Ponder: Remarkably Bright Creatures

A first novel by Selby Van Pelt ©2022, Remarkably Bright Creatures was a delightful read with three main characters: Tova, Cameron, and Marcellus. 

1. Tova is a woman in her seventies who works as an after-hours cleaning woman at the Sowell Bay Aquarium in the Pacific northwest. She lives alone, her husband having died three years earlier and her eighteen year old son having vanished thirty years earlier in a boating incident in Puget Sound.
2. Cameron is a young man who had been deserted by his mother at a young age and who never knew who his father was. He was raised by an aunt in a trailer park in the Modesto region of California.
3. Last but not least is Marcellus, an extremely intelligent giant Pacific Octopus, who forms a bond with Tova. As a detective, Marcellus is able to deduce what happened the night of the disappearance of Tova's son and seeks to devise a way to communicate this to her.

I was drawn to this book having read the nonfiction work The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery, which attests to the intelligence of octopuses, (post for 7/24/2019). I'd given that nonfiction book a strong 4 stars. The plot of Remarkably Bright Creatures requires some suspension of disbelief but still manages to remain some plausibility and keep the reader engaged. How do the lives of these three characters wind up interacting? I stayed up late to finish the novel in one sitting. The ending was satisfying and made me feel good. I rate it 5 stars although those readers who are unable to suspend disbelief might disagree.

★★★★★ Great! Read it!

I leave you with one quote from Marcellus. It is his thoughts only. It would be ridiculous to think the octopus actually spoke!

Humans. For the most part, you are dull and blundering. But occasionally, you can be remarkably bright creatures.