Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Rabbit Hutch

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.

Content Warnings

emmas_bookshelf's review against another edition

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challenging tense 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

4.0

I found this novel super interesting and thought provoking. The author experimented a lot with form and for me, in some places it worked and in some places it didn’t… I think I would have liked more consistency but I can appreciate what she tried to do. I wouldn’t recommend this if you don’t like lit fic (literary fiction), but it does get at a lot of important topics in our society.

Content Warnings

vicblue's review against another edition

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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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tangerinetea's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense medium-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

3.75

Content Warnings

danaaliyalevinson's review

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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.

Content Warnings

morecrocs's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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mrslsmith's review against another edition

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challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

3.75

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