THE CONSTANT RABBIT
JASPER FFORDE
*****
When a family of rabbits move into the small village of Much Hemlock, the villagers are in uproar. Despite working in the governmental rabbit compliance task force, Peter Knox finds himself questioning what it means to be human as all around him turn on his rabbit friends…
I have never read one of Jasper Fforde’s books before, however when this book appeared on my NetGalley daily email I requested it from the blurb alone. A story of anthropomorphised rabbits which highlights the politics, racism and Brexit madness of the United Kingdom? What an amazing concept! It’s absurd but while it could have come across as just a bit ridiculous, it’s so well done that you find yourself believing in it fully. The world building is superb – there’s a lot of puns and pop culture rabbit references which have become ‘real world’ terms that are totally believable. Fforde keeps you immersed all the way through with snippets of ‘history’ at the start of chapters and also fun footnotes which explain the terms used. The plot itself is well rounded and I really enjoyed and empathised with the characters. As well as being laugh out loud funny in places, it also hits a darker humour whilst being thought provoking and also deeply moving in places as it pulls parallels from real-life.
My only criticism would be that in the Kindle ARC that I was reading, the footnotes aren’t properly integrated. The first few are just a few paragraphs away from the note, which is fine considering you can change the font-size dramatically and it’s hard to know where to place them otherwise. However, later on in the book, they start just being placed at the end of chapters, which as the chapters are very viable in length becomes quite a tricky search which ruined the momentum of reading. I have seen footnotes on other Kindle books which pop-up when clicked and I think this would be a great way to display them if possible as they really are essential reading as you go through and shouldn’t be ignored!
Overall, The Constant Rabbit is one of my Kindig Gems for the year – it’s a book I can’t stop recommending to everyone I know. Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder & Stoughton for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.