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I finished reading Shelby van Pelt’s _Remarkably Bright Creatures_.
Spoilers! Just leave now.
There are a lot of jokes out there about Gen Xers being the generation everyone forgets / erases, complete with video snips and pictures of charts and so forth that present generations and literally leave mine out. This book is quite vigorous in its erasure of Gen Xers. The only Gen Xers to make appearances in this book are a spandex clad former classmate of the dead son of the protagonist, and that former classmate’s 2nd wife. The cyclist shows up once to take a bottle of water from Tuva and then later at a good bye luncheon to one of the Knit Wits (with wife), has three martinis and make an inadvertently hurtful comment. He and his wife serve several purposes — to depict who moves into the luxury condos being built with a view of the water and to ever-so-slightly advance the question of Erik’s life as a high school senior.
I’m reasonably certain that a lot of my negative feelings about this book derive from a petty reaction to the near total erasure of Gen Xers from the book, in conjunction with the limited depiction of Gen Xers. But some of it might have to do with how I feel about the description of Sowell Bay, with its aquarium, and its former ferry dock. Just the idea of a former ferry dock that was still running in 1989 but now isn’t is pretty odd. (One assumes it goes to Camano Island, but this is never specified.) Having any kind of aquarium in that area feels off, too, altho I just now learned about the thing in Padilla Bay AND I just now learned about the Guemes Island ferry, so, maybe? It’s too much in a place where I spent too much time; the impossibility of fitting Sowell Bay in where it is described as being is gnawing at me. OTOH, really great place to put a community where it’s pretty believable you’d get some teen mom tragedy?
The book as a whole has a patchy relationship with reality. Erik would have graduated in 1989, and Cameron born in February 1990, so if Cameron is 30, then … Also, pandemic not depicted anywhere? Seems weird? Old folks still resisting cell phones in 2019/2020 is kinda sketchy, altho maybe not completely impossible given Tova’s lack of social connections beyond her in person time with the Knit Wits and her job at the aquarium. Ethan does some research on Ancestry, but despite Cameron and his aunt Jeanne being curious about Daphne’s whereabouts, they never bother to sign up for a DNA test, which again, seems a little bizarre.
Simon Brinks is also a weird angle. I kinda liked the triad of Brad / Elizabeth / Cameron mirroring Erik / Daphne / Simon, with a boy and a girl being best friends despite neither one of them being same sex attracted. Cameron intends to get money from Simon for being a deadbeat dad, but bails when he realizes Simon isn’t his dad, which is bizarre because it’s super obvious Simon would be overjoyed to help Cameron out. Ethan driving Cameron to the wrong location at least helps fix the Wait How Are You Getting to the San Juans Without Taking a Ferry question.
Look, it’s a debut novel. It _feels_ like a debut novel that maybe should have been hidden away and then mined for decades. There’s so much stuff packed into it. I would expect van Pelt to go on to write very successful fiction in the future. This one was kinda frustrating and annoying to me. Honestly, Cameron walking out on his job at the aquarium the same day he is trying to get more hours / permanence and then driving to California, fixing the belt, losing his cell phone and turning back around to Sowell Bay without going just a bit further to see the new baby and his friends is easily the most realistic thing ever. That sequence _worked_ for me — it was very much his personality and where he was on his life arc.
Spoilers! Just leave now.
There are a lot of jokes out there about Gen Xers being the generation everyone forgets / erases, complete with video snips and pictures of charts and so forth that present generations and literally leave mine out. This book is quite vigorous in its erasure of Gen Xers. The only Gen Xers to make appearances in this book are a spandex clad former classmate of the dead son of the protagonist, and that former classmate’s 2nd wife. The cyclist shows up once to take a bottle of water from Tuva and then later at a good bye luncheon to one of the Knit Wits (with wife), has three martinis and make an inadvertently hurtful comment. He and his wife serve several purposes — to depict who moves into the luxury condos being built with a view of the water and to ever-so-slightly advance the question of Erik’s life as a high school senior.
I’m reasonably certain that a lot of my negative feelings about this book derive from a petty reaction to the near total erasure of Gen Xers from the book, in conjunction with the limited depiction of Gen Xers. But some of it might have to do with how I feel about the description of Sowell Bay, with its aquarium, and its former ferry dock. Just the idea of a former ferry dock that was still running in 1989 but now isn’t is pretty odd. (One assumes it goes to Camano Island, but this is never specified.) Having any kind of aquarium in that area feels off, too, altho I just now learned about the thing in Padilla Bay AND I just now learned about the Guemes Island ferry, so, maybe? It’s too much in a place where I spent too much time; the impossibility of fitting Sowell Bay in where it is described as being is gnawing at me. OTOH, really great place to put a community where it’s pretty believable you’d get some teen mom tragedy?
The book as a whole has a patchy relationship with reality. Erik would have graduated in 1989, and Cameron born in February 1990, so if Cameron is 30, then … Also, pandemic not depicted anywhere? Seems weird? Old folks still resisting cell phones in 2019/2020 is kinda sketchy, altho maybe not completely impossible given Tova’s lack of social connections beyond her in person time with the Knit Wits and her job at the aquarium. Ethan does some research on Ancestry, but despite Cameron and his aunt Jeanne being curious about Daphne’s whereabouts, they never bother to sign up for a DNA test, which again, seems a little bizarre.
Simon Brinks is also a weird angle. I kinda liked the triad of Brad / Elizabeth / Cameron mirroring Erik / Daphne / Simon, with a boy and a girl being best friends despite neither one of them being same sex attracted. Cameron intends to get money from Simon for being a deadbeat dad, but bails when he realizes Simon isn’t his dad, which is bizarre because it’s super obvious Simon would be overjoyed to help Cameron out. Ethan driving Cameron to the wrong location at least helps fix the Wait How Are You Getting to the San Juans Without Taking a Ferry question.
Look, it’s a debut novel. It _feels_ like a debut novel that maybe should have been hidden away and then mined for decades. There’s so much stuff packed into it. I would expect van Pelt to go on to write very successful fiction in the future. This one was kinda frustrating and annoying to me. Honestly, Cameron walking out on his job at the aquarium the same day he is trying to get more hours / permanence and then driving to California, fixing the belt, losing his cell phone and turning back around to Sowell Bay without going just a bit further to see the new baby and his friends is easily the most realistic thing ever. That sequence _worked_ for me — it was very much his personality and where he was on his life arc.