#remarkably bright creatures book

[caffeinatedcatlover]

Week 23 in my Hobonichi Weeks. Finished reading Remarkably Bright Creatures and The Flatshare.

[venusforfran]

just binge read "our wives under the sea" by Julia armfield, third lesbian marine biology/ocean association book this month, I'm sensing a theme, next is "remarkably bright creatures" which I'm excited for

[cheley7]

New favorite alert!! I hugged and held onto this book for a good few minutes after turning the last page. I didn't want it to end. This is a story that will live in my heart forever!

[sophiesbookishthings]

May Reads

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I get it. I get the Sanderson hype. This is book 1 of the Stormlight Archive. It is such an incredibly unique and creative book. It's absolutely everything I want out of a fantasy book. The world building is mindblowing. I mean, he even thought about how the grass would work differently. The grass! I feel like no one ever thinks about the little differences like that that make the world they're writing so much more real and interesting. And the characters are enjoyable too. It's very rare that I read a book where I'm equally invested in every single pov. There's usually always one where I'm waiting for the next to start. Not this one. I was equally invested in all of them. And yes this book is HUGE but it is 100% worth it and I know this series is going to live in my brain forever. I am going to stop now cause I could seriously write an essay. I cannot recommend this book/series highly enough.

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (⭐️ and a secret 6th star)

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

This is a novella in the Lunar Chronicles about Queen Levana's backstory. I was looking forward to this one cause I love a good villain backstory and it sure delivered. Meyer did a great job of showing that yeah some bad things happened to Levana but she handled pretty much all of them so badly and how that made her who she became in the main series. It reminded me a lot of Snow's arc in the Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes where he A) had a less than ideal childhood/family life and B) just kept making worse and worse decisions as the book went on and falling deeper into the villain role.

4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

The first thing I did when I opened this book and saw Dream was go "wait that's literally just Neil." I love that the artists did that. It made me laugh. So I watched the show before I read the comic and I'm impressed how accurate the show was. There are slight differences but I like both versions honestly. If you like comics or gothic horror, this is a good one to read

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

I found this book and was immediately intrigued. Octopuses are one of my favorite animals. I think they're fascinating and incredibly smart. My mom and I both ended up with a copy of this book, so we read it at the same time. It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be, but I did still really enjoy it. I really enjoyed how the main characters grew throughout the story. I especially loved the octopus pov. And I figured out how one character fit into the story before my mom. Which she didn't appreciate lol.

4.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨️

Daindreth's Outlaw by Elisabeth Wheatley

I dont have a ton to say about this one. It felt very fast and like it was very much just a bridge from the first book to the third. That didn't make it a bad book, though, by any means. I did like the new sorceress character that was introduced and the magic/evil forest setting. I also enjoyed the fmc exploring and discovering her new powers.

4/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

More Stormlight Archive! I genuinely don't know how I read 4 books between the first one and this one cause these books live permanently in my brain. I'm super excited about where this one left off. It was a really interesting place (literally lol). So much happened in this book and it was cool to see the characters grow in their power. And all the reveals! The backstory reveals, the whole deal with the parshendi (which was super sad), the deal with the spren and the shardblades, whatevers going on with szeth (who I love), and somebody not being dead (I knew it!). I particularly loved shallan in this book. I adore a manipulative protagonist. They just do something to my brain. And patterns a cutie. I was about to fight kaladin, though, and I love him too, but oh my god. I don't know. I could talk about this book forever, so I'm gonna just stop rambling and say that I loved it and leave it at that.

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[andreai04]

Some trees aren’t meant to sprout tender new branches, but to stand stoically on the forest floor, silently decaying.

[tomorrowandtomorow]

i'm about halfway through remarkably bright creatures. saying that to say i ship tova and ethan with the fire of a thousand suns.

[spursthatjinglejanglejingle]

Man fuck your dad ETHAN is your dad now

[mangotalkies]

this week's reads

[esleep]

HELP. i somehow ended up in a relatively casual "book club" composed of some irl friends, most of whom have VERY different taste in books from me. we have a narrow space of overlap thanks to the relatively recent popular acceptance of "fantasy romance" as a genre that adults are allowed to enjoy, so now i can read about elves and dragons without being immediately ridiculed as a Weird Nerd as long as there's at least one sex scene, but it just occurred to me that at some point soon i am going to be required to pick the next book in our rotation and i have NO IDEA what to force these people to read. which means i have the potential do the funniest thing of all time (to me and only me) and force all these romance enjoyers to read Dune. i need someone to talk me out of that and give me some better suggestions before i am forcibly evicted from the friend group.

[merlyn-bane]

REMARKABLY BRIGHT CREATURES MADE ME CRY I NEED EVERYONE TO READ IT

I KNOW RIGHT IT'S SO GOOD 😭😭

(book rec post can be found here)

[a-dream-deferred]

all the books i read in summer 2023 (from late may to early september):

to kill a mockingbird

educated

the martian

the moor's account

capitalism: a very short introduction

emily wilde's encyclopedia of fairies

human acts (my favorite book on this list!)

counterfeit

i saw ramallah (in arabic)

remarkably bright creatures

my brilliant friend

celestial bodies

[annabalynne]

I definitely drew some inspiration for this one from Shelby Van Pelts novel, Remarkably Bright Creatures. If you know anything about octopi, you know how remarkably bright they truly are and Van Pelt reminds us of this in her novel.

[ijustkindalikebooks]

I have had an excellent reading month not gonna lie to you.

Do you count manga as reading in your reading? I know that makes no sense, but a friend of mine doesn't include manga in her reading count for goodreads but I mean it is reading, it's a book, I got it in a bookstore? I don't know, I'd love to know what you think.

I've read alot of manga this month, don't get me wrong especially Blue Exorcist, which is getting fire (or should I say blue flame?) at this point I gotta admit however these are the books that I gave five stars or the very last day of last month (it happens) and they are a bit longer and less pictorial than my beloved japanese fiction stories.

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne-Jones - I was lucky enough as a kid to have some of this author's books read to me by my grandmother, and so I should have known I'd probably love more of her work and I did. Beautifully told in a world that's so brilliantly created that you can picture it all in your head even without Studio Ghibli's help, this book truly was such a wonderful book to wrap my month up with. The story of Sophie who has a curse placed on her and goes in search of a way to reverse it, it's told with such charm and you'll fly through this story much like the castle itself.

The Girl From The Other Side by Nagabe - I am not going to speak much on this as I am currently on volume four, which is a quarter of the story in to the series, but this story is fantastic. The story of Teacher and Shiva I guess figuring out who they are, this series is short and sweet but also dark and reminiscent of Grimm's Fairy Tales with an art style that perfectly captures that tone. I highly recomment this series if you can find it whereever you are, it's so unique and excellently told.

A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon - This book is fantastic in my opinion. The story of a girl who is planning to well, not be alive and then is saved by a magical girl who thinks she's one too, A Magical Girl Retires is a charming story about friendship, love, loyalty and being a girl in today's society, particularly South Korea where this story is set. I read alot of Korean Literature I'll admit and this one breaks the mould when it comes to tone, I find alot of them tend to be retrospective and melancholic, this might be a good way in to Korean Literature if you're looking for one.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - I think this book is such a delight. The story of a woman whose growing old and figuring out what to do next as she cleans an aquarium and befriends Marcellus the octopus, this book invests you in the story and makes you take a moment to take in what you've just read - nothing surprise me less this book is a bestseller, this book is just so humanly written and perfectly paced. A gem of a book, highly recommend this if you've not read it yet.

What were your favourite books of July? Have you had a perfect beach read? Or what is your next beach read? I'd love to know!

Thanks for reading!

Vee xo

[fiction-heals]

Yes.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby van Pelt

[soggypages]

Remarkably Bright Creatures needed way more octopus chapters

[eddieintheocean]

guys guys guys

detective octopus????? DETECTIVE OCTOPUS?????

i havent read this yet but its definitely going on my to-read