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4.05 AVERAGE
4.05 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
lighthearted
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Read this book freshman year of high school in AP English. Thought a book on rabbits was gonna be boring but I was WRONG! Definitely a page turner with these bunnies on a serious journey. LOVE IT! Learned certain rabbit lingo such as "warren" haha. It's a great read! Definitely like this better than Catcher in the Rye.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I still quite like this book from my first profound childhood read- it's a pretty gripping adventure story with bonus constructed rabbit culture/language (even if some of the Lapinese is kind of silly sounding). Adams' description of the pastoral landscape is beautiful and soothing as well. But I had a harder time as an adult with the unconscious misogyny. Female characters are barely given names, much less agency, and even at one point a male rabbit comments, "what's a one doe, more or less?"
But the Black Rabbit of Inle will always hold a spooky place of reverence in my cobbled together animistic internal mythological universe...
But the Black Rabbit of Inle will always hold a spooky place of reverence in my cobbled together animistic internal mythological universe...
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I do not recommend reading this as a youth or child. I was traumatized by it. I have no idea whether it was a good or bad book, just that it gave me nightmares.
Although this book is VERY long, and it does take a while for the plot to speed up, if you have enough time to commit, the story is wonderful! Each individual character is so unique and charming. The plot twists and the depth of the story makes this a captivating read. Five stars!
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Though the worldbuilding fleshed out Adams' rabbit culture vastly, and though there were many nature scenes that read beautifully, I did find fault with certain things about this book. Despite the many thematically weighted quotes from classic literature that opened every chapter, I did not find much in the way of actual thematic material. Instead, Adams relied heavily on plot and dialogue alone (about 50% of the latter felt like it could've been cut for redundancy), and frequently abandoned subtlety in favor of framing his opinions about any given encounter the rabbits had as the morally correct ones. Both redundant dialogue and obvious authorial preaching are commonplace in books written for children/young adults, but they were frankly not things I expected from Watership Down. Knowing some of the real-world context and inspiration for these stories also made it somewhat difficult to ignore when Adams was clearly using rabbits and/or other animals as strawmen for his own ideas of the world. In the end, it was clear that Adams wanted to write an epic novel about rabbits going on a prolonged journey, encountering different ways of life, and battling their enemies spectacularly. And he definitely did that. I'm just a bit disappointed about the wasted thematic potential and the way his moralizing takes away from the complexities of the rabbit's (our) world.