Lily and the Octopus

ok wow wow. this book was absolutely amazing? i cried, three times. i also listened to this on audio and if you’re able to, i would recommend listening to it on audio. this book highlights the loving relationships humans and pets have and how our lives are forever changed by them. the book follows ted and lily, a man and his dog, and their relationship over the span of a couple of months. we get bits and pieces of how ted and lily met, their ups and downs, and how they’ve always been there for each other. ted wants to love someone again, and lily helps him find that potential love. outside of the story, what i really loved about this book is how the author made lily a character and gave her a voice in the story. lily isn’t just ted’s dog in this story, she’s a main character in the plot. the audio book also did such a great job with lily’s character, it made me want to get a dog (never)! the pacing wasn’t completely cohesive, but listening to the audio book helped with that.

Actual rating: 2.5 stars. I really liked this book in the beginning, but by the end I just couldn't wait to be finished with it. (view spoiler)[ I didn't know that this was going to be a book about a dog with cancer. If I had known from the beginning, I wouldn't have even considered reading it. But by the time I figured it out, I was already in love with the writing style and the main character, and with what seemed like it would be a sweet story about a man and his dog going on adventures together. Even when I found out about the tumor, I still kept reading. I knew it would break my heart but I thought it would be worth it. And it was worth it, until they set sail on Fishful Thinking and the whole story went to shit. Before I realized it was dream, I thought that whole ordeal was stupid. It didn't make any sense, and the fight scene with the octopus was absolutely ridiculous. In all honesty, I didn't think it was a dream, I just thought Ted had finally gone off his rocker and was hallucinating. Because of this part of the book, I was so done with it. Even when Lily died, I just couldn't wait to get it done. I did tear up a little bit, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. The part with the boat completely ruined the whole book for me. I also found that the quality of writing drastically decreased from that point onwards. (hide spoiler)] Overall, I definitely wouldn't recommend this to anyone

Lily and the Octopus is quite simply about a dog called Lily and her octopus – except it’s a bit more complicated than that. Ted Flask has a dachshund called Lily who is his best friend – they do everything together, including play Monopoly and talk about boys. But one Thursday, when Ted first notices the octopus has arrived, it’s clear he is very unwanted and Ted’s sole purpose now becomes to be rid of it – eight tentacles and all. This is one of those books which I don’t want to reveal too much about the plot because most of it will spoil the premise for anyone who’s not read it yet. I’ll be honest, the plot was actually my least favourite part of this book. I didn’t know much going in, and I found there was just a bit too much magical realism for my liking – I wanted it grounded a bit more in reality. That aside however, the characters are what made me keep turning the page. Again, I don’t want to give away too much for fear of spoiling it, but Ted’s outlook on life was refreshing and heart-warming. If you’ve read The Rosie Project, or Curious Incident, then the narrative style is similar to that – you really feel as if you’re inside Ted’s mind. Also the book was very good at subtly touching on larger, heavier themes while making the reader feel they were just discussing say, biscuits or pubs. I think it will touch a lot of people, and the numerous metaphors scattered throughout will not go unnoticed by those reading (especially of the octopus). The way Lily and the Octopus presents hard-hitting things in easy-to-digest ways reflects a lot about how most people choose to handle the world. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend the hard things aren’s so bad, but unfortunately, that doesn’t make them go away. This didn’t impact me like Life of Pi or other books which take on similar, ambitious tasks of anthropomorphising animals. However, the love and friendships exuded is undeniable and you’ll struggle to read this without feeling at least a little warmed by Lily and Ted. Rowley does a good job of sharing a little about how the world is bad and corrupt, but through Lily and Ted’s friendship, he also shows how the world has a lot of good in it too.