Our story follows three main players. Tova Sullivan works at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. She cleans the exhibits to keep busy and enjoys the company of the aquatic creatures within. She lost her son Erik in a mysterious accident when he was 18, and her husband succumbed to cancer years later. Her job keeps her mind occupied. Cameron is down on his luck as his friends carry on with their lives, having babies and keeping steady jobs. He’s lost until a minor epiphany points him to a man who might be his father, and he sets out to find him. Finally, Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus who narrates in a British accent (in the audiobook). He is fascinated by humans, and he enjoys nightly excursions out of his tank to snack on the morsels in neighboring exhibits.
First, let’s address the octopus in the room. Remarkably Bright Creatures is more of a lit-fic book than a fantasy. Sure, Marcellus narrates portions of the novel, and he even interacts with the humans in ways that could be argued are pretty magical. Still, he’s more of an interesting device and character than he is a gateway into fantasy, which is why it’s not 100% fair to compare Remarkably Bright Creatures to an outright sci-fi/fantasy epic.
With the preamble over, I can finally say I had a lot of fun with Remarkably Bright Creatures. It sets out to tell a focused and heartwarming story, and it accomplishes exactly that. The characters are all interesting and layered. Tova stood out as a positive beam of light with loads of darkness behind her. She found happiness out of terrible situations time and again, but her walls remained up. The local store/deli owner has the hots for Tova, but she’s too blinded by her trauma to see it. Cameron feels a little less characterized, but the book makes up for this by taking the reader along on his journey of self-discovery. I would’ve appreciated more meat on Cameron’s metaphorical bones, even by the end, but his growth was solid enough to keep me interested.
Marcellus steals the show, as far as I’m concerned. Van Pelt makes the smart decision to treat the octopus’s chapters as quick interludes. They serve as connective tissue for the disparate parts of the story, and Marcellus is behind some of the book’s most intriguing reveals. It can feel a little plot device-y, but the Marcellus charm won me over enough to ignore that.
The book wades into its finale with the grace of an ocean tide gradually receding. Remarkably Bright Creatures doesn’t slap you in the face with an octopus tentacle, nor does it indeed to wow you into oblivion. It tells a comfortable and intriguing story about the people within its pages, and it’s worth your while for that alone.
Rating: Remarkably Bright Creatures: 8.0/10
-Cole
