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My rule this year is that if I finish a book, even if I didn't really like it, I'll give it 2 stars. I suppose if I hate-finish a book out of spite, I'd go ahead and give it a 1.

I have not one but TWO unpopular opinions about this book. (1) I didn't like it. (2) I didn't even like Marcellus' narrated bits.

My friends and family know I love octopuses, so several of them suggested this book to me. It's in the category of "I wanted to like it, but alas!"

Aside from an implausible plot that was not interesting enough to willfully suspend disbelief and the insipidly tidy ending (a thing I do not enjoy), the writing had me rolling my eyes so often that I just could not stay IN the story. You know how you're reading along and then all of a sudden the dialogue or exposition is just so clumsy, ham-fisted, and/or trite that you find yourself thinking more about the writer's decision-making than the story itself? Yeah. That happened A LOT during this book.

Predictable plot. Characters lacking dimension. Marcellus' narrated bits struck me as particularly contrived, although I know a lot of other RBC-haters liked him.