Taylor Drew reviewed Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Remarkably bright creatures indeed
5 stars
It took me nearly 2 months to listen to the audiobook for this novel because of life happening, and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to meet this book and its characters as they came to life in my ears.
The novel is told through several different perspectives, primarily of a 70-year-old woman, a 30-year-old man, and an octopus. There are some others, but these three are at the forefront.
The octopus, Marcellus, provides commentary on the human condition and acts kind of as the behind the scene eyes for the reader. On the other hand, the humans are constantly dealing with human style drama and coming up with or failing to come up with human style solutions.
There's a lot of good humor, but tragedy too. Reading along, I was reminded that people are complicated and we never stop growing into who we are, even at 70 …
It took me nearly 2 months to listen to the audiobook for this novel because of life happening, and I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to meet this book and its characters as they came to life in my ears.
The novel is told through several different perspectives, primarily of a 70-year-old woman, a 30-year-old man, and an octopus. There are some others, but these three are at the forefront.
The octopus, Marcellus, provides commentary on the human condition and acts kind of as the behind the scene eyes for the reader. On the other hand, the humans are constantly dealing with human style drama and coming up with or failing to come up with human style solutions.
There's a lot of good humor, but tragedy too. Reading along, I was reminded that people are complicated and we never stop growing into who we are, even at 70 years old. There's a lot of pain in the hardship out there, but a lot of good stuff too, and even though humanity has a tendency to fall into the absurd, we can be remarkably bright features too.
