The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro

...there is no you there is no me there is only we we we we we..."

There's quite a bit going on in this book. Elisa Esposito is a mute woman working as a janitor at a government research facility in 1960s Baltimore. Colonel Richard Strickland has been put in charge of an expedition to the Amazon to capture a river creature the local tribes are worshiping. The creature is captured and brought to the research facility, tying Strickland and Elisa's lives to its own.

The writing is sharp, the story is fast paced, the characters are well thought out. If you just want a really good story to fall into this is a good one. Woman meets monster, woman wants to save monster. What could go wrong is as intriguing as what could go right. It goes a touch further, I think, riddled through with political statements using the way things were to point out how things are.

A mute woman, a gay senior, a black woman, and a Russian spy are standing between the creature and its absolute destruction by the heavy hand of the Government. That the hand of the Government is decaying alive is a separate matter entirely. These are the people deemed less than human, minorities and misfits, and they're the ones determined to save the monster.

"If she’s not wearing them for his enjoyment, then whose?"

Strickland might be everything that is wrong with Society. (She wears them for her own enjoyment, Buttface.) Everything from suburbia to the jungle, from his wife at home to that thing in the laboratory, it is there by and for his selfish close-minded whims, and everything must be brought under control or destroyed. Bare minimum, he represents the failure of the US Government to address mental health in both its citizens and those returning from service...Which is to say, this guy needs a padded room.

In the end, the creature understands what humans just can't. 

"...there is no you there is no me there is only we we we we we..."

And the movie? I saw that. I thought that was wonderful too.

5 stars