I started reading Remarkably Bright Creatures after finding the cutest sprayed edges full of seashells and accidentally stumbling onto the Netflix trailer for the upcoming movie.
I’m going to get this out of the way: I found it kind of dull. Before you @ me, hear me out. This is a quiet slice of life mystery about grief, aging, and a sarcastic, intelligent octopus, and it’s saying something real about how we age with dignity and face the possibility of being the last remaining member of our families.
I just think I’m not the right audience for it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate what this book has to say. I am charmed but not blown away. Plus, how often can you say you’re reading from an octopus’s POV?
Read our full summary and review of Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt below. This post contains spoilers.
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Description
For fans of A Man Called Ove, 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.
Tropes
- Unlikely Friendship
- Mystery
- Animal Companion
- Literary Fiction
- Multi POV
Review
Overall Impressions 😊
Honestly? I didn’t dislike anything about Remarkably Bright Creatures. I was just kind of bored at times. That’s the most accurate take I can give you. This is a slice of life contemporary literary fiction, told from the rotating perspectives of Tova, Marcellus, Cameron and a few more side characters. Every character has their own story, their own challenges, and their own arc of growth. The mystery wrapping the whole thing is genuinely lovely, and I adored the way it unraveled.
But slice of life is slow by design. It’s tender and wholesome, not action packed, and that pacing dragged for me. I’ll say this though: the ending got me. After spending most of the book mildly bored, I did not expect to be wrecked by the final chapters. I also don’t handle animals being in trouble well, and an aging animal was very hard for me to read about.
It’s saying profound things about grief, feeling lost, loneliness, and what it looks like to find your people again after losing them. It felt like a wholesome family reunion that just happens to be told in a multi-POV mystery. Charming, slow, and adorable.
Perfect For Fans Of… 🌟
You know those Chicken Soup for the Soul books? It kind of reminded me of those. It’s wholesome, slice of life, and tugs at your heartstrings. It feels a bit like a Hallmark special with magical realism.
It kind of reminded me of Broken Country with its grief rep, and Great Big Beautiful Life for some reason. I’m not sure why, maybe the slice of life storytelling. I found the pacing about the same.
There’s plot even if it’s slice of life. It’s a unique juxtaposition of slice of life and mystery. Broken Country did this the same way with the trial and the love story. It’s definitely cozy and has grief at its center.
This is literary fiction, so if you’re looking for deep romance, it doesn’t have that. It does have plenty of love though. It’s not a fast paced action novel like a James Patterson or Freida McFadden, definitely not a thriller, but more of a slow burn mystery.
Characters 👥
Who would’ve thought a fictional octopus would be one of my favorite characters of the year? I certainly didn’t. I learned a lot about aging with dignity and staying curious from Tova and Marcellus. I also learned I have the temperament of a sardonic, grumpy, aging sea creature. I don’t know what that says about me, but I deeply related to Marcellus’s inner monologue.
You know who else I can deeply relate to? Tova. I have the same conviction she does about keeping things scheduled and doing things the right way. I can only wish I had her work ethic (which I aspire to) and that I age the way she does, with dignity and grace.
Cameron and that poor formerly gifted executive dysfunction child also hits way too close to home. If he wasn’t dealt such a bad hand, he probably would’ve thrived much sooner in his life. I’m just glad he got there.
The cast felt very well developed. Ethan was a great companion for Tova. Avery was a nice contrast to Cameron’s mom, with her devotion as another teenage mother. And Aunt Jeanne for doing the best she could. I’m looking forward to meeting all of them in the Netflix movie in a couple of weeks.
Plot 🗺️
Although I was charmed by the characters, the plot is slow. Again, this is expected from a slice of life literary fiction work, but we see a lot of scenes with cleaning. I think I would’ve stayed focused a lot more if I paired this with a fast paced novel. But if you’re looking for a cozy wholesome adventure, this has some pretty steady beats.
The plot twist feels predictable. The mystery is pretty obvious from the get go, who Cameron is and what truly happened to Erik. I did gasp a few times though, when Avery revealed her bit about the pier, and when Marcellus revealed what he found at the bottom of the ocean.
And Marcellus’s last chapter, damn. Shelby, was that necessary? I ugly cried like a baby. Lovely, well earned ending. I feel calm but teared up all the same. Predictable, charming destination, but what a well earned one, after the tumultuous journey they’ve all been on.
My Favorite Quote
“She understands what it means to never be able to stop moving, lest you find yourself unable to breathe.”
Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures
Writing Style and Narration ✍️
The story is mostly told from Tova and Cameron’s POV, layered in with Marcellus’s POV as interludes. It’s absolutely worth mentioning, because how often do you get to hear from a grumpy and a bit snobby octopus in your life? Michael Urie conveys the slight contempt Marcellus has for the humans very well.
Marin Ireland does a phenomenal job as Tova and Cameron’s narrators. I’ve loved her work with Nothing to See Here (which is my favorite slice of life book) and I recognized her instantly. Her range is incredible. She can do a 70 year old woman just as well as the two kids she did in Nothing to See Here.
Synopsis
Meet Marcellus, the Smartest Captive at Sowell Bay Aquarium
Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus living at the Sowell Bay Aquarium. He’s intelligent, sarcastic, and aging. He’s the remarkably bright creature the title is referring to. He’s got about a hundred and sixty days left to live, and he’s dreading every one of them in captivity.
Tova Sullivan is a seventy year old woman who cleans the aquarium at night. She doesn’t need the job. She took it to keep busy after losing her husband Will to cancer and her son Erik to a mysterious boating accident.
One night while she’s cleaning the director’s office, Tova finds Marcellus tangled in a bunch of cords on the floor. He’d snuck out of his tank to eat better food than the mackerel he gets served, and he’d gotten stuck on the way back. She helps him out. He leaves a mark on her arm with his suckers and goes back to his tank. Tova doesn’t tell anyone.
The next day, Tova goes to lunch with the Knit-Wits, her older lady knitting club, who tell her her job is too dangerous.
Cameron Cassmore, Deadbeat in a Trailer Park
In California, Cameron Cassmore is having trouble keeping a job down. He’s visiting his Aunt Jeanne, who lives in a trailer park and raised him after his mother left after struggling with addiction for years. Cameron never met his father. He helps Aunt Jeanne defend her vine-covered house from her landlord, who keeps getting calls about snakes hiding in the vines.
Back at the aquarium, Tova goes to the grocery store and judges the kid bagging her items because he’s doing it wrong. There is a right way to do things. Then she heads home to look out at the pier where Erik’s boat disappeared.
Cameron gets kicked out of yet another situation and goes to crash with his childhood best friends, Brad and Elizabeth. The three of them used to be a friend group, with Brad on the side of it, and it’s pretty obvious Cameron also had a crush on Elizabeth back in the day. Now Brad and Elizabeth are married and expecting a baby, and they let Cameron stay for a bit. They want to help, but they don’t want him there for long. Cameron decides he’s going to try to live above the bar of a bartender named Al. Brad wants him out sooner rather than later.
Around this same time, Tova’s brother Lars dies, and she heads to a retirement home called Charter Village to pick up his belongings. Ethan, the Scottish grocery store owner, offers to help her with anything she needs, and Tova takes him up on the ride. Ethan clearly has a crush on her. Tova just focuses on her crossword puzzle. She’s also been talking to Marcellus every time she walks past his enclosure. Marcellus likes Tova. He’s lonely. He wants her to stick around. Nobody else has ever actually understood how smart he is.
Cameron Finds a Photo and Heads North to Find His Father
Aunt Jeanne hands Cameron an old box of pictures, and inside, he finds a couple of photos of his mom hugging some guy. The timing works out, so Cameron decides this guy must be his dad. He looks him up and finds out he’s a real estate developer in Seattle named Simon Brinks. Cameron books a red eye flight to track him down and ask for a paycheck.
Meanwhile, Terry, Tova’s boss at the aquarium, keeps weighing Marcellus at his vet appointments and noticing he’s getting heavier. Terry has no idea Marcellus has been sneaking out of his tank and eating kitchen food instead of the mackerel he gets served. Eventually Terry catches on that Marcellus has been squeezing through the gap between the pump and his tank to get into the other tanks for sea cucumbers, which he clearly prefers. Terry buys a clamp to seal the gap shut. Tova throws the clamp away so Marcellus can keep getting out.
Tova and Marcellus Become Real Friends
That night, Tova starts opening the tank lid herself and talking to Marcellus directly. He listens to every word. Eventually he starts reaching out a tentacle to say hello. One night, she steps onto a stool to lift the lid higher, and he peers out of the tank with his head and tentacles, and the two of them have an actual conversation. Tova tells Marcellus about Erik. She tells him about how he went out to sea and never came back, how the police only ever recovered a cut anchor from his boat, how the official ruling was suicide. None of which she ever believed.
What Tova doesn’t know is that Marcellus already knows what really happened. A few days earlier, he had noticed that she’d lost a key somewhere in the aquarium. His memory is unique, and he remembers once finding a key next to a sneaker at the bottom of the ocean. Same key. He knows what happened to Erik for real. He just doesn’t know how to tell her.
Anyway, back to the present. Tova is up on her stool talking to Marcellus when the stool breaks and she falls. Her ankle is sprained, nothing worse, but the stool is in pieces and she can’t find the screw she needs to fix it. Marcellus climbs out of his tank, flattens himself, squeezes through the pump gap like Jell-O, and goes under the equipment. Tova thinks he’s run off. But a minute later he comes back through the equipment with the screw in his tentacle. He understood exactly what she was trying to do. Then he heads back to his tank.
The next morning, Tova has a bad ankle. She avoids calling the doctor as long as she can, and when she finally does, he tells her to keep it elevated, lay down, and not return to the aquarium. Tova is sad, mostly because she’s worried Marcellus is going to wonder where she went.
Cameron Lands in Sowell Bay With No Luggage and No Money
Cameron makes it to Seattle, but the airline loses his luggage. He calls Aunt Jeanne, who sends him the Alaskan cruise money she’s been saving up for years. He uses it to buy a camper and drives to Sowell Bay to start looking for his father. He stops for breakfast at the local grocery store and meets Ethan.
Tova, back at home, starts seriously considering Charter Village. Lars spent his last days there, and she’s worried about being alone now that she’s going to be off her feet for six weeks. The older she gets, the more she’s going to need other people.
Cameron is broke and needs a gig, and Ethan offers to let him park the camper in his driveway. After Tova gets injured, Ethan helps Cameron land a job at the aquarium. Terry hires him as a half maintenance, half cleaning guy. Cameron also meets a girl at the surf shop named Avery, and he thinks she’s really cute.
One night, Tova actually fills out the Charter Village application. She gets her photos taken, downloads the form, scans her driver’s license, the whole thing. Eventually she stops by the grocery store to buy some pens, and Ethan, putting it together from the Charter Village ride a few weeks back, realizes she’s planning to move to a retirement home. He tries to talk her out of it. She won’t budge. Then he asks her out on a date for tea.
Cameron Discovers Tova’s Secret With Marcellus
Later that same night, Cameron is working at the aquarium when Marcellus escapes again. He doesn’t trust Cameron and refuses to come out. Tova was on her way in to say goodbye to Marcellus and tell him about Charter Village, but instead she walks into a mess: Marcellus stuck on a shelf, Cameron having just fallen off something trying to coax him out. Cameron watches Tova talk Marcellus back into his tank like she’s done it a hundred times. After, Tova tells him Marcellus is old and tends to wander, and she’d really appreciate it if they could keep this between them. Cameron agrees.
That night with Marcellus around, the three of them get along. Tova starts giving Cameron cleaning tips and quietly figuring out if he could be her permanent replacement. She also starts plotting how to get Cameron and Marcellus to actually become friends, so when she’s gone, someone will be there to help Marcellus out of the jams he’s always getting himself into.
Marcellus, watching the two of them together, makes a discovery. He can read human relationships, and he can tell that Cameron is a direct descendant of Tova. It’s not totally clear what that means, but neither of them know it. Marcellus knows Tova doesn’t have an heir, and yet here is Cameron, part of her bloodline. That is super interesting.
Marcellus Sulks, Cameron Goes Off-Roading, and Avery Enters the Picture
Cameron and Ethan go on a trip up to Simon Brinks’s location somewhere in the Seattle wilderness to find him. They can’t track him down. What does happen on the trip is that Cameron finds out Ethan has a crush on Tova, and that Ethan never asked her out because Tova had a husband and a son until very recently. Ethan starts telling the story of how Erik drowned, but he doesn’t get very far before the truck gets stuck in the dirt road. It turns out Cameron is good at physics and has plenty of off-roading experience. He and Ethan spend the rest of the afternoon goofing around in the woods, getting the truck unstuck and bonding.
Back at the aquarium, Marcellus is in his tank feeling sorry for himself. He’s getting old. He can’t shift colors anymore. He doesn’t know how much time he has left. And he hates being stuck in his tank, or as he calls it, the aquarium prison.
Avery and Cameron start dating. He picks her up to go paddle boarding, and that’s when he learns Avery is a teen mom. She’s thirty two, with a fifteen year old son named Marco. Cameron is impressed by how much she’s done with her life, especially compared to him with his mom situation. They have their first kiss. He tells her about his family. She tells him about Marco and his father, who is no longer in the picture.
Erik Had a Girlfriend, and Tova Is Going to Find Out Who
Tova goes to a goodbye lunch for Mary Ann, one of the Knit-Wits who is moving away. There, she runs into Adam Wright, a young man who’d helped her with a crossword puzzle a few months back. Turns out Adam went to high school with Erik. He tells Tova that Erik had a girlfriend at the time, and that he was hoping to impress her the weekend he died, and it was all just so sad that he never got the chance. Tova had no idea Erik had a girlfriend. Now she wants to find this girl. The girl is, of course, going to turn out to be Cameron’s mom. Tova just doesn’t know that yet.
Later that night, Cameron and Tova are cleaning the aquarium together, and Marcellus is silently commenting on them. Marcellus reaches out to Cameron, touches him with his suckers, and Cameron is taken aback but excited. Marcellus shows them his treasure, an earring, and Tova laughs. She knows Marcellus and Cameron are starting to bond. Marcellus, on his end, cannot believe these two still don’t realize they’re related, and he knows his time is running out. He makes it his last mission to make sure they figure it out.
A few days later, Tova goes to the grocery store after spending the day cleaning out her attic for the move. She says hi to Ethan, then runs into Sandy, Adam’s girlfriend. Sandy apologizes for Adam’s awkward goodbye-dinner moment, where he mentioned Erik’s girlfriend but couldn’t remember the name. Sandy tells her if it were her son, she’d want every detail she could get, just to remember him by. Even though this girl had nothing to do with Erik’s disappearance, that we know of anyway. The girl’s name is Daphne.
Tova heads home, opens up the yearbook, and finds her: Daphne Cassmore. And guess what? Tova doesn’t notice, but Cameron’s last name is also Cassmore.
Cameron, meanwhile, calls Aunt Jeanne and Elizabeth to update them on his Sowell Bay life. He’s been making some money, so he pays Aunt Jeanne back, plus what he considers to be interest. Aunt Jeanne tells him on the phone that Simon Brinks is not his father. Because if he was, and if he was the type to have stuck around, his mother, despite everything, would have made him a part of her life. Cameron also catches up with Elizabeth, his friend back in California.
Marcellus’s Master Plan: The Driver’s License Heist
Cameron tries to make a copy of his driver’s license, but Marcellus has done something to the copier. So Cameron leaves the license on Terry’s desk for some forms.
The whole thing is set up by Marcellus. He grabs the license off Terry’s desk and tucks it under the sea lion statue, which Tova always cleans every time she passes it. She is the only person who touches it. This is his plan to get her to figure out Cameron’s last name.
Ethan’s Dinner and the Grateful Dead T-Shirt Disaster
Ethan, meanwhile, remembers something. He’d overheard Sandy and Tova talking in the grocery store about Daphne Cassmore, and the name stuck with him. Before he took over the grocery store, there used to be a bad checks wall, like a wall of shame, and Daphne had written a bad check on it. He remembers her last name. And he realizes Cameron’s last name. He puts it together: Sandy told Tova that Erik was seeing Daphne Cassmore, and Cameron is Daphne’s son. It’s not totally clear if Ethan also makes the leap that Erik was probably Cameron’s father, but either way, he doesn’t know for sure. He invites Tova over for dinner to tell her, and they have a lovely night.
Then Cameron shows up, flustered and upset. Ethan takes him into the next room to talk for a bit. Tova, meanwhile, notices that Ethan’s kitchen is a mess after he cooked. Underneath the sink, he keeps an old t-shirt and a bunch of cereal boxes. In the pantry, he keeps his cleaning supplies. She finds an old t-shirt under the sink and uses it to clean the kitchen. Cameron comes back out, can’t look Tova in the eye, and bolts. Ethan walks back in, but the rag Tova just cleaned with was actually a concert t-shirt of his. He’s devastated. Tova is embarrassed, and she storms off before Ethan can say anything else.
The next day, one of Tova’s friends helps her hunt down a secondhand replacement t-shirt online. It’s going to take three weeks to ship, which is when she’d already be at Charter Village, so that won’t work. She decides to drive three hours south of Seattle to pick it up herself. The shirt costs two thousand dollars. Ethan keeps calling to tell her the t-shirt is not that big of a deal, please call him back, but Tova refuses to pick up until she can make it right. She’s on the expressway, which makes her nervous, when Charter Village calls to confirm the final deposit on her move. She approves the transaction.
The Driver’s License Reveals (Almost) Everything
Tova and Cameron are cleaning the aquarium together when they find Cameron’s driver’s license under the sea lion statue. Tova is taken aback by his last name, because she has been thinking about Daphne Cassmore for weeks. She asks Cameron if there’s any way to get in touch with his mother, because she could tell him what really happened with Erik. Cameron says no. He hasn’t seen his mother since he was nine. Both of them are thinking the same thing: what if Cameron is Tova’s grandson? But there’s no way to know. Well, there is. They just don’t get into it right now.
Tova talks to Janice, who tries to talk her out of moving to Charter Village. Tova says she doesn’t want to be a burden on anyone, and Janice tells her that’s the part she doesn’t get. She wouldn’t be a burden. But Tova just can’t see it that way. She sells her house and signs the closing papers, even though she doesn’t really want to. She just doesn’t want anyone fussing over her.
After that, she brings the t-shirt to Ethan, who’s speechless. And then she’s right back to wondering whether moving to Charter Village means staring at Daphne’s face for the rest of her life, asking what really happened that night.
Cameron Meets Simon Brinks and It Falls Apart
Cameron finally lands a meeting with Simon Brinks, the real estate developer. The meeting takes place at an address in a dingy basement. Cameron finds out Simon is not his father. Simon was his mother’s best friend. Their relationship was never like that.
Meanwhile, Brad and Elizabeth have their baby. Cameron feels like life is moving on without him. He still doesn’t have a real job. Ethan didn’t end up considering him for the supermarket gig, and he’s not doing well enough at the aquarium for Terry to offer him a permanent spot. He has no idea what to do with himself. Cameron had stopped by the paddle shop before the Simon trip and given Marco a message to pass along to Avery, that he loved her and that he had to go meet this guy he thought was his dad. Avery never calls him back. Marco probably never gave her the message. Cameron doesn’t know that, obviously.
He feels defeated and lonely. He decides he’s going to move back to California.
Remarkably Bright Creatures Ending Explained
Earlier that same night, before Cameron’s tantrum, Terry is excited because the aquarium has rescued a new octopus, a shy girl. Marcellus is in his last days. He’s very old, and Terry doesn’t really know how much time he has left.
Cameron gets back from his meeting with Simon Brinks furious and storms into the aquarium. Tova is wrapping up her last shift. Cameron snaps at her, because Simon wasn’t his dad, Avery is ghosting him, Terry isn’t going to hire him, and his entire life is falling apart. He pulls out the class ring and chucks it into the eel tank. He says he’s done, leaves a note on Terry’s desk rage-quitting his job, gets in his car, and leaves for California.
Meanwhile, Marcellus has climbed out of his tank. On Tova’s last shift, he collapses right in front of her. Tova, who had just said her goodbyes to everyone else in the aquarium, finds him on the ground. She panics, grabs her bucket, and gets him into it. And underneath him, she finds the class ring. Marcellus had dug it out of the eel tank for her, even though those eels are the reason he was injured and ended up in the aquarium. He was injured but couldn’t escape the eels, and his rescuers never understood that he didn’t actually want saving.
Marcellus survives the ordeal and gives Tova the ring. And when Tova sees the EELS engraving, which are her son’s initials, she finally realizes, once and for all, that Cameron is her grandson. She decides to take Marcellus home, puts him in a bucket, drives him to the sea, and lets him be free.
After Cameron leaves and Tova realizes who he really is, she decides she’s not moving to Charter Village. The next time she’s at the aquarium, Avery shows up. Turns out Marco never told her that Cameron stopped by, and Tova fills her in on everything. The misunderstandings, the meeting with Simon, all of it.
Avery tells Tova that one day at the pier, she talked a woman on drugs off the ledge. The woman kept rambling about a boom and an accident. Tova realizes Avery is talking about Daphne. Daphne was on the boat with Erik that night. Erik got hit by the boom and fell into the water. It was an accident, exactly like Tova has always known in her gut. Avery wonders out loud if it actually mattered that she talked that woman down. Tova tells her it absolutely did. Because deep down she knows: if it hadn’t happened, Cameron wouldn’t be here.
The next morning, Tova’s house is fully packed. She still has no idea where she’s going to live. And then there’s a knock at the door. It’s Cameron. Tova shows him the ring, and grandmother and grandson are finally together.
Months pass. Thanksgiving comes around. Avery is at the paddle shop, but she’s planning to stop by Tova’s house. Tova, Cameron, and Ethan are having Thanksgiving together. Tova has paid to commission a big statue out front of the aquarium.
We get one last Marcellus point of view. It’s day one of his freedom. He thinks back on his life on what he knows is his final day. He thinks about everything that’s happened, and he’s grateful that he found a friend in his very last moments. He sinks down to the bottom of the ocean and curls up next to Erik’s remains. It’s safe to assume that’s where he dies. So neither of them is alone.
Tova, Ethan, and Cameron go for a walk. Tova stops at the pier and looks out and speaks to Marcellus and to Erik. She misses them so much. And then she heads back to her Thanksgiving, because there are people waiting for her.
Spicy Chapters
How Spicy is Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Not spicy!
Cried about an octopus. No notes 🐙💔
I liked Remarkably Bright Creatures for what it made me think about aging with dignity and finding the strength to move on after your people are gone. I will think of Tova and Marcellus fondly, and I will sob my eyes out when I inevitably watch the Netflix movie next week.
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