The Rabbits – Sophie Overett

READ FOR BOOK CLUB
Chosen by Rachel

16yo teenager Charlie Rabbit goes missing in the midst of an Australian heatwave. The story is about the collateral damage to the already dysfunctional family which must now navigate Charlie’s absence, too. A contemporary story with a touch of magical realism.

I have a theory that a person spends half their life thinking they’re the normal one but the reality is that normal doesn’t exist. People are complicated and they make the wrong choice all the fucking time. They’ve had chicken-shit parents or punchy boyfriends or long, long lives no matter how many years they’ve lived, and those things make them cowards or they make them strong and they make them care about other people too much, or not enough or not at all, and they give them this weird, warped sense of self-preservation and it can’t be navigated by you or me because we might see right now where a person is on a map but we haven’t seen the route they’ve taken to get there. All you can control is you and what’s yours and the choices that you make, not anyone else’s.

● The Rabbits is a work of contemporary Australian fiction with a tender, examining quality but also a nagging hint to expect more than you initially thought. What starts as a simple story of a dysfunctional family with extremely relatable characters and examinations of family dynamics, takes a sudden turn into a magical realist bent. The story is so steeped in reality before this, it makes the U-turn sharp. I enjoyed the magical element for its ability to make us focus even more on the characters left behind and how it supported the themes. Overett has a beautiful turn of phrase, too. I starting dog-earring pages to refer back to but was creasing too many pages and had to stop! My favourite character was Olive, the teenage daughter who was labelled ‘a brat”, however I understood her every action.” – Rachel

● The Rabbits had a point of difference with the magical realism angle. It came as a bit of a surprise, despite knowing something out of the ordinary was coming, but it made the book more interesting to me and I enjoyed this aspect. I admired the author’s characterisation, too. She had me enjoying all the characters, even though some were difficult and frustrating, and their relationships were dysfunctional and lacked communication – I really wanted them to just talk to each other!! One gripe is Delia’s reaction to Charlie’s disappearance. It didn’t ring true to me that a mother would carry on as usual and go to work when her child was missing. However, I became so emotionally invested in this book it had me weeping frequently. I loved The Rabbits, including the ending which involved a promising resolution without being unrealistic.– Jo

● The characters in The Rabbits were lovely – flawed, well-rounded and relatable. Even the less likeable ones still had vulnerabilities that really made me feel for them. There were however aspects of the novel that I found detracted from the story. The magic realism felt jarring and the depiction of a mother with a missing child just wasn’t urgent enough for me. While I was glad to have to met the Rabbit family, I wasn’t completely wowed by their fantastical story. – Suzy

● The first part of The Rabbits is focused on an ordinary dysfunctional family and an ordinary domestic setting. Then, out of nowhere, it took an unexpected twist and we were thrown into a world of magical realism. I really enjoyed this turn of events. Overett made me sit up from the comfort of an easy, flowing story, and made me mentally challenge this unbelievable new element. The novel was written beautifully, and the characters and plot were convincing which in turn made the unbelievable actually quite believable. – Jodie

Published 2021
Penguin Random House
336 pages