I read a few reviews for this book and was very interested in it, however I did not get into it. It didn't draw me in as other books have before. I appreciate the opportunity to try it out though! Thank you.

A cute story about a girl who leaves her hometown to discover why she shares her middle name with her father's friend. Loved the setting of Edinburgh and enthusiasm of the teenage protagonist as well as the warm family relationships. Didn't get how the booktitle was chosen as it had no bearing on the story. I look forward to reading the author's next book.

Beautifully written and engaging. I actually found myself wanting to know more about what became of all the characters!

What a delightfully smart and enjoyable character-driven read. This coming of age tale follows Penelope as she moves from Canada to Edinburgh as a student and tries to learn more about one of her father's old friends.
I loved how the author weaved different characters' POV throughout, as the story unfolds through Penelope as well as a whole cast of characters (friends, family, etc.). This a very promising debut from Knight and I would definitely read whatever she writes next.

Thank you so much to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC.

Thank you to the Arc copy from Netgalley and publisher. I was excited to get an early copy based on the description of the setting taking place in Ontario, Canada… my home base in the GTA. Although, the plot follows highschool friends that move to Scotland for University, the author provides a well description of where ever the characters are... She captured it with University life, the elite families, train systems, home life and even down to the food enjoyed.

No spoilers, the novel is about a couple of generations and relationships, connections/ family found and lost and found again.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

3.5* rounded up

This was a really difficult book to review. I enjoyed reading this story that centres on Penelope, but I struggled with what the point really turned out to be.

In the beginning, there is a clear motive. Penelope’s is the voice we hear the most and she’s interesting. She talks of her family and her studies in Edinburgh. She mentions a letter she writes to an old friend of her father’s out of the blue.

The story tumbles out from there. We get a few chapters from Alice’s point of view too, which I really enjoyed and also helped to fill out the story from all the angles.

It is very character driven and the characters really feel alive and flawed. While we start with Penelope and live mostly in her head, this novel is about her relationship with Alice. They’ve been friends a very long time and their lives have evolved and changed but somehow they keep finding their way back to one another. It’s about womanhood too and finding your place in a world that isn’t really made for you. It’s about family secrets and lies and how our mothers touch and change and mold our lives; whether we want them to or not.

There are so many complex relationships in this slice of life and that’s what kept my interest; how Penelope and her friends make sense of the things that are chaotic so they can grow and move forward.

I wanted more out of the ending. I wanted more detail and depth and answers but not getting those things also felt more real to the story.

The writing was beautiful and a delight to read. I enjoyed reading about these young adults coming into their own.

This is a contemporary tale of family secrets, friendship, young love, infatuation, and motherhood – a whole lot of character-driven themes which combine to make quite a riveting tale. Pen (Penelope) Elliot Winters leaves her Canadian home for a place at Edinburgh University where she spends most of her time with her best friends, Alice, a budding actress and an irrepressible flirt, and Jo who is so unshakably wholesome, she’s good at grounding the trio.

Pen is haunted by the mystery of why her parents lumbered her with the middle name of Elliot. Convinced it has to do with a friendship gone awry between writer Elliot Lennox and her father, she contacts Lennox with hopes of being invited to his home to solve her puzzle. There she meets wife Christina; Sasha, the oldest, graduating from Edinburgh University; troubled, wayward son, Freddie; and their cousin George (Georgina) and her baby Danny. While Jo is pursuing her intellectual calling and Alice is venturing towards sexual disaster, Pen finds herself infatuated with Sasha but is unable to negotiate the mixed messages swirling around him. She can’t always see the forest for the trees.

For this reader the pages flew by as the relationships between thoroughly rounded characters muddle their way through a coming-of-age tale about the anxiety-ridden pitfalls of young love. Recommended for readers who enjoy atypical friend and family relationships which may spark some new thinking.

Thank you for the ARC. Unfortunately, I am unable to give a glowing review. I was just so bored. I didn't feel invested in the characters and quit at the halfway mark because it didn't seem to really be going anywhere (and I had it as a pdf so the font was small).

This is not a great way to start my reading year.

We follow our main protagonist, Penelope, whose middle name is Elliot, which she just doesn't understand as Elliot is typically a boy's name. This bothers 'Pen' so much that she digs into her parents' past and finds a guy called Elliot Lennox, who is now a famous writer. Upon further investigation, she understands that her parents no longer have contact with Elliot, so she takes its upon herself to launch into Elliot Lennox's family to understand why she carries the middle name she does.

If this sounds flimsy to you, I can assure you that it reads flimsy to me also. I wasn't convinced by the plot or the characters here unfortunately. This felt very amateur, almost like a draft.

It also rubbed me up the wrong way in terms of thought processes like a person wearing extremely clean trainers must own a lot of shoes. It feels very elite to me. Also, characters tensing their eyelids, no one can tense their eyelids, let's be real.

The time period of this book is also unknown, with people having to log onto laptops to use messenger to communicate makes me think the book is set decades ago yet it's never made clear which i feel it should do for a 2025 release.

All in all, this was a miss for me.

Two stars (I liked the few sentences on the Octopus)

This was a wonderfully engaging book. I really enjoyed it. The characters were interesting and well developed. The plot was compelling. The “surprise” at the heart of the book was dealt with very well.
The book touched on many relationship issues faced by contemporary women - abuse, power imbalance, undeserved gossip, unfulfilled marriages, good marriages and young love. And the book resolves all this issues in a satisfactory manner.
I highly recommend this book.

Starting the year strong, I finished The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus this afternoon and loved it. To be honest, I didn't want to put it down once I started. I loved the characters (two Canadians studying in Edinburgh). It was a compelling story of a young woman's quest to find out about the person she is named after.

Her father had attended the University of Edinburgh and befriended a Scottish fellow, and there was a history between him and the family. I won't spoil it, but it was a great read. I loved the characters (although I'm sure a bit stereotypical - the aloof novelist, his doting (and life-maintaining) wife, their two sons (one an angel, the other a devil)... the Scottish highland.

A few side stores of co-eds' antics in their first year at college (including a scoundrel of a prof.). It was somewhat predictable, but the final plot twist was not something I saw coming.

All in all, it is a great book to read. I would happily recommend it.

I would like to express my gratitude to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Such a lovely book!
Pen and Alice, best friends leave Toronto, Canada to go to Scotland to attend university. Pen is a inspiring journalist and Alice an aspiring actor. Pen’s parents have ended their marriage and Pen questions the reasons behind it. Why is her middle name Elliot? What is the connection to Lord Lennox her father’s friend from the past? The mystery that unfolds is very well written and all characters were well defined in their roles.
The title of the story and how it ties into motherhood from two characters in the book Margot and Christina was very insightful and how they had different views on what being a mother entailed.

A story about friendship, motherhood, young love and family secrets.
The book cover and title drew me to read this book.

I would happily recommend it.

I would like to express my gratitude to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free electronic ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

Wow - i loved this book! What a way to start my year of reading!

This is a beautiful story that despite focusing on a narrow slice of life of Penelope (Pen) and Alice, best of friends from Toronto abroad in Scotland for their first year of university studies, tackles an incredible variety of issues and themes.

From attending classes to weekend jaunts to country estates and boys (and men) there’s a lot going on. And yet it almost always comes back to the role and place of women and more particularly mothers (but also daughters) within a tight web of expectation and lived experience.

Highly recommend.

I enjoyed the pacing and switching of perspectives, but it is the author’s style in general, with the unfolding of the story and with its diction and imagery, that kept me reading. This is in part a meditation on the different ways that motherhood can look, but is more so an exploration of figuring life out when one is on the cusp of adulthood as a young woman.

Full disclosure: as Emma's former high school English teacher, I'm biased, but I think her prose in this book is lovely. More than once it had me smiling with moments of inventiveness and vivid turns of phrase. I also feel as though I detect the influence of Gilmore Girls-style patter in the dialogue, especially between the college friends. I enjoyed Pen's story as she muddled her way through conflicting emotions, and the plot moved along well. I’m not sure why Knight didn’t choose a multi-perspective narrative structure, given the characters' backstories and the fact that the narration does actually, without warning, suddenly switch perspectives, which was a bit disorienting at first. Besides being Pen's best friend and a sounding board from time to time, Alice and her story arc didn't seem to bring much to Pen's story, but it’d be a good setup for a follow-up novel about Alice’s theatrical exploits in the remaining years at Edinburgh. I'm looking forward to reading more fiction from Emma!

This was a book that had a lot going for it but it felt like too much at times. Too many subplots and it felt like it lagged a lot of the way through. When the big twist was revealed, it felt anticlimactic as I was already kind of past the point of caring.

Thank you Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book. These opinions are completely my own.

I feel like I have the opposite problem then most reviewers. I loved the beginning of Pen's adventure and seeing where her curiosity would take her. Sadly, my interest died down just before the half way point and I could not get back into the story. I believe it could be partially my fault as I was reading 3 books at once., but it just felt to slow for my liking

I like to "travel' by book (since i am too nervous to travel IRL} and this book took me to Scotland and London, which I really enjoyed. I love visiting places from the comfort of my own home. I really liked this book, couldn't put it down - i thought it was very well-written and the characters were intriguing. I hope Emma Knight writes some more novels just like this one!

Pen (Penelope) and Alice, her best friend since childhood, attend the University of Edinburgh together as first year students. They are a long way from their home, Toronto, Canada. Pen was drawn to Scotland by a feeling of connection she has with a famous writer who lives there, an old friend of her father’s, Lord Elliott Lennox.
Pen has never met Lennox and suspects that her divorced parents are hiding something from her about their association. Particularly since her middle name is Elliott (yeah, a little obvious? We'll see...). After Pen reaches out, Lennox invites her to his home where she meets various members of his welcoming family. Pen develops romantic feelings for the very first time, for Lennox’s older son, Sasha. (Note - there's a lot of earnest heart quickening and physical attraction reactions every time young Sasha comes into the room, so perhaps this is more of a YA offering). We follow Pen as she tries to uncover secrets that may lie with this family. She also starts to see her parents in a different light, envisioning them as students and what their lives were like when they were young.
Alice is an aspiring actress who is acting in the university play. She is confident in personality and quite beautiful, so used to having power in her relationships with men. Alice starts an affair with her tutor which may prove her undoing.
Their university lives are described with the chapters split out by season/school terms. They develop friend groups, experience a new life with the backdrop of Scotland – the studying, the partying, the sex. We see them deal with bigger issues, and look at adults with new eyes as they mature themselves.
I enjoyed Emma Knight’s writing style, her descriptions provided the right amount of detail. I remained interested enough to appreciate the secret as it unfolded for Pen (and the clues that were sprinkled into the storyline). The title of the book was part of the initial draw of this book for me, and the tie-in comes in quite late. I was much less interested in the character of Alice and her relationship with her tutor. Although Alice’s experience is not uncommon and an important one, I felt there wasn’t enough room for it given how much material was in the Pen storyline alone. I did enjoy the relationship between the two girls when they were together - you could sense the sisterhood. However, there were also some other subplots that distracted rather than added to the story.
Because it took me a little while to get into it, I rate this a 3.5 but closer to a 3 star.
Thanks to Emma Knight, Penguin Random House Canada and Netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. Publication date Jan 7, 2025.

The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus by Emma Knight

The first section of the book I was quite impressed with the writing. I loved the way each new character was described. After my first impression wore off however I started to doubt that I would enjoy the overall book.

It’s supposed to be a coming of age book with ties to motherhood but I think it actually tried to be too many things and therefore ended up feeling scattered and directionless and the characters wishy washy.

I kept thinking I was getting the point and then several new tangents would happen and I’d be lost again.

It was simply not for me - I am curious to see if I am in the minority when this comes out next month. Carley Fortune raved about it when I saw her in person this summer!