This book is incredibly popular. It’s a New York Times Bestseller. I kept reading rave reviews of it online. It even has an octopus as a character. Surely I should enjoy this? I found very quickly that the chapters from Marcellus’s viewpoint were the only ones that kept me interested. Marcellus is the octopus.

Apart from Marcellus, the story is told through the viewpoints of several human characters. The first, Tova Sullivan, has defined her life through her grief, caused by the disappearance of her only child, eighteen year old Erik, thirty years ago. It was eventually concluded that his drowning was a suicide. His body was never found. Tova has never accepted that he took his own life. Five years before the beginning of the narrative, Tova’s husband has died. Near the beginning of the story she learns that her brother has also died. She hasn’t seen her brother for several decades, but he was the only relative she had and now she is completely alone. Although she has no need of money, she has a job cleaning the aquarium in her small hometown in the evenings (Sowell Bay, on the coast in Washington, about two hours from Seattle), to keep busy and fill in her time.

The other main point of view is from Cameron, a thirty year old almost-drifter. His mother, a drug addict, walked out on him when he was eight, and he never knew his father. His mother had him when she was a teenager and never told him who his father was. Like Tova, he has spent many years grieving, but instead of burying himself in constant work as Tova does, Cameron has coped by basically remaining a man-baby, unable to hold down a job or to keep a relationship going. At the start of the book he has just been fired from another job, and he is then kicked out by his girlfriend.

His aunt gives him some old photos of his mother and some jewellery including a man’s class ring with the initials EELS engraved on it. From the photos he realises his mother attended school in Sowell Bay before she had him, and that the ring was probably given to her by his father. From the photos he comes to believe that his father is Simon Brinks, a successful real estate developer and nightclub owner. Cameron thinks he can find Brinks in Sowell Bay and hopefully extract a lot of cash out of him. So Cameron heads to Sowell Bay. To support himself while searching for his father, he takes on a job at the aquarium, including taking over the cleaning after Tova is forced to take medical leave after a bad fall.

Tova and Cameron eventually meet and become friends. But of course they never realise the obvious connection between them that we, as readers, identify early in the story. It’s so obvious that even the octopus gets it immediately.

Of course, Marcellus the octopus is a pretty special octopus. He was captured as a juvenile and has spent most of his life in the aquarium. He is incredibly intelligent and has figured out how to escape from his tank. He frequently leaves his tank to either raid the other tanks for delicious snacks. Terry, the aquarium boss, constantly wonders what happens to his sea cucumber population. Marcellus also likes most of the leftover food he finds in the bins around the aquarium. Finally, he likes collecting objects he finds on the floor, such as lost keys or jewellery. He knows how long he can survive outside his tank and only rarely gets into difficulty. However, one moment of difficulty occurs in the opening chapters, where he somehow manages to get himself tangled up in some power cords. Tova finds him, and manages to set him free. She then keeps his secret, by not telling Terry about what Marcellus gets up to in the evenings.

Tova and Marcellus become friends, and Marcellus becomes determined to help her before he dies. He knows his species only lives for around 1,460 days, and he is on his 1,299th day of captivity on the first page of the story, so he knows he does not have long. He therefore decides to make it his mission to make Tova and Cameron understand that Erik is Cameron's father. It takes way too long to get there.

If it wasn’t for the snarky Marcellus chapters, I wouldn’t have made it through this book. I know it’s meant to heart-warming and uplifting, but it never got there for me. The story was predictable and I was just bored reading it. I know I'm in the minority with this opinion. At the time of writing the book has a Goodreads rating of 4.41 out of 5. Most people love it. 53% of Goodreads readers gave it 5 stars. I’ve given it less.