the tortoise’s tale

This book is going to make a lot of people happy. It is really a five-star premise- the book is the internal dialogue of a tortoise who lives around 150 years. It is an essential imagining of how nature views humanity. The themes are seeing how quickly human culture changes, how we communicate with nature, and is a warning against capitalism-driven climate change. The tortoise outlives every human she interacts with, and makes interesting observations about human behavior.

Clearly the author was definitely trying to emulate the Octopus narrator portions of Remarkably Bright Creatures or the Pony narrator portions of Pony Confidential. Those chapters I found to be polarizing- some people found them cheesy- really hated them and other really found them endearing. The narrative, as you can imagine, is slow paced and deliberate as you would imagine a tortoise’s thoughts to be. She says things like “I slept by the large rock for 300 suns” and then we can tell that the time period has jumped.

I found it rather clever that she would make references to music that the humans were playing or singing, so this would be your clue as to what the time period is. The humans were unnecessary to her survival and yet she had a connection and passing interest in them.

I liked it, I didn’t love it. I really wanted to love it, based on the great premise. But in execution, it was a bit… slow. (lol)

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC. Book to be published November 4, 2025.