Bona Fide Bookworm

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a novel by Shelby Van Pelt. It follows an older woman, Tova Sullivan, a giant Pacific octopus, and a man named Cameron. Tova is in her seventies and works at the aquarium as the night janitor. One night, she sees a strange thing in the corner of the staff area. It was an octopus, lying on the ground, tied up by an electrical cord. This leads her to look more closely at what the octopus is doing every day and how it is escaping from the tank. The octopus spends chapters showing how its life works in the aquarium, from how it escapes the tank to what the scientists do with it. The giant Pacific octopus is the biggest species of octopus in the world and is not meant for captivity. Cameron, the third protagonist, is a man down on his luck in his thirties. With a split-second decision, Cameron decides to look for his mom. This leads him to work at the aquarium, meeting new people, and working to get his life together. One thing that I really liked about this b...

 Dark Life, Kat Falls’ debut novel, is about what life would be like under the sea. She sets the scene by introducing the main character, Ty, who is diving in a deep-sea canyon. This canyon is right where the East Coast coastline is today. Dark Life is set in a dystopian world where sea level rise has submerged almost all land. There are three different kinds of people: settlers, Topsiders, and prospectors. Settlers are the people who live on the sea floor and have homesteads. Topsiders are the people who live on the very small amount of land that is still available. Prospectors are people who will go down to mine or search for pearls. They typically live at the Trade Station, which is where all the Liquigen and such are bought and stored. Ty’s family is a settler family, with his parents and his little sister Zoe. On this dive into the Coldsleep Canyon, he meets a Topsider, Gemma. She is looking for her brother, who disappeared after aging out of the system. Ty and Gemma team up t...

 Daughter of the Deep, by Rick Riordan, is a novel based on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Ana Dakkar, the main character, is 14 when the story starts. Her school, Harding-Pencroft Academy, is a school for smart kids who are interested in marine science, technology, and naval warfare. I would consider it similar to a Merchant Marine school, with similar rules and schedules. There are four houses based on the topics being studied: Dolphin, Shark, Cephalopod, and Orca. Ana Dakkar is a Dolphin, which means that she is studying communications, navigation, and exploration. The story opens with the academy sinking into the ocean due to torpedoes from the rival academy, Land Institute. Only the freshman class survives, meaning that they must go on a mission to figure out who attacked them and why. I want to start by saying that I really enjoyed the plot of this book. Rick Riordan never fails to bring his audience an experience. I loved reading about a high school with such a rigorous curri...

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig is one of the best books I have read this year. It was about a student who grew up and emailed one of his favorite teachers about a hard time in his life. The teacher wrote back with an entire book attached to her email. The teacher, Grace Winters, was a retired math teacher from the US who inherited a house in Ibiza. When she travels to Ibiza, she is immediately introduced to the mysteries that had caused the death of her friend. She meets many different people, one of whom is a scuba diver, Alberto. Alberto knew her friend and was hiding something from Grace. This leads to many adventures and new information. At the end of the story, we see more emails from the student, which I thought was a really nice touch. I really liked the entire system of magic that Matt Haig established. He does a great job blending reality with magical ideals. It's a concept that is found in a lot of Latin American literature , notably in Gabriel García Márquez 's nov...