A review by agatelee
Watership Down by Richard Adams

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

What a great adventure. I'm in the "it's not that deep" camp as far as this book goes. The rabbits experience the horrors of habitat destruction, but the book doesn't really examine that as an ongoing theme. It's a crisis that they need to run from, and that is all, as far as I could tell. They also experience the crushing depression of living under an authoritarian regime, briefly, but again, it's mostly just an obstacle to escape from. 

The thing I enjoyed the most were the rabbit folklore tales of El-arairah, and how they model his cleverness and trickery in their own endeavors. The thing I enjoyed least was how the female rabbits were characterized as passive, weak, and dispensable. It's a little slow in the first half, but the final section is epic. The final boss is an exciting villain to overcome, and the climax was delightfully chaotic. Because of its rabbit protagonists, the stakes feel much higher than in your average "save the world" story; it has down-to-earth consequences, which feel believable to me. 

Overall, I found Watership Down to be an epic adventure with real and consequential dangers, and cool mythology. I recommend it. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings