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Remarkably Bright Creatures

by Shelby Van Pelt

An aquarium friendship tied to a decades-old mystery

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Paperback New English

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AlbakiReads Editorial

An aquarium friendship tied to a decades-old mystery

At the Sowell Bay Aquarium, widow Tova Sullivan’s night-shift routine brings her into contact with Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus. Their friendship connects two strands of the novel: Tova’s life after her husband’s death and the unresolved disappearance of her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, more than thirty years earlier. Marcellus’s observations lead him to a possible answer about the night Erik vanished, giving the story’s mystery a distinctly unusual investigator. The book brings together grief, friendship, the search for truth, and the possibility of imagining a future while confronting the past.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • For readers interested in stories about grief and the possibility of moving forward.
  • For readers who enjoy mysteries centered on a long-unresolved disappearance.
  • For readers drawn to unlikely friendships between humans and animals.

Themes

Grief and remembranceFriendship across speciesUnresolved family historyTruth and the pastHope for the future

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

A New York Times Bestseller * A Read With Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick

Now a Netflix Film

"Remarkably Bright Creatures [is] an ultimately feel-good but deceptively sensitive debut. . . . Memorable and tender." --Washington Post

A charming, witty and compulsively readable exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope that traces a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.

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