Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

The Rabbit Hutch by Tess Gunty

18 reviews

cstein's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

In this ambitious and then painfully pointed examination of contemporary struggle, Gunty employs a unique narrative style and extensive knowledge of her spiritual and philosophical forebears to great effect. The late, Dostoevsky-esque monologue chapter was the novel's highlight and a pleasure to parse through. Gunty has a keen eye for phenomena one passively observes but never articulates. However, when it finally arrived, the scene anticipated from page one felt underexamined.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Sexual harassment, Bullying, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Classism, Blood, Mental illness, Cursing, Violence, Sexual assault, and Stalking

Minor: Vomit and Sexual content

abisnail564's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Bit too weird for me. The ending brought it together but definitely too long chapters and too many miserable characters!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Sexual content, Death, Animal cruelty, Violence, and Child abuse

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Drug use, and Death of parent

Minor: Abortion and Suicidal thoughts

eriley's review against another edition

dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Not totally sure how I felt about this one. I feel like it was trying very hard to say something or be "about" something but I have no idea what. There were chapters that I really enjoyed and found myself savoring some of the passages. But I think I would have liked some of those chapters better as individual short stories, not part of a bigger novel to be honest. The ending didn't feel totally earned. There were so many characters who had these incredibly minor roles but then we're supposed to believe were capable of doing these terrible, terrible things... and then characters we saw so much of who did next to nothing at the end of the day. I don't know. I really loved the setting, though, as someone who went to college in a very similar town.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship

Moderate: Animal cruelty

lindsayerin's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Sexual assault, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, and Animal death

horourke's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny medium-paced

3.0

“I am so sick…of violence against women disguised as validation.” 

I wish I enjoyed this book more than I did. I was captivated by the prose and Gunty’s mastery of telling the story from multiple perspectives. The book was often darkly funny and filled with powerful passages about the human condition. Gunty wrote exceptionally vibrant and believable characters and brought each to life fully. Despite the (mostly) 3rd person narration, we can discern the characters’ feelings, thoughts and motivations. With multiple points of view, Gunty crafts a tale of people whose lives are interconnected, whether they realize it or not. However, I agree with the criticism that some characters’ stories were less central to the plot (Hope and her husband, mainly) and wish the final reveal of what happened to Blandine on that hot summer night was more dramatic; it felt almost like a throwaway, described in full only about 20 pages before the novel’s ending. 

I think my main issue with the book is the amount of truly deplorable men in it. At it’s core, this is a novel about a bunch of weird losers who torture and ridicule young girls to compensate for their own insecurity. James Yager absolutely disgusted me, and I found myself annotating every chapter dedicated to his story with notes on how much of a pathetic creep he is. Nearly everyone in this book makes themselves out to be the victim, except for Blandine, who is the only true victim. While relatable and indicative of the lived experiences of maligned women, it was a tough read. 

I found the author’s commentary on capitalism, depression, and connection very interesting. Many of the characters described feeling as though life “isn’t real,” and the novel does an excellent job of painting the town of Vacca Vale as a kind of purgatory. The first epigraph about rabbits is eerily foreshadowing for the content of the novel, and I constantly returned to it throughout. It does a great job of summing up key motifs: isolation, chaos, violence of insecure males, feeling trapped, etc. I would’ve loved for these themes to be explored more in depth, especially toward the end of the book; I wish it was more about human connection and less about abused women. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Injury/Injury detail, Sexism, Sexual content, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, and Violence

vicblue's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence, Animal cruelty, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic relationship, Mental illness, and Sexual content

heatherjchin's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Cursing, Bullying, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Addiction, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual assault, Mental illness, Abandonment, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Torture, Adult/minor relationship, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, and Emotional abuse

Minor: Drug use

danaaliyalevinson's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I wanted to like this one. It won the National Book Award. And the first 100 pages I was like, this is genius. And then it was all downhill from there. It's about a group of people all living in the same housing project as they each play a part in a violent event. I thought it got lost in its own too clever by half structure, and then the characters wound up being so underdeveloped that I felt nothing as it hurtled toward the conclusion I saw coming from a mile away. Then there's also this thing I see with a lot of modern fiction writers where it feels like literary fiction by way of Wes Anderson. It's very en vogue. And sometimes it works. But here, I thought it was so wrapped up in its need to be quirky and idiosyncratic that I lost the heart.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Death, Gaslighting, Murder, Sexual assault, Animal death, Blood, Classism, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Infidelity, Sexual content, Sexual violence, and Suicidal thoughts