Lily and the Octopus Book Review

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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’t so bad, but unfortunately, that doesn’t make them go away.

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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.