Anita's Reviews > Tentacle

WiT

This book was WILD ! Can I even describe this book to you?

In the year 2024, a tsunami, attributed to climate change, comes and destroys a fragile ecosystem off the coast of the Dominican Republic. The coral reef fails and sea life suffers a collapse. Black market sea life sales soar, and a specific anemone lives in a jar in the home of the nation's Ominculne, the head of the officially declared ancient religion.

In 1991, the anemone lives in a hole in the coral reef off the coast.

Giorgio and Linda buy a strip of the Playa Bo in order to preserve and conserve the fragile coral reef population directly off of the coast. Linda is painfully passionate about saving the oceans, comparing her eyes on the ocean to those of an oncologist's on the body of his patient - knowing that she can save it, if only she could gather the funding for her research. Giorgio is seemingly driven by his much baser love of Linda.

With twisted and overlapping time lines and narratives, it is too easy to lose one's way in this short book. A secretive religion in which a sea anemone can bestow time travel is the quiet eye in this storm, easily overlooked.

This book demands attention and if one reads it straight through, one might turn immediately to page 1 to begin again. Or, if the reader does not sit easily with confusion like myself, they might find themselves returning to earlier chapters at key points along the way.

It is safe to say that there is much to turn over in one's mind and speculate upon from this story. About the characters, about the references to historical people and events, current political and economical phenomena, and cultural and religious history surrounding the area. There is also quite a discussion of sexuality woven into the narratives, I assume to add even more color to the already burgeoning social commentary.

The overlapping timelines type of time travel and the overarching theme of environmental politics brought to mind Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time.