Books like Remarkably Bright Creatures

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman introduces the grumpiest man in Sweden, a recently widowed retiree whose plans to die are repeatedly interrupted by neighbors who insist on needing his help. Backman and Van Pelt both write about people who have walled themselves off from the world after losing the person who made it bearable, and both use humor to make grief something readers can sit with rather than look away from. Ove's transformation from isolated crank to reluctant community pillar follows the same arc as Tova Sullivan's gradual opening to the people around her.

Both authors understand that stubbornness and kindness are not opposites but often live in the same person. Backman's comedy is broader than Van Pelt's, with set pieces that border on slapstick, but the emotional payoff hits just as hard. The small-town setting creates the same fishbowl effect as Van Pelt's coastal community, where everyone knows everyone and privacy is a polite fiction.

Readers who loved Tova will recognize Ove immediately.

The Maid by Nita Prose follows Molly Gray, a hotel maid whose literal-minded approach to the world makes social interaction a constant puzzle. When she discovers a dead body in a guest's room, her inability to read social cues makes her the prime suspect. Prose and Van Pelt both write protagonists who see the world from an angle most people do not, and both use that unusual perspective to reveal truths that neurotypical characters miss.

Molly's devotion to her routines and her late grandmother mirrors Tova's attachment to her cleaning work at the aquarium, and both women find that paying close attention to the world around them is a form of intelligence the rest of the world undervalues. The mystery element in The Maid gives it a faster pace than Remarkably Bright Creatures, but the underlying warmth is identical. Prose writes Molly with respect and specificity, never turning her differences into a punchline.

Readers who appreciated how Van Pelt handled Marcellus's non-human perspective will enjoy seeing the world through Molly's equally distinctive eyes.

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson tells the story of Lillian, a woman with no direction in life, who agrees to care for the twin stepchildren of her wealthy college friend. The catch: the twins burst into flames when they get upset. Wilson and Van Pelt both use a single strange premise to anchor a story about people finding family in places they never expected.

Where Van Pelt gives us a mind-reading octopus, Wilson gives us literal fire, and both authors play it straight, treating the fantastical element as a fact of life rather than a metaphor to be decoded. Lillian's growing attachment to the twins mirrors the quiet bonds that form in Van Pelt's novel, built not on grand gestures but on showing up every day. Wilson's prose is funnier and more irreverent than Van Pelt's, with a working-class perspective that adds bite to the social commentary.

But both books end in the same place: with characters who did not think they had room for more love discovering they were wrong.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman centers on a woman whose carefully ordered life starts to crack open when she befriends Raymond, a shambling IT guy from her office. Eleanor's social isolation runs deeper than Tova Sullivan's, rooted in childhood trauma she has rewritten in her memory, but both characters share the experience of moving through the world at a remove from the people around them.

Honeyman and Van Pelt both write about what happens when someone who has been alone for too long lets another person in, and both handle that process with patience rather than rushing toward a tidy resolution. Eleanor's formal speech patterns and Marcellus's clinical observations serve the same narrative function: they defamiliarize ordinary human behavior, making readers see everyday interactions as the strange and wonderful things they actually are.

The workplace friendship between Eleanor and Raymond builds with the same organic warmth as Tova's connections at the aquarium. This is a book about learning to accept help, written without a single moment of condescension.

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman takes a botched bank robbery and a hostage situation and turns them into a story about eight strangers who are each dealing with private pain they cannot name. Backman's second appearance on this list is earned: he and Van Pelt occupy the same emotional territory, writing about broken people with a combination of humor and tenderness that never tilts into sentimentality. The structure here is more complex than Remarkably Bright Creatures, cutting between police interrogations and flashbacks, but the payoff is similar.

You finish the book knowing each character's wound and feeling like you watched it start to heal. Backman writes grief as a full-body experience, not something characters think about but something that changes how they move through rooms and talk to cashiers. Van Pelt does the same with Tova, letting her cleaning rituals speak for the emotions she cannot articulate.

Both books also deliver surprise reveals that reframe everything you thought you understood about the characters.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin follows a bitter, grieving bookstore owner on a small island whose life restarts when a mysterious package changes everything. Zevin and Van Pelt both structure their novels around the slow thaw of a person who has decided the world has nothing left to offer them. A.

J. starts the book drinking too much and caring about nothing, and Tova starts hers cleaning the same aquarium floors she has cleaned for years. Both characters are stuck, and both are rescued not by dramatic events but by the steady accumulation of small human kindnesses. Zevin's novel spans more time than Van Pelt's, covering years of A.J.

's life in a way that shows how a single act of generosity ripples outward. The island setting creates the same intimate community atmosphere Van Pelt builds in her Pacific Northwest town. Both books also share a deep love of stories and the conviction that paying attention to the people around you is the most important thing a person can do.

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune sends a lonely, rule-following bureaucrat to evaluate an orphanage for magical children on a remote island, where he discovers a family he did not know he needed. Klune and Van Pelt share a commitment to writing stories where the most radical act is treating someone with basic decency. Linus Baker's rigid worldview cracks open the way Tova's does, through sustained contact with people who refuse to fit into the categories he has prepared for them.

The magical children in Klune's book serve a similar function to Marcellus in Van Pelt's: they see the world without the filters that adult humans have learned to apply, and their honesty forces the adults around them to be honest too. Both novels are quiet in their pacing and loud in their emotional impact, building toward moments that feel earned rather than manufactured. The found-family theme runs through both books like a spine.

If Remarkably Bright Creatures made you believe an octopus could change a life, this book will make you believe a six-year-old Antichrist can do the same.