through.

Bookshop.Org Link*: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

Amazon.com Link*: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

If you’re interested in this, read*: The Women by Kristin Hannah - Bookshop.Org / Amazon.com