The debut novel from Shelby Van Pelt, I’d seen an article talking about Remarkably Bright Creatures shortly after it was published , talking about the unexpected nature of the book and how it had come together. It was stuck like a burr in the back of my hair, something to look out for.

I had forgotten about it for a bit so when I had the opportunity to read it, it was a surprise. Like finding a missing key.

How appropriate, then, that the whole novel centers around small discoveries and their importance, finding things lost you’d not known were missing.

I found the book a bit slow at times, I had thought. Then I checked my tracking app and found I’d read it in two days. I thought it had been longer, and in part that’s because of how immersive the characterization and set description is.

Carefully crafted and laid, the book is lovingly written with characters that come alive, even those that go from obnoxious to well rounded through the course of the narrative. All of this is punctuated with a Greek chorus of Marcellus, an octopus, describing events as he witnesses them from his tank at the aquarium where many of the human characters lives intersect.

The book is charming, and despite seeming simple at it’s outset it was incredibly sentimental and sweet.