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Dr. Josephine (Jo) Ness has loved jellyfish for most of her life. She’s happy as a clam (ha!) studying them, either holing up in her lab at a small aquarium or going out in the water observing them.
But the margins of her already narrow life move in even closer after her best friend and fellow researcher dies. She can’t face the water and doesn’t want to talk about the grief that is so obviously weighing her down.
Then she gets a call from Nadia, her best friend at the end of college, whom she hasn’t talked to in the 11 years since. Nadia is living on a tiny island off the coast of Maine, where a giant jellyfish is causing … unusual … problems for the small population of inhabitants. Nadia hopes Jo can help them.
Jo immediately tells her boss she’s taking her rarely used vacation days and flies across the country to Shattering Point. When she arrives, Nadia is nowhere to be found, and the few people she meets are acting weird. She does hear about Clementine, which a boy has named the jellyfish. And she’s determined to see the creature. Little does she know how the jellyfish will affect her.
If you like quirky mixed with lightly poignant, with splashes of magical realism, you should check out The Jellyfish Problem. I, for one, like all of these elements, so I enjoyed it. Jo is trapped with humans for a while on a tiny island and forced to interact, to figure out how to “people” more than she has, and to come to terms with the grief that has flattened her.
It’s a tender and slightly peculiar tale but satisfying. I did for some reason take little breaks a few times as I read this book to start other books, so I think it sometimes felt a bit slow or was not quite grabbing me. But it may have just been that I wasn’t quite in the exact frame of mind to read it and was hopping around genres to get to that mindset. Still can recommend this novel.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 9 uses of strong language, around 15 instances of moderate profanity, about 20 uses of mild language, and about 15 instances of the name of Deity in vain. There are some references to sex, with fairly brief details of two women being intimate. There is some violence, including domestic violence, with a husband and wife throwing things and yelling and some injury.
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*I received an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
