I can't say much about this book except for what a strange weird read! The author did invite me to her fictional island located near Los Angeles. The book jumped from past and present so that was a little confusing at times to me personally, but this book was filled with flashes of memories and feelings, hopes and fears, passion, regret, longing, wonder, and nature, so that kept me invested.

I’m still not sure how I feel about this book, but I ultimately value the use of the whale as a metaphor for the protagonist’s relationship with the town and her mother. However, I didn’t like the slow first half of the book. I’d give the author’s writing another chance though, as the back half of the book made up for the sluggish first half.

I started reading this book and found that it was not for me. I didn't want to review a book that I didn't finish.

Thanks @algonquinbooks for the gifted copy! // I've been wanting to read Creatures for quite a while now and it did not disappoint. The writing is as beautiful as the book cover and I flew through this one in a couple of days. It is an emotional story of how we deal with trauma and the ways our past can affect our future. It takes place on an island and I loved all of the references to sea creatures and how the author made connections between them and us. This was a strong 4 star read for me and I definitely would recommend it.

Such a strange book ending without redemption or growth for anyone. I loved the cover, though. Creepy cool cover. Odd, unappealing, tragic characters within the covers.

If you are not a fan of literary fiction then I would steer clear of this one. This was a very literary read, where (in my opinion), absolutely everything was planned out before hand, even down to how the table of contents were structured on the page. If I had read this in e-galley form, I'm sure some of that formatting would have been lost and thus the peek into how Ms. Van Meter saw the the pieces of this book come together.

There was so much creativity and thought put into the story of Evie, who lives on an island off the coast of California. A mother that comes in and out of her life and a free spirit father who works on boats and sells weed, make for a very interesting upbringing. All Evie wants is normalcy, but she never really finds it. I struggled to understand her love for her father, but I thought the author brilliantly wrote Evie’s relentless need to gain approval from a mother who turned her back on her more than once.

This is a story that isn’t told in linear fashion, but I throughly enjoyed how Van Meter put the story together and shared facts about different wildlife that inhabited the island. I felt the island was just as much a character as the living and breathing ones.

Timing will be everything with this book. I find I have to be in the right headspace to read something that makes me think this hard. Luckily, I read this at the right time.

Thank you to Algonquin Books and Crissy Van Meter for the opportunity to read and provide a honest review.

Review Date: 11/02/2020
Publication Date: 10/27/20

To begin with, can we just talk about this cover? The colors are so cool and soothing. The artwork is truly beautiful! As a first impression, this is off the charts interesting.

As the story begins, Evie is preparing for her wedding day, waiting for her husband to return from his fishing boat work, as a storm gathers around the island and dealing with a surprise visit from her estranged mother. A dead whale is stranded in the harbor bringing with it a foul smell, putting everyone in an even more foul mood. As the story unfolds, Evie begins to remember her childhood. How her mother was a wanderer and her father was an addict/dealer. Neither being great parenting material.

The writing style of the story is so unique. Less conversational and more impressions of thoughts or statements made by the different characters. Thoughts are expressed in short and blunt sentences that can seem choppy at times. It did take me a bit to become comfortable with the writing style but once I got there, I found it very impactful. Perhaps more so than if a conversation was being written out from each character’s perspective.

The story moves back and forth from present to past to future. The overall arching tale is clearly an example of parents putting their own needs over their child and the lasting damage that has as the child grows to adulthood. The work that child must do to overcome the hurt caused at such a young age. The lasting impact that parental relationships can have on all future relationships as the child grows into adulthood.

The emotion evoked in Creatures is like an ocean wave. Be careful with this one! It will sneak up on you and knock you over if you aren’t paying attention. Tears can spring up when you least expect them and your heart can hurt just a little as you see your reflection in the water as it runs back to the sea.

If you’re looking to read a book in one sitting, look no further. Creatures is a unique family drama that sucks you under like a furtive undertow. You will feel every range of emotions while turning these pages, it will leave you speechless.

Creatures was a difficult read both in content and format. The story goes back and forth in time telling the story of Evangeline, being in the present with an upcoming wedding, possible missing groom, dead beached whale, and unexpected visit from her mostly absentee mother; to the past growing up with her drug dealing and alcoholic father, being mostly homeless or couch surfing with her father’s friends. If you grew up in a dysfunctional family and had to be the adult when your parents couldn’t, you will relate heavily to this book. While the content is heavy and very sad, its non-linear format could be hard to read at times. That being said it was a good book if you can push your way through it. I can only give this one 3/5 stars but I did like it and would check out another book by this author.
Thank you to Algonquin Publishing for the review copy of this book.

This story touched my heart in such a visceral way. The author's writing is hauntingly beautiful and atmospheric. Her characters are well-developed and their relationship to each other is so well-written.
I'm a scuba diver so I was immediately attracted to the cover and title. I thought the story sounded intriguing, but I didn't expect to be drawn in on such an emotional level. The descriptions of growing up on the island, the whales and how they related to life, the struggles and wanting to be loved. It's going to stay with me for a long time and I know I need to get the hardcover to add to my favorites shelf in my library.
The essay at the end was what really hit me hard. I've experienced the phenomenon once with my own father and it was magical. He has since passed and I loved this heartfelt tribute to her Dad.
This is truly an incredible debut and I look forward to reading more of her books in the future.

To explain in easier words, Creatures is like the sea - tumultuous and chaotic, always moving, always going back and forth. With the waters as the backdrop, Creatures is ultimately a story about relationships fragmented and disastrous, of love and life, of anything and everything in between.

Evie's life has been a series of craziness. Growing up in the Winter Islands with her alcoholic father who's a drug dealer, she's never had a very concrete life. Never something settling. But the Island had been her home, and that is where her stories begin.

In Creatures, we follow Evie's journey from a teenager to an adult, the ways of life that changed for her along the coast and the heartbreaks along the way.

While I cannot say that I loved the story, I absolutely adored the author's writing style. I feel that it is very unique and lyrical, utmost poetic that keeps on lilting like the waves. And similarly like the waves, the story too keeps going back and forth. So, yeah, it did take some time getting used to the pacing and the characters, but the author managed the unfolding of events so well. And more so, I loved the way that the author so meticulously related human and emotions to that of sea animals. That was, I think, so very clever and unique!

Creatures might not be the book for everyone, I'll give you that. It's not a story that you'll like from page one but it is something that relies on the unfolding, on metaphors and constant pacing. I think, despite the lack of my interest in the story, I did end up enjoying it solely because of the beautiful writing. If you love such stories based on the waters and highly imperfect characters with their imperfect emotions, you might just like this 😁💛

Creatures by Crissy Van Meter, with its jumps in time, its at times incomplete thoughts, is more poetry than narrative. At first, I am not sure I can follow or if I even want to. Then, somewhere along the way, I am immersed in the experiences being described. The writing pulls you completely into its world. Yet, it does not feel forced or contrived. A beautiful and unusual debut. I look forward to reading more from the author.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2020/11/creatures.html

Reviewed for NetGalley and a publisher's blog tour.

We’ve all heard of omens on our wedding day, tell-tale signs of the future. So when a whale washes ashore on Evie’s wedding day, and her mother arrives like an unwelcome storm, the atmosphere is nothing but ominous.

This is Evie’s story.

It is Evie’s coming-of-age tale as she is tossed back to her childhood memories on Winter Island when her mother left her with a father who drinks too much and sells a choice species of weed to get by. Evie lives on an island in the sea, she and her wild friends roam as free, untamed creatures. Yet she's always affected by the pull of her mother when she breezes into town.

It is Evie’s love story. Finding love with Liam, a fisherman currently lost at sea; she waits for him on her wedding day. The story jumps ahead, as she could never imagine him betraying her.

This is a very unique novel. While it's not uncommon for stories to be nonlinear, Van Meter sprinkles chapters that are written in second person throughout the story. These chapters are structured as a question relating to a specific sea creature, but in truth, she is allowing us to dive deep into Evie’s inner thoughts.

At first, Van Meter’s style didn’t quite appeal to me. But as I settled into it, something occurred to me. The back and forth between time, being tossed about, gave me a sense of being rocked on a ship at sea. Evie’s mother coming in and out of her life felt much like the ocean tides. Maybe I'm getting too philosophical here, but her very writing set the atmosphere of being on a coastal island.

The cover alone is dazzling, and if you’re searching for a complex family drama written in a unique and evocative way, pick up Creatures.

Thank you to @algonquinbooks and @crissyvanmeter for an invitation to this tour and a #gifted copy.

I have to be honest here, this book did not catch my interest. The synopsis on the back is honestly all the book talks about with flashbacks of Evie's life on the island with her father. It didn't really do it for me.

"Humpbacks are nothing like their ancestors, except for their wild energy to endure".

Enduring life, forgiving wrongs done to you and coming into your own self are all themes in this gorgeously written novel. I fell in love with this story including the hardships and reality that was life on this tourist Island in Southern California.

When we meet Evie she is dealing with a dead smelly whale trapped on the beach, her fiance Liam's boat still not back from its fishing excursion and her mother showing up after being gone with no communication for three years. Oh and her father, who was basically her only parent most of her life, is a drunken pot dealer.

As Evie goes back and forth sharing her history and present life we learn tidbits about the sea and its inhabitants that surround the Island and encompass her life. The author does a magnificent job with lyrical prose comparing us mere mortals to mysterious creatures beneath the sea and their ability to survive millions of years despite natural calamities. Their only downfall may be the humans who selfishly pollute their home.

This book reminded me of the first time I read Catcher In the Rye. Though they are very different stories at the heart they are about being human and evolving into the person we want and need to be despite our past and our environment.

Like the waves of the ocean Evie faces some overbearing tidal waves from storms not of her making but she strives to stay afloat because she knows life is its own reward.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for a fair and honest review. All opinions are my own.

With her wedding on hold and a dead whale on the beach, Evangeline “Evie” is now worried about her fiancé who is stuck at sea. Now, Evie flashes through her life and her absent parents as she remembers her upbringing and the lack of parents, dealing with abandonment, betrayal, being surrounded by alcohol, drugs, and many things that haunt her presence as she remembers her past.

Being surrounded by the ocean, she might have been raised by her negligent father, but she had to parent herself, grow up alone, and realize life alone while her parents left her, alone.

I did not finish Creatures by Crissy Van Meter, finding that as I was reading, I was not finding this story interesting. I was waiting for the anticipation, the urge to move forward, but as I continued to read, I felt, emotionless and disconnected from the book.

I wanted to enjoy Creatures more than I did but could not enjoy the topic at hand. Evie’s life just felt so, bland to my eyes as I read and it felt like I had to force myself to read this book in order to at least get through the page.

I decided to discontinue Creatures after around 30% when I started to realize that I was not as invested in the story as I hoped I would be.

Thank you again to NetGalley and Algonquin Young Readers for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

You don't have to look very far to appreciate Creatures.......just LOOK at that cover!

The synopsis was engrossing but the novel is completely immersive. The attention to detail is outstanding and the relationships are powerful and realistic.

The writing style is perfect for the book and I felt as if I was in the story.

Thanks to Crissy van Meter and Algonquin publishing for my ARC in exchange for an honest and voluntary review.

5 stars

One of the best reviewed books of early 2020, Crissy Van Meter's Creatures, is out in paperback this week. I missed it earlier this year, so I'm glad it came to my attention this week.

Creatures takes place on Winter Island, a feral island off the coast of Southern California. It is a hot spot with tourists during the summer, and the rest of the year it has small residential population. Evie is getting married tomorrow, and she is worried that the fishing boat her husband-to-be Liam is on hasn't returned to the island yet.

She also has to deal with a dead whale that has beached itself, leaving an overpowering smell. It bothers her mother, who surprisingly turned up for the wedding. Her mother was not really in Evie life, having spent most of her time on the mainland, leaving Evie as a young child to be raised by Evie's father.

Evie's father never had a real job, other than growing and selling pot. They were frequently homeless, bouncing from staying in someone's garage or boat until he could scrape up enough money to buy his own small boat. He loved Evie, but it wasn't an easy life for a young girl.

The story moves back and forth in time, like the tides that come in and out of the island. We see Evie's life as a young girl who has to grow up too soon, helping her dad sell his pot. She makes one friend, Rook, a girl from a wealthy family who often leave Rook on her own.

We see Evie and Liam's relationship through the years. They are both from dysfunctional families, and while that is part of what draws them together, it also creates problems as they don't know how to communicate with each other. Liam's frequent physical absences crash into Evie's emotional absences.

The writing is emotionally powerful, I frequently had to stop and reread sentences that I found so deeply moving, like this paragraph:
"Sometimes he wants to crack me open. I can tell by the desperation in his eyes during the days that are short and too-soon dark, and he wants me to just say it. Say anything. Say how hurt I am, how I'm not sure if I can move on, how I'm not sure I know how to love, if I'm sure of anything. He tries to bring it up: he tells me he loves me, he hides love notes all over the house, he does house chores, even some of mine. We have mastered this torture."
Evie works at the Sea Institute, studying sea creatures, especially whales. Her observations about whales echo the things going on in her own life. Winter Island is essentially another important character in the story.

Creatures touched me profoundly, especially Evie and Liam's evolving relationship. Even though I'm not from a background like Evie's, I felt a kinship with her, something I attribute to Crissy Van Meter's empathetic writing. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Algonquin Books for putting me on Crissy Van Meter's tour.

Van Meter's debut novel, which an afterward makes clear is largely autobiographical, is one I initially was resistant to, since I tend to prefer straight-forward, plot heavy novels with clear, chronological time lines - and this was the exact opposite. But dang if it didn't eventually win me over, and I appreciated the craft that went into the gorgeous, shimmering, evocative prose, and the lyrical, dream-like quality of the writing. It also tackles some fairly heavy themes: addiction, abandonment, betrayal, redemption and forgiveness - but never gets heavy-handed, or preachy.

The elliptical structure is perfect for the material, and if the reader is not always clear about where one is in time, or what has or hasn't happened, or how characters relate (I was annoyed that a semi-major character, 'Tommy', is just popped into the narrative without explanation, and who he is, is not explicated till almost the end - but then when the penny drops at just the right time, one sees how beautifully Van Meter has control of her material) - it all eventually makes a quirky kind of sense.

Each character is carefully delineated - and if I could not personally relate to a lot of their lives (most suffer from some form of addiction), I could empathize and ultimately care about most of them. The setting becomes as much a character as any of the human ones, and I had to Google to see if Winter Island in Southern California was an actual place (...turns out there is no Winter Is. down south - it seems to be vaguely based on one of the Channel Is. - but surprisingly there IS one up north in Contra Costa County - where I have lived most of my life, but had never heard about!).

There are scenes in the book that are truly memorable, not least the beautifully rendered final chapter, and I will be eager to see what Van meter writes in future.

My sincere thanks to Algonquin Books for the review copy, in exchange for this honest and enthusiastic review.

This was a beautiful, atmospheric book that surprised me with its depth.

This is definitely not a book for everyone but if you love literary fiction, you will likely enjoy this one. The story is told in small vignettes, some that lead from one to another and others that make great leaps through time. These vignettes are bracketed by her mom's surprise visit on her wedding weekend. It almost felt as though Evie was telling you the story of her life, jumping through time as she recounts it. However powerful, these jumps in time do make it difficult to follow the story in parts, and it takes some work to understand how the timeline fits together. Van Meter leaves you little clues as to when things take place, but there are a few scenes that I still cannot place in the overall timeline;

I enjoyed the parallels and dissonance of her parents' relationship with hers to Liam. Slowly, the story unravels the different parts of her childhood and early adulthood that made her into the woman she is in the present and future. Evie's relationship with her father is particularly heartbreaking, but I also loved the ways in which she explains the complications of it. He is her father, but he is so troubled, both by his addictions and his too-open heart.

Creatures tackles themes of grief, family, opening yourself to love, and forgiveness. I will be thinking about the intertwining of these themes for awhile, and returning to Van Meter's beautiful language.

Thanks to Algonquin for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

TW: addiction (drug & alcohol); drug use; adultery; loss of a parent; death; death of an animal (not depicted)