When I first saw The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, I thought, Another book about an octopus?? Are octopuses a thing now?? (Remember, I read Shelby Van Pelt’s Remarkably Bright Creatures not too long ago). The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is NOT about an octopus, and I knew that when I started reading this novel, but I spent the entire time while reading wondering if an octopus was going to make an appearance. It isn’t until page 326 of 368 that you learn what the title is about. Still, this novel wasn’t quite what I thought it was going to be, I think because I did not pay that much attention to the synopsis. I thought it was going to be a mystery story about uncovering family secrets, but there is a lot more to it than that.

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is about a young Canadian woman named Pen who goes to the University of Edinburgh so that she can follow her father’s footsteps from when he went to school in the UK to figure out the secret that her divorced parents are keeping from her.

It’s not just Pen’s story, though. Her best friend Alice is also attending the University of Edinburgh, and much of the story is about their friendship and their college exploits. I did not care much for Alice. I feel like her purpose was solely to be a foil to the studious introvert, Pen. Alice’s story is not original: she is a beautiful, wannabe actress who has an affair with a much-older, married tutor. She thinks she has control over the affair, but when she ends things with the tutor, he turns out to be obsessive and abusive.

I also did not initially care much of Pen. She is kind of a boring character that other characters still seem to be intrigued by. Is it because she is Canadian? I mean, Canadians are awesome and all, but there is more to a person than her nationality. However, Pen really surprised me towards the end of the novel with her intelligence and cunning. It really is the quiet ones.

As Pen investigates her father’s past, she befriends the family of an old friend of her father’s, Lord Lennox, and spends time at the Lennox’s estate. These were my favourite parts of the novel, with Pen being a fish out of water with the Lennox family and their strange Britishness. I do not care much for rich, titled people, but I like to experience the way they live. Pen finds herself falling for Lord Lennox’s older son, Sasha, who keeps giving Pen mixed signals, so there is a “will they or won’t they” trope in this novel as well.

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is also about motherhood. How I, a childless cat lady, keep ending up reading novels about motherhood, I do not know. But the novel explores how motherhood defines a woman’s life and how there is still an expectation for women to choose motherhood instead of their own desires and how a woman is considered a “monster” if she chooses herself over her children.

Like I said, there is a lot going on in The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus, but the different themes and tropes manage to form a cohesive story. Even Alice’s trite subplot becomes essential to both Pen and Alice’s development as they transition from childhood to womanhood. The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus turned out to be a pretty good novel, so I would recommend it for sure.