The Beauty of a Story

Here I am, talking about another book featuring animals. I should probably stop saying I don’t like animal books. But, this one is about an octopus, and a cleaning lady, and a paddleboarding lady, and a guy who can’t hold down a job. So it doesn’t count as an animal book, right?

Right.

Especially if I admit I mostly read it for the octopus. Which I did. The octopus I definitely enjoyed the book and all of the characters within it. I thought the cast of characters was all interesting and from different perspectives than we usually hear about.

I thought the octopus’ character arc was the best. He doesn’t change much, he is an octopus after all, but even he learns to trust another being and cares for that being, or person, enough to go to great lengths to help her. The relationship between the octopus, Marcellus, and Tova was the best written one of the entire book. It was also the one that had the most screen time. What I loved about his character arc is it is at a different pace from the rest of the character arcs. It is a little slower going and comes to its climax at a totally different time. Which means the octopus gets to take center stage during his climactic moment, and he is a big part of the momentum behind the final climax in the story.

The other characters arcs all had their climactic moment, the moment where they change and make different decisions, at the same time. Tova is basically the same person for the entire book until the last couple of chapters, where she suddenly decides to make a different decision with her lives. I didn’t mind it as much, since she is not becoming a different person per se, she is trying to decide how best to spend the few remaining years of her life. But it still felt a little rushed to have her dead set on one thing, and then completely change her mind moments before the story ends.

Cameron’s character arc gave me a little bit of whiplash. The whole book he whines and whines and whines about how hard his life is, even when faced with people who have had it much harder than he has. He shirks responsibility, and his biggest dream is to have his bio dad pay for him to live on easy street for the rest of his life. Then all of a sudden he decides to face responsibility at the final part of the book. Which, fine, sometimes it happens that way. But we never get to see the climax. His big decision about how to change his life occurs when we, the readers, aren’t watching him. Which makes me feel a little cheated. I spent all of this time with Cameron, rooting for him to make better decision, and then when he finally does I don’t get to see it? I think his character arc would have been a little easier to swallow if either, he had been changing throughout the book (he does a little bit, but not much), or if I could have seen his big moment. I didn’t get either one, which makes his final scenes also feel rushed and a little anticlimactic.

My final word on the book is I really, really wanted to see the meeting between Cameron and Avery when he comes back at the end. After he decides to go back and face his responsibilities we never see him with Avery. It is mentioned that their relationship is going fine, but the readers don’t get to see it. Again, I felt cheated out of a big moment in both of their lives after spending so much time with them. Perhaps the author wrote the scene, and then had to cut it out for whatever reason. Whatever the reason, I, as a reader, greatly missed getting to see that.

Read it for the octopus, you won’t regret it.

Shaina Merrick