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)