I came to the acknowledgments to see Pelt acknowledge the same book for being a wonderful source.**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** AMAZON’S #1 BOOK OF 2022 SO FARBBC RADIO 2 BOOK CLUB PICK GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BEST BOOKS OF 2022 GLAMOUR BEST BOOKS OF 2022‘Full of heart and humour. One other random note: as I read this, so much of the little octopus information and interactions reminded me of what I’d read and learned in Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration Into the Wonder of Consciousness. 😐 It’s a fairly short read, but for me it took a while to drag through. I would have DNFd at 30% if a friend hadn’t encouraged me to keep giving it a shot. Overall, I was disappointed from the get-go and bored the rest of the way. It all wrapped up in a fairly tidy way so if you prefer books with closed endings, you’ll probably be all set with this one. Part of this is because even by the last few chapters it didn’t seem like it would be resolved, so it was like the mystery mattered as little to the story as it did to me. The plot does slowly carry them forward, but it’s a light touch of mystery that I was not super invested in. This was primarily a character-focused book as more is learned about them and their connections in the small town of Sowell Bay. What was her friend’s name? Jess? Sure, Jess is #5. Marcellus, of course, is the best character. By the end, it was about at the level of someone I was friendly with in high school and think about once every few years and say, “I hope they’re doing well.” A polite but distant well-wisher. xD I never felt really in her head or heart, and felt at arms distance the whole way through. I had no strong feelings for her either way, and I think it’s because her stoic Swiss nature that’s so emphasized in the book came across too well. Anyway, he never grew on me and constantly annoyed me, as most people who are way more immature than their age annoy me.

It didn’t help matters that I didn’t really like Cameron, who oddly enough is not even mentioned in the book blurb despite narrating about half the story and showing up in like chapter three. My expectations for this were WAY off, as I thought it’d be closer to 50%, so when I got into this and realized it was mostly narrated from two humans (with the occasional omniscient view of side characters where fitting) I was quickly put off of it. There are a few good chapters of it for sure, but they’re short at two or three pages each and make up overall a small (but impactful) portion of the story. Who else was disappointed by the lack of octopus narration?

Who else came to this book lured in by the promise of narration via octopus? I imagine lots of people, myself among them.

Book review remarkably bright creatures