So, about the main plot explanation in that summary I read... Honestly, it felt a bit reductive, like it was ticking boxes. 'Widow works at an aquarium, befriends an octopus, solves a mystery about her son.' Sure, that's the skeleton, but the summary I saw completely glazed over how the plot is really a vehicle for these two consciousnesses to just... witness each other's loneliness. The octopus isn't a cute sidekick giving clues; his sections are this profound meditation on captivity and observation that mirrors the widow's own emotional sequestration.
It frames the 'mystery' as the central drive, which is fair, but for me the plot's mechanics were secondary to the slow, careful way the two narratives braided. The summary made it sound like a quirky detective story, but the actual reading felt more like watching a wound slowly close from the inside. The plot explanation missed the quiet ache of it all, the way the aquarium's water functions as this shared, silent space.