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Tova Sullivan is seventy and mops floors at the Sowell Bay Aquarium on the night shift, because keeping busy is what she has done since her eighteen-year-old son went off a boat in Puget Sound thirty years ago and was never found. Marcellus is a giant Pacific octopus in tank number six, who considers his captors beneath contempt, escapes most nights to eat from the other exhibits, and narrates roughly a fifth of the book himself. He works out what happened to Tova's son long before she does, and the rest of the novel is an elderly cleaner and an ageing invertebrate trying to communicate across the glass. Remarkably Bright Creatures (Ecco, May 2022) began in a creative writing class Van Pelt signed up for on a whim in 2013 and was mostly written in 2020; it became a Read With Jenna pick, has sold more than four million copies in thirty-eight countries, won a first-novel prize in 2023, and reached Netflix in 2026, with the author appearing as an extra. She grew up in Tacoma, worked for years as a financial consultant on litigation, and lives outside Chicago. Book two is, in her words, only about halfway done. The ten below are for the wait.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · Book club fiction · Grief, old age, an octopus · Four million copies · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
If you love Shelby Van Pelt, the closest match is Fredrik Backman: a difficult old person, a community that will not leave them alone, and a plot engineered to make you cry in public. Gail Honeyman and Rachel Joyce do the same in Britain, and Bonnie Garmus was the other word-of-mouth phenomenon of 2022. Yann Martel is the comparison Jenna Bush Hager made. For the real octopus, read Sy Montgomery and Peter Godfrey-Smith. And Max Porter is the argument against: the same device, with no comfort in it.
Where to start if you loved Shelby Van Pelt
If you want the closest match, read Fredrik Backman.
A Man Called Ove. A widower with plans, and neighbours who keep interrupting them.
If you want the British sister, read Gail Honeyman.
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. A routine built entirely as a defence.
If you want the real octopus, read Sy Montgomery.
The Soul of an Octopus. Three years with Athena, Octavia, Kali and Karma.
If you loved Tova rather than Marcellus, read Elizabeth Strout.
Olive Kitteridge. The same difficult older woman, with the comfort withheld.
If you want the argument against it, read Max Porter.
Grief Is the Thing with Feathers. The same device, and a creature that is not kind.
If you want more novels of this kind
My shelf of the best fiction has the rest.
10 authors like Shelby Van Pelt
Frequently asked questions about authors like Shelby Van Pelt
Who should I read if I love Shelby Van Pelt?
Fredrik Backman is the closest — the same difficult older person, the same withheld grief, the same engineered ending. Gail Honeyman and Rachel Joyce are the British equivalents, and Bonnie Garmus was the other debut phenomenon of 2022. Yann Martel is the comparison the book was sold on. Elizabeth Strout and Anne Tyler are what the same character looks like handled by literary novelists, with less consolation. For the octopus itself, Sy Montgomery reported it and Peter Godfrey-Smith thought about what it might be like to be one. Max Porter is the argument against.
Is Shelby Van Pelt writing a second book?
Yes. On Jenna Bush Hager's Open Book podcast in July 2026 she confirmed a second novel and said it was only about halfway done but getting there, and that the process is very different this time: writing the first book, she assumed about seven people would read it, and now she knows better, which she described as a different head game. No title, subject or date has been announced.
Is the Netflix film good?
It arrived in 2026, with Van Pelt involved in the production and appearing as an extra. The obvious difficulty is Marcellus: about a fifth of the novel is narrated from inside the head of a giant Pacific octopus, and no adaptation can reproduce that voice without either casting it as narration or losing it. Read the book first for that reason. The Tova and Cameron strands survive a screen version far more easily.
Is the octopus behaviour realistic?
More than you would expect. Giant Pacific octopuses do escape their tanks and raid neighbouring exhibits, do recognise and respond differently to individual keepers, do solve latches and puzzles, and do live only three to five years, which is where the novel gets its clock. What is invented is the inner monologue and the deduction. Sy Montgomery's The Soul of an Octopus documents the rest, and Peter Godfrey-Smith's Other Minds takes on the harder question of what any of it feels like from the inside.
How did the book come about?
From a creative writing class Van Pelt signed up for on a whim. She began the book in 2013, while living in Atlanta, and it sat unfinished for years; the bulk of it was written in 2020 during the pandemic, through a writing pact. She had spent the previous decade working as a financial consultant on litigation after graduating from Claremont McKenna in 2002. It was published in May 2022, when she was in her early forties, and has since sold more than four million copies in thirty-eight countries.
Is Remarkably Bright Creatures sad?
It is sad in a managed way, which is either its great virtue or its limitation depending on the reader. There is a drowned son, a terminal diagnosis, a widow living alone and an animal near the end of its life, and the book is constructed so that all of it resolves into something warmer than where it started. Readers who want that will find it unusually well made. Readers who suspect they are being handled should read Max Porter's Grief Is the Thing with Feathers straight afterwards.
What should I read while waiting for her second novel?
Backman if you want the same feeling reliably — there are eight of them. Honeyman, Joyce and Garmus if you want the other big word-of-mouth novels of the same shelf. Strout and Tyler if you want the literary version of Tova. And Sy Montgomery if what you actually fell for was Marcellus, because the real animals are more remarkable than the fictional one.
Has she written anything else?
Not another novel, no. She has published flash fiction and short pieces, and contributed to at least one anthology, but Remarkably Bright Creatures is her only book to date. That is unusual for an author with four million copies in print, and it is why a page like this exists: there is nothing else of hers to move on to yet.
Footnotes
- Shelby Van Pelt shares an update on her next book — TODAY, 9 July 2026
- Shelby Van Pelt — Wikipedia, with biography, sales and the 2026 film
- Remarkably Bright Creatures — publisher description and author biography
- Northwest Passages: Shelby Van Pelt, 12 May 2026 — The Spokesman-Review
- Remarkably Bright Creatures — Goodreads, with the full synopsis
List last reviewed 9 September 2026.
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“It's only about halfway done, but it's getting there.”
— Shelby Van Pelt, on her second novel, Open Book podcast, 2026.
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