I realize we are still in the midst of holiday break, but I hope the holiday season has been a good one for you, and that your 2025 is off to a great start.
I tried hard to finish up my current read before the strike of midnight on Dec 31 but alas, I didn’t have time to finish up those last 20 pages. They snuck into January 1. I failed at my Goodreads reading challenge for 2024 by 8 books! Considering the extra time I had in 2024, I don’t even know why my book count was less than that for 2023. So I am setting my target at a more do-able ( at least for me!) level for 2025.
I also waited too long to take advantage of a discounted upgrade for this blog on WordPress. I don’t like all those pesky ads, and I anticipate they are a pain for any readers of my little space here. So thank you for your patience while I await the next wave of promo codes.
My first book review of 2025 is for “The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus” by Emma Knight, What an awesome title for a book! Not long ago, I watched a couple of wonderful documentaries about the octopus ( “My Octopus Teacher “on Netflix; “Secrets of the Octopus” on Disney) so I was drawn to this book due to this recent fascination. Here is my brief review of the book:
Pen (Penelope) and Alice, her best friend since childhood, attend the University of Edinburgh together as first year students. They are a long way from their home, Toronto, Canada. Pen was drawn to Scotland by a feeling of connection she has with a famous writer who lives there, an old friend of her father’s, Lord Elliott Lennox.
Pen has never met Lennox and suspects that her divorced parents are hiding something from her about their association. Particularly since her middle name is Elliott (yeah, a little obvious? We’ll see…). After Pen reaches out, Lennox invites her to his home where she meets various members of his welcoming family. Pen develops romantic feelings for the very first time, for Lennox’s older son, Sasha. (Note – there’s a lot of earnest heart quickening and physical attraction reactions every time young Sasha comes into the room, so perhaps this is more of a YA offering). We follow Pen as she tries to uncover secrets that may lie with this family. She also starts to see her parents in a different light, envisioning them as students and what their lives were like when they were young.
Alice is an aspiring actress who is acting in the university play. She is confident in personality and quite beautiful, so used to having power in her relationships with men. Alice starts an affair with her tutor which may prove her undoing.
Their university lives are described with the chapters split out by season/school terms. They develop friend groups, experience a new life with the backdrop of Scotland – the studying, the partying, the sex. We see them deal with bigger issues, and look at adults with new eyes as they mature themselves.
I enjoyed Emma Knight’s writing style, her descriptions provided the right amount of detail. I remained interested enough to appreciate the secret as it unfolded for Pen (and the clues that were sprinkled into the storyline). The title of the book was part of the initial draw of this book for me, and the tie-in comes in quite late. I was much less interested in the character of Alice and her relationship with her tutor. Although Alice’s experience is not uncommon and an important one, I felt there wasn’t enough room for it given how much material was in the Pen storyline alone. I did enjoy the relationship between the two girls when they were together – you could sense the sisterhood. However, there were also some other subplots that distracted rather than added to the story.
Because it took me a little while to get into it, I rate this a 3.5 but closer to a 3 star.
Thank you to Penguin Random House and Netgalley for an ARC for an honest review. Publication date will be January 7, 2025.
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