A review by emilyinherhead
Nine Rabbits by Virginia Zaharieva

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

3.5

Writing has a point if you say something, if you tell some story, an extraordinary one, if possible. But in the usual course of things, life is not extraordinary. It simply flows by like a river, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes reaching some bottleneck that it passes through with a roar, rushing through some rapids. What is the important part? The river is important. What about the banks? They are important, too. And the rocks, the bed? They are as well. So that's how I'll write. About all of that.

Nine Rabbits takes the form of two parts: Manda as a young girl being raised by her grandmother, who is unpredictable and sometimes abusive, and Manda as a grown woman working as a writer and artist, traveling and observing and musing about what her life is for. I was captured by the opening chapters, a little lost in the first bit of part 2, and then drawn back in by the end.

Early on we get an entire chapter about potatoes—potatoes!—complete, as are other sections of the book, with recipes. I definitely made note of a few I wanted to try.

The way Zaharieva writes Manda is very personal, almost like memoir. I had to check a few times to make sure that yes, this book is fiction. Manda feels real and relatable, even if she occasionally meanders into philosophical places that might lose some readers. Her words about creativity, purpose, and womanhood all really spoke to me.

She no longer cares who ate what when, where he is, what he's doing, if they're OK, did she give him all the right coping strategies, did she give enough, whether she made a mistake, and so on. She's flying away into the unbearable lightness of being.

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