This review contains affiliate links, which earn me a small commission when you click and purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting my small business and allowing me to continue providing you a reliable resource for clean book ratings.
Penelope, who goes by Pen, is starting her first year at the University of Edinburgh, which her father attended years before. A Canadian, she has only visited the UK a few times with her father on business, but she and her best friend, Alice, are excited for the opportunities in this place so far from home. Her parents divorced some years earlier and Pen has always felt like she didn’t quite understand many of the currents running through their marriage and divorce.
Pen suspects that an old friend of her father’s, Lord Elliot Lennox, may have some answers for her. So when she arrives at school, Pen writes Lennox, who is now a famous mystery writer, to introduce herself. In reply, Lennox and his wife, Christina, invite her to their centuries-old estate. There, Pen is welcomed warmly, and she basks in the friendliness and ease of this family and home. What’s more, they want her to return, and she hopes she will be able to gradually find out what secrets her father is hiding. In addition, she is attracted to their son Sasha.
The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is a coming-of-age story, which I generally avoid because it often just means the character is learning about and engaging in plenty of sex. Here that is a small part of Pen’s story, but mostly it’s about her really coming into herself as a young adult separate from her parents and disengaging from expectations she had put on herself. I found it really charming, and a fairly lighthearted book despite a couple of themes that had some tough elements.
Pen is the main character and the point of view is a third-person omniscient, but then there are parts that briefly move to other characters’ points of view in third-person omniscient as well, and it felt unsettling every time I read them. That styling just didn’t quite work for me. However, that’s just a little nitpicky thing; I did really enjoy the book overall.
Rated: High. Profanity includes 13 uses of strong language, around a dozen instances of moderate profanity, 10 uses of mild language, and 30 instances of the name of Deity in vain, as well as about 5 uses of British profanity. Sexual content includes kissing, talk about sex, a couple of scenes that are mostly closed-door. A man forces himself on a former sexual partner, though the woman is able to get away from him. Drinking and some mild drug use are mentioned.
Click here to purchase your copy of The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus on Amazon.
