Two Feel-Good Book Recommendations to Kick Off the Long Weekend

Annabel Monaghan's latest + a sparkling debut

By an act of divine intervention or serendipity or exceptional good luck, I happened to choose the two perfect books for two separate occasions recently.

The first was for my trip to Italy last month. Choosing which book(s) to take with you on an overseas flight, multiple train rides, and when you’re up at weird hours due to jet lag is no small decision. I chose Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt and it was the absolute right choice. The chapters are short, which made it easy for all the starts and stops of traveling (with children).

The second perfect book was Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan. On the Friday of Mother’s Day weekend, this book arrived in the mail (thank you to Putnam for the copy!). I hadn’t planned on reading it right away — and in fact I was still reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies then — but something about the gorgeous weekend ahead told me to put down Maladies and pick up this summer read.

Another great choice.

While both of these books are feel-good and happy, they are quite different.

Plate 53: Sea Cucumbers, Coral, Octopus, Starfish, Squid, and Other Sea Creatures | Joris Hoefnagel

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt

You may recall my surprise in falling in love with the anthropomorphic narrator in Open Throat by Henry Hoke: a mountain lion. Even after having read and loved that book, when I heard Remarkably Bright Creatures had an octopus narrator, I was originally uninterested.

I am so glad I put that bias aside and gave it a chance though, because Marcellus the giant Pacific octopus is one of my favorite narrators of all time. He’s a curmudgeon who bemoans being trapped in a tank and who abstractly remembers being in the wide open ocean when he was young. He is, as the title denotes, a remarkably bright creature.

Aside from Marcellus, this book follows Tova Sullivan, a 70-year-old widow who works the night shift cleaning an aquarium in a fictional town in the Pacific Northwest. A highly perceptive octopus in captivity at the same aquarium, Marcellus figures out something about Tova’s past — particularly about the son she lost thirty years prior. Readers eventually get let in on the code that Marcellus cracks, as he is able to speak to us through his narration, but he has to find a way to reveal to Tova what he knows.

It is so charming.

The structure is quite unique, too: Marcellus is the only character whose chapters are written in first-person point-of-view. Meanwhile, Tova’s chapters and those of the other human characters in this story are written in a close third-person, meaning we get deep into their heads but they don’t speak directly to us like Marcellus does.

The relationship between Marcellus and Tova is sweet, and the truth the octopus uncovers from his keen observation is both inevitable and unexpected — as all good endings should be.

If you’re looking for something new and out of the ordinary, pick up this book! It is also a debut novel, which blows my mind. I can’t wait to see what Van Pelt releases next.

Summer Romance by Annabel Monaghan

My Mother’s Day book selection, ironically, is about a mother mourning the death of her own mother. I did not plan this, and had I known that’s what it was about, I probably wouldn’t have chosen it. But again, the book arrived on my doorstep and I felt called to read it, knowing my husband and children would give me a lot of reading time over my special weekend.

Good thing I don’t read flap copy, because this was the perfect book for my sunny weekend. If you’re not familiar with Annabel Monaghan, she wrote Nora Goes off Script and Same Time Next Summer. I read Same Time Next Summer and thought it was a total blast.

Ali Morris is a professional organizer who — surprise! — can’t keep her own life on track. Her mother died two years ago, and on the one year anniversary of her passing, Ali’s husband tells her he wants a divorce. Cool! Good timing! With two young kids and a not-so-steady job, this throws Ali further off the rails.

It’s when her dog pees on someone’s shoes at the dog park (why wouldn’t that happen to her? her life is a mess), that she meets someone: Ethan, a skateboarder who nobody takes seriously. The rest is a summer romance that is doomed — as all summer romances are — to break someone’s heart.

I haven’t read an impressive amount of romance novels, and therefore I don’t know a ton about what you typically find in these books, but what I liked immediately about Summer Romance is that the protagonist is a mother in her late thirties. In other words, I could relate to her more than I have to the protagonists in other romances I’ve read.

This is a cute, fun, page-turning read. If you’re not going anywhere over Memorial Day weekend, pick up Summer Romance for a miniature vacation!

What I’m reading: How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. I finally finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in Italian, which I started in January!

What are you reading? Have you read either of these titles? Do you have any feel-good recommendations to share?

PS: I did a little book shopping while in Italy. I bought two kids book in Italian and I purchased these two books for me:

Now that I’m done with HP, I can attempt to read Elena Ferrante in her native tongue. I’m a bit nervous, if I’m being honest!

Have you read any books in a foreign language? It’s tough! But worth it.

See you next week. Love,

Words on Words is a free newsletter about books that hits inboxes on Thursdays. Subscription upgrades exist so readers can support my work if they feel compelled, but these weekly essays are free.

Note: When you purchase books through my links, you support Words on Words (I get credits for more books!) and an indie bookstore of your choice at no additional cost to you.