An easy read, but falling a little flat and predictable with a synopsis of great potential. An elderly cleaning lady in an aquarium (Tova) who befriends one of the aquarium exhibits: a giant Pacific orange octopus (Marcellus). Tova lost her son thirty years ago, and Marcellus ends up being the one who solves the questions Tova has about her son’s death. I thought that the “friendship” could have been explored so much more than it was, beyond just tentacle-hand-holding. If Marcellus was as intelligent as the writer conveyed - able to undo locks, understand words, read, remember the tiniest details - couldn’t he communicate with Tova in other creative ways aside from leaving items for her in places? 

The human characters (Marcellus was quite funny) were disappointing and frankly quite unlikeable. Tova with her hard exterior comes off quite confusing to me. Despite the writer depicting Tova as a grieving mother, Tova seems to not care about any of the other people in her life: namely the Knit-Wits and Ethan. Sadly I don’t love characters that are cranky but disguised as “kind” because of a few nice actions toward a few number of people. 

Cameron too was quite a frustrating character. The writer tried to make him an intellectual genius with lazy, idle tendencies… Why make him a genius? Why make him smart? Cameron was fired from his jobs multiple times, made dumb decisions, was rude to people, it was hard to root for him. And his whole relationship with Avery felt really unnecessary. It bored me greatly.

The book is an easy read if you’re looking to get out of a reading slump, it has a heartwarming plot twist at the end, but don’t expect to be amazed by this one.