Rabbit rabbit: Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
by Emily Austin
Contemporary, LGBTQ | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
Gilda, a twenty-something lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.

In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman, who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

Rabbit rabbit: Rabbit Island

Rabbit Island
by Elvira Navarro
translated by Christina MacSweeney
Short stories, Horror, Spain | Published: 2021 (first 2019) | Goodreads
Combining the gritty surrealism of David Lynch with the explosive interior meditations of Clarice Lispector, the stories in Elvira Navarro’s Rabbit Island traverse the fickle, often terrifying terrain between madness and freedom. In the title story, a so-called “non-inventor” conducts an experiment on an island inhabited exclusively by birds and is horrified by what the results portend. “Myotragus” bears witness to a man of privilege’s understanding of the world being violently disrupted by the sight of a creature long thought extinct. Elsewhere, an unsightly “paw” grows from a writer’s earlobe; a grandmother floats silently in the corner of a room.

These eleven stories from one of Granta’s “Best Young Spanish-Language Novelists” are psychogeographies of dingy hotel rooms, shape-shifting cities, and graveyards. They act as microscopes fixed upon the regions of our interior lives we often neglect, where the death of God and the failures of institutions have given way to alternative modes of making sense of the world. They are cracked bedroom mirrors. Do you like what you see?

Rabbit rabbit: Finding the Bunny

Finding the Bunny
The secrets of America's most influential and invisible art
revealed through the struggles of one woman's journey
by Samantha Paris
Biography | Published: 2018 | Goodreads
Through narration, flashback, inner monologue, and snappy laugh-out-loud dialogue, Samantha Paris's Finding the Bunny--now optioned by Warner Bros. for development into a television series-- artfully peels back the curtain on the fascinating world of voice-over, and much more. With untethered honesty and humor, voice-over genius Paris reveals her intensely personal story— that of a woman in mid-career, recovering from a disastrous childhood, dealing with a failed but far-from-loveless marriage, running a hugely successful business, shepherding thousands of students through the learning process so that they can realize their dreams, while dealing with a burning internal conflict about what happened to hers.

Rabbit rabbit: What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

What Moves the Dead
by T. Kingfisher
Horror, Gothic, Retelling | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
What Moves the Dead is Kingfisher's retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher.”

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

Rabbit rabbit: Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent
by Leigh Bargudo
Urban Fantasy | Published: 2023 | Goodreads
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Rabbit rabbit: Snow Hare by Paula Lichtarowicz

The Snow Hare
by Paula Lichtarowicz
Historical, WWII | Happy release: January 31, 2023 | Goodreads
Is it possible to fall in love at the edge of life?

Lena has lived a long, quiet life on her farm in Wales, alongside her husband and child. But as her end approaches, buried memories begin to return. Of her childhood in Poland, and her passion for science. Of the early days of her marriage, reluctant wife to an army officer. Of the birth of her daughter, whose arrival changed everything.

Memories less welcome return, too. Her Polish village, transformed overnight by the Soviets, and the war that doomed her entire family to the frigid work camps of the Siberian tundra. And buried in that blinding snow, amongst the darkness of survival, the most haunting memory of all: that of an extraordinary new love.

First sentence(s):
A shadow is moving in Lena's bedroom.

Rabbit rabbit: Peacebunny

Peacebunny Island
The Extraordinary Journey of a Boy and His Comfort Rabbits,
and How They’re Teaching Us about Hope and Kindness
by Caleb Smith
Memoir, Animals | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
The incredible true story of a boy who is changing the world through kindness... one bunny at a time.

Meet Caleb Smith: a young man who, at age 9, decided to follow his dream to train endangered and rescued rabbits to become therapy animals. Today, 15-year-old Caleb is an entrepreneur who owns and operates a private 22-acre Mississippi River sanctuary called Peacebunny Island. The deal is simple: he saves the rabbits, and they help save us. Driven by an unbreakable desire to minister kindness and compassion, Caleb's adventures include:

Founding a program of therapy rabbits who visit with first responders, senior citizens, families with special needs, and much more

Embarking on a quest along the Mississippi River to develop the site that would become Peacebunny Island

Overcoming challenges, obstacles, and disappointed dreams along the way

Inspiring hope and possibility in the next generation of young people

Stories of the kids who experience the calm, healing magic of Peacebunny Island

Rabbit rabbit: Rabbit Hutch

The Rabbit Hutch
by Tess Gunty
Literary, Coming of Age | Published: 2022 | Goodreads
The automobile industry has abandoned Vacca Vale, Indiana, leaving the residents behind, too. In a run-down apartment building on the edge of town, commonly known as the Rabbit Hutch, a number of people now reside quietly, looking for ways to live in a dying city. Apartment C2 is lonely and detached. C6 is aging and stuck. C8 harbors an extraordinary fear. But C4 is of particular interest.

Here live four teenagers who have recently aged out of the state foster-care system: three boys and one girl, Blandine, who The Rabbit Hutch centers around. Hauntingly beautiful and unnervingly bright, Blandine is plagued by the structures, people, and places that not only failed her but actively harmed her. Now all Blandine wants is an escape, a true bodily escape like the mystics describe in the books she reads.

Rabbit rabbit: White Rabbit

White Rabbit, Red Wolf
by Tom Pollock
YA, Thriller | Published: 2019 | Goodreads
Seventeen-year-old Peter Blankman is a math genius. He also suffers from devastating panic attacks. Pete gets through each day with the help of his mother—a famous scientist—and his beloved twin sister, Bel.

But when his mom is nearly assassinated in front of his eyes and Bel disappears, Pete finds himself on the run. Dragged into a world where state and family secrets intertwine, Pete must use his extraordinary analytical skills to find his missing sister and track down the people who attacked his mother. But his greatest battle will be with the enemy inside: the constant terror that threatens to overwhelm him.

Rabbit rabbit: Beware the Little White Rabbit

Beware the Little White Rabbit
edited by Shannon Delany and Judith Graves
Short stories, Fantasy, Retelling, YA, Alice in Wonderland | Published: 2015 | Goodreads
stories by Charlotte Bennardo
C. Lee McKenzie
David Turnbull
Christine Norris
Jacqueline Horsfall
Medeia Sharif
Laura Lascarso
Tom Luke
Jessica Bayliss
Crystal Schubert
Holly Odell
Jennifer Moore
Liam Hogan

Curiosity often leads to trouble...

Thirteen powerful voices in young adult fiction invite you to journey into startling new Wonderlands in this nod to the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s timeless character, ALICE.

Mystery. Madness. Mayhem. Each story in this collection will intrigue, bewitch, and enchant. Through rich historicals, castles and keeps, wild wormholes, secret workshops, deadly plagues, and gritty urban explorations, we present new tales of Alice and her white rabbit.

Whether an intrepid reporter, a would-be car thief, or the last human in a world ruled by machines, at the heart of each story Alice is a girl discovering who she really is in worlds that never fail to surprise.

What wonders await, oh curious reader? Leap down the rabbit hole and discover the truth...

~*~
* stay tuned for Alice in Wonderland event later this month ;-)

Rabbit rabbit: Authority

Authority
by Jeff Vandermeer
SciFi, Horror | Published: 2014 | Goodreads
The bone-chilling, hair-raising second installment of the Southern Reach Trilogy

After thirty years, the only human engagement with Area X—a seemingly malevolent landscape surrounded by an invisible border and mysteriously wiped clean of all signs of civilization—has been a series of expeditions overseen by a government agency so secret it has almost been forgotten: the Southern Reach. Following the tumultuous twelfth expedition chronicled in Annihilation, the agency is in complete disarray.

John Rodríguez (aka "Control") is the Southern Reach's newly appointed head. Working with a distrustful but desperate team, a series of frustrating interrogations, a cache of hidden notes, and hours of profoundly troubling video footage, Control begins to penetrate the secrets of Area X. But with each discovery he must confront disturbing truths about himself and the agency he's pledged to serve.

Rabbit rabbit: Rabbits

Rabbits
by Terry Miles
SciFi, Thriller | Published: 2021 | Goodreads
Conspiracies abound in this surreal and yet all-too-real technothriller in which a deadly underground alternate reality game might just be altering reality itself, set in the same world as the popular Rabbits podcast.

It's an average work day. You've been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air—4:44 pm. You go to check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize it is April 4th—4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444. Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses our global reality as its canvas. Since the game first started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. Their identities are unknown. So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe itself. But the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes. Players have died in the past—and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin. Enter K—a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, the alleged winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing. Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline and Eleven begins. And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

Mary Toft; or, the Rabbit Queen by Dexter Palmer

Mary Toft; or, the Rabbit Queen
by Dexter Palmer

Published: 2019
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Genre: Historical
Hardback: 319
Rating: 5
Goodreads | Website


First sentence(s):
The convoy of decrepit coaches and wagons that constituted Nicholas Fox's exhibition of medical curiosities rolled into the village of Godalming on a Friday in early September 1726, soon after sunrise.

"...based on a true story—in 1726 in the small town of Godalming, England, a young woman confounds the medical community by giving birth to dead rabbits."

Surgeon John Howard is a rational man. His apprentice Zachary knows John is reluctant to believe anything that purports to exist outside the realm of logic. But even John cannot explain how or why Mary Toft, the wife of a local farmer, manages to give birth to a dead rabbit. When this singular event becomes a regular occurrence, John realizes that nothing in his experience as a village physician has prepared him to deal with a situation as disturbing as this. He writes to several preeminent surgeons in London, three of whom quickly arrive in the small town of Godalming ready to observe and opine. When Mary's plight reaches the attention of King George, Mary and her doctors are summoned to London, where Zachary experiences for the first time a world apart from his small-town existence, and is exposed to some of the darkest corners of the human soul. All the while, Mary lies in bed, waiting for another birth, as doubts begin to blossom among the surgeons and a growing group of onlookers grow impatient for another miracle...

My two-bits:

Just the right kind of whimsical craziness. And based on a true story.

Loved how this was written - really felt the time period, place and people.

~*~
* part of the Tournament of Books 2020 (here)

First Book Of The Year 2020 and Rabbit Rabbit

Ringing in the new month and new year with...

Rabbits for Food
by Binnie Kirshenbaum
-Contemporary, Humor, Mental Illness | Goodreads
It’s New Year’s Eve, the holiday of forced gaiety, mandatory fun, and paper hats. While dining out with her husband and their friends, Kirshenbaum's protagonist—an acerbic, mordantly witty, and clinically depressed writer—fully unravels. Her breakdown lands her in the psych ward of a prestigious New York hospital where she refuses all modes of recommended treatment. Instead, she passes the time chronicling the lives of her fellow “lunatics” and writing a novel about how she got to this place. Her story is a hilarious and harrowing deep dive into the disordered mind of a woman who sees the world all too clearly.

Propelled by stand-up comic timing and rife with pinpoint insights, her examination of what it means to be unloved, and loved; to succeed, and fail; to be, at once, both impervious and raw ultimately reveals how art can lead us out of—or into—the depths of disconsolate loneliness and piercing grief. Rabbits for Food, Kirshenbaum’s first novel in a decade, is a bravura literary performance.

Rabbit rabbit: Beastars

Beastars
tv series, season 2 (11 episodes)
based on manga by: Paru Itagaki
-Animation, Drama, Fantasy, Japanese | Goodreads | imdb | my rating: 5
The story takes place in a world of modern, civilized, anthropomorphic animals with a cultural divide between the carnivores and herbivores. The series takes its name from the in-universe rank of Beastar, an individual of great talent, service, and notoriety. Legoshi, a large gray wolf, is a timid and quiet student of Cherryton Academy where he lives in a dorm with several other carnivorous students including his outgoing Labrador friend, Jack. As a member of the school's drama club, Legoshi works as a stagehand and supports the actors of the club headed by the star pupil Louis, a red deer. Out of nowhere, Tem the alpaca is brutally murdered and devoured in the night setting a wave of unease and distrust between the herbivore and carnivore students. At the same time, Legoshi has a fateful encounter with Haru, a small dwarf rabbit, and begins developing complex feelings for her.

My two-bits:
After watching the first 7 episodes, I am hooked.

Mind bending thoughts of diversity, bullying, love, etc. are tackled.

Loving the relationship development between the wolf and rabbit.

~*~
* Legosi and Haru image from Netflix site. FYI this anime is schedule to stream on Netflix soon.

* a new meme: first of the month with something rabbit themed (rabbit rabbit)

Marshmallow by Clare Turlay Newberry

Marshmallow
story and pictures by Clare Turlay Newberry

Published: 2010
Publisher: HarperCollins
Genre: Children, Animals, Rabbit
Paperback: 32
Rating: 5
Goodreads

First sentence(s):
Oliver was a gray cat with tabby markings who lived in an apartment.

Marshmallow is an endearingly and beautifully illustrated book about an adorable baby bunny who comes to live in the house of a pampered cat, and the friendship that develops between them.

My two-bits:

Sweet friendship tale with adorable illustrations to match.

~*~
* starting a new meme: posting on the first of the month with something rabbit themed (rabbit rabbit)