Never in a million years would I read a book by Mitch Albom and then Twice was chosen for our March book club. Where did my aversion come from, I wonder, because I know nothing about him. I mean, everyone and their dog has heard of Tuesdays with Morrie, reportedly one of the best-selling memoirs of all time. It’s a book that many teachers use in their classrooms at school, but I never have. I have never seen the movie, either. Never had any interest.

Twice is the story of Alfie Logan who discovers, age eight, that he has a unique ability to relive events over again. He uses it for the first time when his mother dies. Despite being told to sit with her while his father runs to the store, Alfie goes out to the soccer field. When he returns home, his mother is gone. The next morning, he wakes up to discover that she is still alive; essentially he has been given a do-over. During this second chance encounter, his mother tells him that “This is something [he’s] going to be able to do the rest of [his] life.” But she cautions him: “But it won’t fix everything, Alfie. The second time won’t always be better than the first.” But reliving this moment doesn’t save Alfie’s mom because, as he discovers, he

can’t change mortality. If someone’s time is up, it’s up. I can travel back to before the death takes place. I can alter how I experience it. But it’s still going to happen. Nothing I can do to stop it.

Can I say it was better, rewinding my mom’s departure? I don’t know. The first time, I left the house and returned motherless. The second time, I stood witness as she departed this world. You tell me.

Thus begins Alfie’s long life of second chances. As expected, in the beginning he uses this gift to save face, to meet girls, to excel at school. He is reunited with Princess, the girl he met when they were both children in Africa (Alfie’s mother was a missionary), and he redoes a few days in order to win her affection.

The story is told across the table from Bahamian casino detective LaPorta, who has nabbed Alfie for winning two million bucks at the roulette table. Surely he’s cheated. Alfie insists that LaPlant will understand everything once he reads this journal, which is addressed to ‘Boss’ (I was thinking God because there is a Christian undercurrent running through this book).

It was storming on the morning I picked up this book. I knew I had to read it before our meeting which was only a handful of days away. I flew through it in about three hours. It was easy to read because a wordsmith Albom is not. The book purports to be about the choices we make and how those choices shape us and our lives, but the structure of the novel and its saccharine dénouement made it mostly unpalatable for me.

I hope that my first read of 2026 is not an indication of how the rest of my reading year is going to go because Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel Atmosphere was just not for me. My first experience with Reid was Daisy Jones and the Six and I loved it. I was so sure that she was going to be a favourite author for me, and so I started with her backlist and read One True Loves and it was a no from me. Since it came before Daisy Jones though, I thought I would read something after, so I tried Malibu Rising. Also a no. I would not have picked up Atmosphere for that reason alone, but a book about lady astronauts was of zero interest to me anyway. Then it got selected for my book club.

Joan Goodwin has a “PhD focusing on the analysis of magnetic structures in the solar corona” but she is “spending her expertise teaching eighteen-year-olds the definition of a parsec.”

Vanessa Ford is an aeronautical engineer who is also a pilot. She is “tall and straight, her shoulders broad.” The first time Joan lays eyes on her, she thinks “That’s an astronaut.”

These two woman are astronaut candidates in 1979. Historically, Sally Ride was the first woman in space. She went to space in 1983. Fictionally, Joan and Vanessa count themselves among “The Six.”

“The Six” became part of NASA Astronaut Group 8, a selection of 35 candidates tapped to begin training at Johnson Space Center in Houston in 1978. And the women weren’t the only ones making history. The class of astronauts in training was also NASA’s first to include people of color — three African Americans and one Asian American.” – CNN

Joan and Vanessa become friends, and then more than friends, a relationship that they keep secret for a variety of reasons. I found the whole love story part of this book super cringey. You want me to believe that two women, smart enough to be tapped as astronauts, are sneaking around and having inane conversations about how the sky now makes sense because of the other person. I mean, you wanted to be an astronaut, right? You never wanted to know anything about the sky until you looked into the eyes of a beautiful astronomer? Yikes.

Beyond the cringe, I just found the writing pedestrian. Loads of people on the WWW were calling Atmosphere a six star read, a book that made them bawl their eyes out. It made me want to tear my hair out. I didn’t particularly care about any of these characters. Joan’s sister, Barbara, is selfish and miserable (until she finds a rich man). Barbara’s daughter, Frances, is precocious and meant to be a surrogate daughter for Joan because they are way closer than mother and daughter. Even that relationship felt inauthentic.

This one’s a dud.

Although everyone and their octopus was talking about this book for a while, I probably would never have read it. Then, it was chosen for my IRL book club so…

Sowell Bay is a small community in the Pacific Northwest and it is here that we meet a group of characters including Tova Sullivan, a 70-year-old widow who works as a cleaner at the local aquarium; Ethan, the town gossip and owner of the local grocery store; and Cameron, who is not a native, but who arrives in Sowell Bay to locate the father he has never known. They are not the most interesting characters though; that honour belongs to Marcellus.

Who am I, you ask? My name is Marcellus, but most humans do not call me that. Typically, they call me that guy. For example, Look at that guy–there he is–you can just see his tentacles behind the rock.

I am a giant Pacific octopus. I know this from the plaque on the wall beside my enclosure.

I know what you are thinking. Yes, I can read. I can do many things you would not expect.

Yep, one of the characters in Shelby Van Pelt’s novel Remarkably Bright Creatures is a sentient octopus, and he is actually the most interesting character in the whole book. I wish we had way more of him and way less of some of the other stuff in this book.

This is a novel about people in transition. Cameron is a 30-year-old man, but he acts like he’s a kid. He plays in a rock band with one of his best friends, he keeps getting fired from jobs, his girlfriend has finally had enough of him, his Aunt Jeanne is supportive, but frustrated by his lack of resilience. Sure, his mother abandoned him when he was nine and sure he doesn’t know who his father is but, c’mon. When Jeanne gives him a box of stuff his mom left behind, Cameron uses a clue in the box and sets out for Sowell Bay.

Tova is a taciturn Swede who lives in the house her father built. She has been grieving the loss of her son, Erik, for 38 years. She has never understood what happened to him; he was just about to go off to college; he was happy. Then, one night, he just didn’t come home.

Marcellus, watching from his tank, sees what other people don’t see. His perspective was my favourite and I wish there had been more of it. Known to be highly intelligent in the real world, Marcellus, the character in the book, sees what others do not. He calls humans “remarkably bright creatures”, but I think he is being generous.

I suspect that many readers would love this book. It gave me Bear Town vibes and I didn’t like that book at all. Remarkably Bright Creatures is a little too sweet and the characters’ manufactured quirkiness just wasn’t my cup of tea.