REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES by Shelby Van Pelt ⭐⭐⭐⭐

While it may not be the most traditional use of “will they, won’t they”, you know from the beginning where things have to go for a satisfying ending. But to take you there with enough feels to make it worth the trip is why this book is blowing up right now. And as a bonus, there’s an octopus narrator! If there’s any humanity in you, that was probably all the selling point you needed.

While the first half had some drag (lots of setting up the big “twist”, not nearly enough octopus) the second half is an excellent study on lost time and what we do with what’s left. Grief is a go-to emotion for a reason. It reaches out from the past and grips you so tight you almost never get free, and maybe part of you doesn’t ever want to be. We watch these characters deal with the loss of family, the loss of time, and the loss of things they didn’t even know they had to begin with. We watch two people enter each other’s orbit for the first time, hoping to see something found and worrying what may happen if it’s not. There’s also a masterful use of letting the audience in on a secret before the (two-legged) characters, and the device used to enact it is delightful.

As this book makes its way to every corner of the reading world, it proves its status as a universally enjoyable story. Young, old, curmudgeon, happy-go-lucky, human, cephalopod — anyone can appreciate the lives beaming from these pages, the reflection of a world sometimes smaller than it seems. It doesn’t take three hearts to feel this one.