The Saturday Morning Post (No.36)

 

This week we have a book that my sister-in-law gave to my wife. Since she wasn't going to get around to reading it just yet, I decided to give it a try.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt   DNF 12%

This is almost certainly the case where I'm not the author nor the publisher's target audience, so that when I say that I utterly failed to connect with the story, it should come as no surprise. I thought that after enjoying Lessons in Chemistry, I might find another rather female reader orientated book enjoyable. But this one, well... 45 pages into it she was still introducing her cast of characters, one of which is an octopus, without a discernable plot. I decided to bail. 

The beginning of this novel reads very much like some of those cozy mysteries I tried last year; a recital of everyday events and lots of people. The main point of view character - but not the only one - is Tova, a widow whose 18 year old son mysteriously disappeared 30 years before. The blurb on the cover flap says that Marcellus, an octopus, becomes a friend of Tova and helps her solve the mystery of her son's disappearance. So it's a cozy mystery? Reads like one. But...

Now I'm a fan of leisurely paced books. I actively dislike slam-bang openings, so I shouldn't be complaining about the opening. But, there is slow, and then there is slow and cluttered, and this opening is so very cluttered. Not only did almost all of characters we're introduced to seem to be minor ones, but all the everyday incidents that are intermingled with a collection of seemingly unimportant background stories buried the narrative line of the story, at least for me, with trivia. Except for one random scene with a seemingly minor character who is apparently unconnected to Tova. This character is a guy who doesn't know who is father was/is. Given the blub on the cover... it struck me as suspicious; for once there seemed to be rather obvious reason for his inclusion, but of course I could be wrong, not having read the book. Just say'n;)

The most significant character after Tova is the octopus, Marcellus, who has his own first person narration chapters. After a dog as a character in Lessons in Chemistry, I thought this might be interesting. I was wrong. I found the octopus to be far too human to be even remotely believable as an octopus. Somehow I was supposed to believe that this octopus had learned to read and understand spoken English, while living underwater in an aquarium tank. Not only did I find that I could not suspend my disbelief that this was even remotely impossible, but it seems to me that if you're going to have a first person octopus in your story, you should come up with a clever way to make the octopus seem more than just a human in a fish tank. The octopus needs to be at least a little bit alien in its thought process. Not so here. Other than describing its actions as an octopus in an tank, it just think and sounds like a human.

Add to this the fact that since I read to escape the everyday life of the world around me, I really don't care for stories set in contemporary times. This book only reinforced my disinclination to read anything set in our time and/or place.

This is, however, a best selling debut novel, so obviously, once again, it's me, not the book. Next up, two very long books from the library. We'll see how they fare.