Bookseller Reviews
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Your New Favourite Outsider Antiheroine
If The Rabbit Hutch had existed when I was in my late teens/early twenties, I would have held it close and cherished it.
This novel is visceral but bleak,... READ MORE
A haunting tale
I think this will stay with me for a long while - it's an extraordinary book, unlike anything I've read before.
At the heart of it all is the story of Bl... READ MORE
Gritty yet stunning
As a reader for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2022 I was astounded by the quality of books on offer, but The Rabbit Hutch really took the cake.
F... READ MORE
A bold and surreal debut novel.
Intelligent, forthright and Hildegard obsessed Tiffany Watkins ages out of the foster system, drops out of school, changes her name to Blandine and rents a... READ MORE
Quality, pure quality!
Let me say straight away, I like my books straight forward. A beginning, a middle and an end, which is what makes my falling in love with this book even mo... READ MORE
Packs a punch
Visceral, disturbing and a bleak picture of the dark underbelly of contemporary small town American society, this is a book that packs a punch to the brain... READ MORE
A Vision of Love
I loved this exceptional debut. It has a real feel of a 21st century great American novel. Reminded me of the best Todd Solondz films. A sick building, Mor... READ MORE
Bravo!
I picked this up because it won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize - easily enough to get me intrigued. It didn't necessarily seem to be my kind of read b... READ MORE
What. A. Book.
I rarely give 5 stars to a book, but this was truly an incredible read and very worthy of each star. The characters are so full of personality and energy t... READ MORE
Amazing!
This is an amazing novel! It has a fresh, original feel, and while it is quite a brutal read, it's also hopeful and tender, and by the time I read the last... READ MORE
Weird and Wonderful
This was an incredibly bizarre and strange book to read, but I loved it anyway. I find it a hard one to describe, it feels like a surreal mash of the most ... READ MORE
Funny, evocative and disturbingly relevant.
This book feels like an amalgamation of the permutations of mental states in our current world - the different ways that we could be doing/coping consideri... READ MORE
Out of the Blue
Novels as startlingly good as this one don’t come along often, let alone debut novels. Rabbit Hutch recalls a pantheon of writers, whose love for oddball c... READ MORE
The Rabbit Hutch
I have never read anything like this book - the writing is fantastic. Filled with fully fleshed out characters that are incredibly interesting to read abou... READ MORE
A gorgeously written debut that read a bit like short stories
The Rabbit Hutch follows the lives of the inhabitants of La Lapinière, aka "the Rabbit Hutch", an affordable housing block in a small Indiana town called V... READ MORE
The Rabbit Hutch
"Powered by a collection of brilliantly drawn and truly memorable characters living in the same dilapidated apartment block, Gunty's assured debut demonstr... READ MORE
a mesmerizing debut
I started reading this some time last year, but struggled a little. Since finding it in audio form, it was all I could think about until I finished it this... READ MORE
Potential, Brilliance and Hardship
The first 50/60 pages of Tess Gunty's debut novel, I'll be honest I was struggling to latch onto, but once that initial character set up is through and the... READ MORE
Bravura
Much to admire in this wide ranging novel from this first-time author , although not my choice for debut of the year. I did find the main character a very ... READ MORE
Don’t put it down. Don’t look away.
The quick review: I loved this book! It is true WOW fiction, where you feel privileged to even be from the same species of such a brilliant author.
(Debut... READ MORE
Not my kind of book, yet I was mesmerised!
This is not a book that I would organically have picked up, yet I was oddly hypnotised by it. I read the first chapter, simply on the search for something ... READ MORE
Fascinating
You could pick any character in this book and think about their motives for a long time. Fragmented, hazy, psychological, brutal, shimmering - this frank p... READ MORE
Something really special
It's incredible to say this is a debut. The Rabbit Hutch is so intelligently woven together, and centred around a rundown appartment block in the dying tow... READ MORE
Magical
I just finished reading this and immediately want to lock myself into a room and read it all over again. Tess Gunther handles all the delicate threads of t... READ MORE
Synopsis
A bitingly funny, razor-sharp debut about a motley assortment of residents in a crumbling apartment block.
Welcome to The Rabbit Hutch.
An online obituary writer. A young mother with a secret. A woman waging a solo campaign against rodents. Separated by the thin walls of The Rabbit Hutch, a low-cost housing complex in the run-down Indiana town of Vacca Vale, these individual lives unfold.
But Blandine isn't like the other residents of her building. Ethereally beautiful and formidably intelligent, she spends her hours reading Dante and dreaming about becoming a female mystic.
Until, that is, three sweltering days in July culminate in an act of violence that will change everything, and finally offer her a chance to escape. Savage and hilarious, The Rabbit Hutch is a piercing look at the power structures that shape us, and the tale of a young woman with irrepressible strength.
Publisher information
- Publisher: Oneworld Publications
- ISBN: 9780861545803
- Number of pages: 352
- Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
- Languages: English
Customer Reviews
View allBrilliant debut!
This novel was an ambitious and stunning debut from Tess Gunty. Between the beautifully developed characters and the author's ability to fit many stories i... READ MORE
Great Debut!
Thank you to the publishers for this early review copy, so a debut author I had otherwise heard nothing about only one thing for it... open the book.
The t... READ MORE
Just couldn't get into it.
I can honestly say I cannot recall the last time I tried to get past the first 10 paged of a book and gave up.
Did not make any sense to me. This is my v... READ MORE
A haunting meditation on nothing - and everything
Tess Gunty’s debut novel is a dazzling snapshot of life - and lives - in the twenty first century that skilfully manages to speak to all of the major issue... READ MORE
How do judges choose a winner?
I couldn't make any of this novel. I kept getting lost where we were, it would jump from one scene to another without warning.
Not impressed with this one... READ MORE
Powerful disturbing … a dissection of modern life
Much has been written about this debut novel - it is a powerful exploration of American /"Western Society "life in the early 2020s- a picture of the decli... READ MORE
Great characters
"He's been parked there for hours."
"How do you know it's a him?"
"It's always a him, even when it's not."
It took me a while to get used to the way T... READ MORE
Novel set in INDIANA
Winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2022.
I noted that the author won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize 2022 and that lured me to read it, plu... READ MORE
Eyeopening.
An extraordinary debut novel focusing on a group of residents living in a run-down housing complex named ' The Rabbit Hutch'. The story develops around Bla... READ MORE
Clever and original debut
On a hot night in Apartment C4, Blandine Watkins exits her body. She is only 18, but she has spent most of her life wishing for this to happen,” begins The... READ MORE
Original
Tess Gunty is a remarkable new writing talent. The Rabbit Hutch is a real marmite book; I suspect people will love it or hate it, for a variety of reasons... READ MORE
What a satisfying read would recommend this book
The characterisation and the diversity of their life experiences are truly amazing in a debut novel. Thank you Kurde at Horsham for the recommendation.
Promising debut author
A very promising author, however I’m really undecided about this one. Some of the stories were amusing and intriguing, others were uncomfortable to read, b... READ MORE
The Rabbit Hutch
I didn’t enjoy this book at all.
Hard going.
Whilst I can appreciate the evident intelligence of the author, I found this novel something of a chore to wade all the way through. There is so much here ... READ MORE
No real point to the story
The book introduced characters then didn’t finish their stories. It ended without “ending”, very strange read. I’m not sure of the purpose of this book.
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