The Novel, “Remarkably Bright Creatures,” kept me on the edge of my chair. Stirring me to tears through the last 3 chapters, RBC is about loneliness and loss. Shelby Van Pelt’s main character Tova, is an elderly woman of Swedish ancestry who in her janitorial duties at an aquarium in Washington state, loves and cares for Marcellus, an aging octopus. It turns out the octopus through his soliloquies and cunning behaviors, helps Tova and the reader see the truth; that her son Erik thirty some years before, who lost his life in a boating accident, couldn’t have killed himself like everyone in the town were rumored to believe. A young man named Cameron, from Southern California, comes to the town where Tova lives in search of the father he never knew, only to find that the truth is not as simple as he thought. This novel brings together a mix of unforgettable characters of every day walks of life I grew to love. They feel like real people from the lower echelons of society, struggling to make ends meet, each defining their unique purpose in life. Tova is the strong individual who teaches us that doing things the proper way matters in life and that relationships with humans and even an octopus are the reason for our being on this planet. This is a story of how human beings are supposed to be; how actions speak louder than words.