Several decades before our story starts there has occurred the Anthropomorphising Event in which certain animals have suddenly become human-like.
In the UK the event has mainly effected rabbits though there are also foxes, weasels and individual animals from several other species. In Africa there is a human-like elephant.
Although only a few individual animals were originally affected by the anthropomorphisation, due to their energetic breeding habits there are now great numbers of human-like rabbits in the UK.

Many references are made to Beatrix Potter but Fforde’s rabbits are not the cute and cuddly Flopsy bunnies. Neither are they bunnies mimicking human behavior. They have their own religion and values as well as norms of courtesy and interaction. They are intellectual and ecological aware, disliking waste and consumerism. And if Constance Rabbit is anything to go by, they are excellent cooks.

It seems inevitable that such an alternate reality would become ridiculous and absurd but under the author’s expert guidance the world of The Constant Rabbit is much like our own world except for the rabbits.
Just as real, unfortunately, is the way so many use the rabbits as a political and scapegoat, treating them as ‘the other’ and blaming them for society’s ills.

The narrative is told from the POV of Peter Knox a human and father to Pippa. He works for the Rabbit Compliance Force but is not totally convinced of the righteousness of their mission.
He is another of Fforde’s extremely likeable if flawed characters and acts as a bridge for us to pass between the human and the rabbit world.

The end was a little melancholy and although it was the perfect conclusion for the story it left me a little sad.
One of the most difficult questions I was left to wrangle with was why did it seem so realistic that the humans chose to ally themselves with the cruel, bullying foxes while despising the peaceful rabbits.

This is yet another five star contribution from Jasper Fforde. His stories are always satirical creating an alternate reality to poke fun at the more ridiculous or less appealing aspects of human life but The Constant Rabbit is more specific, more topical and as a results the pokes are little sharper.

A new Jasper Fforde novel is always an Event and I was very pleased to have a chance to read this one ahead of time. It's a stand-alone book, set in an alternate present very like our own - a present suffering from many of the same problems as we do, in particular a resentment at difference. Fforde has personified this in the national response to anthropomorphised rabbits. Some fifty years before the events of the novel, an Event gave a small number of rabbits human traits, including size, the ability to speak and vaguely human physiology. Rabbits doing what rabbits do, there is now a large population of them, drawn from three distinct strains of rabbit: lab, pet, and wild. The nature of the Event is never precisely explained, although its purpose is discussed several times and in a self-referential moment is described as possibly being satirical:

"'It's further evidence of satire being the engine of the Event,' said Connie, 'although if that's true, we're not sure for whose benefit.'
'Certainly not humans', said Finkle, since satire is meant to highlight faults in a humorous way to achieve betterment, and if anything, the presence of rabbits has actually made humans worse.'"

Anyway, humanity being what humanity is, there is a lot of resentment in some quarters at the rabbits and wild talk of a "litter bomb", an explosion of breeding that will overwhelm the island. Anti-rabbit laws have been passed at the behest of the powerful "UK Anti-Rabbit Party" (UKARP) and its leader Mr Nigel Smethwick, and persecution is stirring. Rabbits have even been "jugged" by the goons of Two Legs Good, a gammony sort of direct action movement, and the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce (RabCoT) established to police where rabbits can live and what they can do.

It's against this background that our protagonist, Peter Knox, and his daughter Pippa, see a family of rabbits - actress Connie (the inspiration behind the rabbit in the Cadbury's Caramel ads), her husband, war hero Doc and their children Bobby and Kent - arrive at the vacant house next door. Much Hemlock is a quiet, inward looking Middle English village where the most exciting things that ever happen are Speed Librarianing and the annual Spick and Span contest. It's also, naturally, a bastion of anti-rabbit prejudice so the rabbits aren't welcome, and Peter is approached to offer them money to leave - with an unspoken threat that if they won't, 2LG may step in. For Peter it's a complication too many as he actually works undercover for RabCoT as a spotter (most humans can't tell one rabbit from another, but Peter is the rare exception). The pressure from his neighbours puts him in an awkward position personally (he has nothing against rabbits) and professionally (it may blow his cover: spotters, once outed, have been targets for rabbit sympathisers).

Fforde develops the central concept well, giving the rabbits a well-realised, if baroque, culture focussed on adultery, duelling and hallucinogenic carrots with their own religion and prophet (the "Bunty") and integrating events closely with actual history. The background of discriminatory law, unequal wages and exploitation is also consistent and convincing with a sinister plan to relocate the rabbit population to a "MegaWarren" complete with barbed wire fence, workshops and its own rail spur. The story that then reveals itself to us is essentially a thriller, with the rabbits menaced by various nasties (but with plans for resistance of their own) and Peter caught between his job and pressure from his neighbours on the one hand and his guilt and what's going on - and desire for Mrs Connie Rabbit (an old friend) on the other.

It's all very well done, and has the characteristic Fforde humour and sense of the bizarre. I don't know of any other writer who is as good at making the frankly incongruous seem plausible. Perhaps it's the footnotes or the the way that everything which isn't incongruous is so, well, naturalistic. In the case of this book, all of that gets an extra dose of credibility as a poke at the attitudes behind Brexit (with the odd sideswipe at other modern villains such as Donald Trump). All very entertaining.

And yet. The concept did make me uneasy at times. Perhaps it's the idea of satirising racial prejudice, prejudice against people - for surely that's what this is - by setting up a society of animals, albeit talking, thinking animals, as the victims of discrimination. And the associations the MegaWarren conjures up...
I found myself wondering whether the whole concept actually helped make a point about prejudice and the way that a minority can be persecuted, or whether it actually got in the way of that point?

Maybe it's the timing, which couldn't have been foreseen - a summer of Black Lives Matter protests making the same point in a much more vivid and compelling way than any fiction, however satirical, could achieve and possibly making a treatment like this seem as though it's trivialising the issue which I'm sure isn't the intention?

Perhaps I am overthinking. The Constant Rabbit is, if nothing else, thought provoking. And it is firmly engaged with contemporary life. It's often funny, contains a number of well-spun mystery threads, and the ending was for me genuinely poignant. In addition to all that the book does something with one character which almost literally took my breath away. I can't tell you much about it because this is one occasion when knowing what's going will absolutely ruin the point but if you read the book, you will realise gradually that there are things you're not being told... directly. And when you do you'll agree, I hope, that you didn't need to be and that the story and the characters actually work better without. It's very impressive both for how Fforde does what he does and for the fact that he does it.

But I'm babbling now. You'll have to read the book for yourself for this to make any sense, I'm saying no more.

Jasper Fforde is a genius. I have revelled in his language, style, originality, throughout his oeuvre; clever plotting, exploitation and parodying of genre tropes in which no pun is left unturned, every recasting of every cliché into something familiar but novel, satirical, funny, subtly painting gentle humour over sometimes worrying reality. In his latest novel he presents a gentle fantasy of an old unrequited and still unrequiteable romance set against a background in which humanised rabbits, and foxes, having appeared by an unknowable spontaneous generation event, co-exist with humans across what, as he says, is not a divide between races but between orders (biological facts litter, no pun intended, the book). This cast of mammals is then used to highlight all the pointless, futile activities and animosities of the woke generation, the left/right extremists, the racists, the jingoists, the science deniers. We know from the beginning that there will be a battle which will resolve the situation, but the nature of the ending is still surprising yet inevitable. I cannot recommend this more highly.

You open this book and you find yourself in a world that is bizarrely familiar yet utterly outlandish. It feels like the second coming of Animal Farm. Animals (particularly rabbits) are on a collision course with humans, and if you have a shred of humanity in you, you are on the side of the rabbit.
Fforde’s portrayal of our twenty-first century society is spot on. You recognise the characters, the events and the trends: UKARP, a right-wing party led by a PM going by the name of Nigel Smethwick, a TwoLegsGood movement of middle-class reactionaries, the entrenched perceptions of an “unbridled” rabbit infestation/invasion on the green shores of Britain. We are talking rabbits, the little furry animals native to these isles. They were here before us. They fully anthropomorphised in 1965 and continued to multiply in their usual rampant way. The more they started resembling humans the less acceptable and more inconvenient they became. They had to be separated from humans and ghettoised in a new MegaWarren in the depths of Wales.
This story is hilarious. The world Fforde has created (and based on our very reality) is astounding in its every detail, and it is funny because it is so relatable. There is pure observational comedy there that will leave you with a laugh-out-loud bellyache. But this story also hits a nerve. It is a satire about the decline of our society, the loss of what once was a clear moral compass but has now become a murky moral muddle, about the unrestrained rampage of bigotry and intolerance. And about good people caught in the middle of it, scared, suppressed, but hopefully still trying to do what’s right.
I loved this book.

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.

It is not very far into The Constant Rabbit that readers familiar with Jasper Fforde’s work will know, without doubt, they are in a Fforde novel. And it does not even take the appearance of a human-sized talking rabbit. No, it is the group of local English villagers, code named for British Prime Ministers for obscure reasons, who volunteer once a fortnight for the Buchblitz. This is an operation organised by narrator Peter Knox to support the librarian and ensure that the library can be effectively open for its regulation six minutes. Of course, it is the appearance of Connie the rabbit, a figure from Peter’s past, that gets this whole, weird plot rolling.
In the world of The Constant Rabbit, the Anthropomorphic Event in the 1960s created a small group human like rabbits and, as the reader will learn as the book progresses, other species. Over fifty years later and rabbits being rabbits, their population has grown but so has anti-rabbit sentiment. While rabbits are seen as a cheap labour force, they are constantly being harassed particularly by a human action group called 2LegsGood (no prizes for picking the reference there) and have been mainly confined to specific colonies. The new party in power – the UK Anti Rabbit Party, or UKARP, run by a man called Nigel Smethwick (again, nothing subtle here), has plans to move all of the rabbit population to a massive, walled enclosure in Wales. Anti-rabbit sentiment is virulent and widespread but also steeped in an aggressive form of Britishness.
The plot itself centres around Peter who guiltily works for the organisation that tracks and arrests rabbits. Peter is one of the few people who can tell individual rabbits apart so has been employed as a “spotter”, a job he keeps secret for unwarranted fear of reprisals. But when Connie and her family come back into his life and move next door, things become more complicated for him and he has to determine where he stands.
Knox is a fairly typical Ffordian hero, an Arthur Dent style British everyman who finds himself out of his depth but with reserves of strength to see what is right when called on. As Peter’s attraction to Connie grows and Peter’s daughter also becomes involved with rabbit activists, Peter finds himself having to pick a side. The whole builds to a final confrontation (the Battle of Mays Hill) which is foreshadowed from early on in the narrative.
The parallels to current anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK (and elsewhere) are obvious, at some points too obvious. Replace the word “rabbit” with “muslim” or “Syrian” or any other persecuted minority and the narrative almost works as well. In fact Fforde actually has some characters at one point wondering whether the Anthropomorphic Event itself was deliberately satirical.
Even with this winking apology in the middle, some readers will find the analogy all too forced. But given where we are in the world at the moment, using satire to encourage readers who may not otherwise have done so to empathise with the oppressed and then to consider and confront their prejudices, is not a bad thing.

In 1965, when for no explainable reason, rabbits became human sized and walked, talked and drove cars, the world was at first tolerant. But it is now 2020, and in the middling village of Much Hemlock, the residents are, in the majority, up in arms about the arrival of a rabbit family. Connie, her husband Major and their two children, find their only friends in Peter Knox and his daughter Pippa. But Peter is a Spotter for the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce (RabCoT) and he feels uncomfortable knowing that he plays a part in endangering the rabbit population.

The UKARP (UK Anti Rabbit Party) want to forcibly remove all rabbits to a MegaWarren in Wales, and as Peter becomes more and more enamoured with Connie, he confesses all and helps her and her family escape the clutches of those who want them eradicated.

This is not in all honesty the type of genre I particularly enjoy. But I can appreciate the satire, and behind the wit, is a serious message about tolerance, xenophobia, and the best and worst of humanity.

The Constant Rabbit is another witty and quirky read from Fforde. A gem lettuce of a book you have to unwrap and inhale right there in the supermarket aisle.

On an alternate earth where, decades ago, an Anthropomorphising Event transformed a number of rabbits (and other animals, as we find out later) into humanoid versions of themselves. The actual cause of the event is hypothesised by the characters as being satirical. (Fforde’s fabulous way of saying just go with the flow!)

We experience this world much later through the eyes of single father, Peter, who works in one of the governmental agencies monitoring the new members of society. Except they’re not, not exactly... After debate, the UK government legally defined rabbits as not human and not deserving of equal rights (but of course deserving of taxes). Soon, the rabbits face a forced relocation to a MegaWarren: away from the rest of society but still able to provide a source of labour.

Now, this should be ringing more than a few bells. Fforde’s work, although with plenty of light and humorous moments, provides much commentary on how certain elements always seek to create a them and an us, and how and what this looks like. In the world of The Constant Rabbit, the absurd aggression wrapped in faux manners among the English villagers is a world many readers might recognise.

Peter himself is a low level ‘spotter’ - identifying rabbits who are not who they claim to be, knowing full what may and has awaited them after he does his job. His Senior Group Leader is a deliciously sinister character called Mr Ffoxe who routinely (and legally) murders rabbits. Of course Peter justifies this by reasoning he is a small cog in the machine and doesn’t take part in any violence himself. It’s his ‘repairing’ of his moral self we follow. How far along this journey of enlightenment Peter burrows or understands is debatable. It might also ask the same questions of the reader.

To paraphrase (a lot, but you’ll want to read it for yourself) Constance Rabbit disagrees with the idea it is in a human’s nature to destroy and hate, and that we actually understand how we should behave but we prevaricate with pettiness and prejudices rather than just getting to the crux of things. The truth of things.

Repairing ourselves and our world.


4.5 stars

A brilliant, thoughtful and cutting book but was there really not another way?

This was absurd, and wonderful at the same time just right for Fforde!

I love his books and this was no exception.

Thanks a lot to NG and the publisher for this copy.

4 / 5 ✪

https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2020/06/26/the-constant-rabbit-by-jasper-fforde-review/

Last year I actually read my first Jasper Fforde novel—Early Riser—and it was straaange. Like Jeff Noon strange. Like… something else strange. A story about a dream, a seasonal hibernation, and a love story between people that up until the halfway mark I didn’t realize weren’t people at all. Then there was an ending that confused me so thoroughly I didn’t know what to make of it. Fforde follows this oddity up with the Constant Rabbit, a tale about anthropomorphized rabbits and their acceptance among humankind. It’s… maybe less absurd, but that’s absurd in a good way. I think.

Peter Knox lives in Much Hemlock, a quiet little town in England, much away from the fuss of the city. Nothing gets its citizens riled up like their football, the Spick & Span awards, and Rabbits. Peter is much more concerned with his hobby of Speed Librarying, something that I couldn’t explain if I even had the faintest clue what the hell it is. And I don’t. But Rabbits are a concern to everyone else in Much Hemlock, so they are to Peter as well.

55 years earlier, an event known as “The Event” rocked Britain, spontaneously anthropomorphizing 18 rabbits, 9 bees, one caterpillar and a small host of other beasties. The bees haven’t been seen since and the caterpillar was so disturbed by the whole endeavor that it took up in a cocoon and hasn’t yet emerged. While the other species failed to make much of a dent on society, the Rabbits flourished, breeding, well, like rabbits. A jump forward to the present day finds around 4 million Rabbits in Britain alone. They speak, they work, they drive. They serve in the military, the navy, and eat a lot of lettuce and carrots. And they are hated for all of it.

Nothing has unified humanity like something else to hate. Something different. The Rabbit—while anthropomorphized (their bodies look like human bodies, with curves and bulges in all the right places)—are certainly different. Though they look a lot more human than their small, cuddly brethren, they just as clearly aren’t. What they lack in thumbs, Rabbits make up for in ears and teeth. And while humanity by in large hasn’t accepted them yet, the Rabbit is here to stay.

Or are they?

Peter works at RabCoT—the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce—which is an organization specifically designed to manage and police all matters Rabbit within England. While to his neighbors, he is simply a lowly accountant, Peter Knox is in reality a spotter: someone whose job it is to discern one Rabbit from another. This is just as difficult as it sounds as most Rabbits can’t tell most humans apart, and the feeling is quite mutual. Spotting is something that some people just have the knack for; it can’t be taught or learned, Peter is blessed with the ability, and in a rare position to use it. He’s also a rarity for his liberal views of Rabbits, something which is decidedly NOT the norm at RabCoT. Most are just one step above TwoLegsGood—a radical humanoid supremacist group—in their disdain for the Rabbit. But like it or not, the Rabbit are here to stay, and people have to learn to accept them.

That is, until a group of off-colony Rabbits move in next-door to Peter.

And, much to Peter’s surprise, he knows one of them. A Rabbitess by the name of Connie, whom he met in university—met and fell for, though nothing happened—arrives with her family, and turns Peter’s life upsidedown. For while the entire village of Much Hemlock is queueing up behind Peter to bribe, force or burn the Rabbits out of town, Peter himself is reluctant to see them go. For seeing Connie has opened a door he had thought was closed for good, and set in motion a series of events that will change Peter—and the world—forever.

———————

So, I’m not sure what is an odder pitch: a winter wonderland full of murderous dreams, or a budding romance between an Englishman and an anthropomorphized Rabbit. I mean… it’s a tough call.

While the plot follows Peter in his life and job and interaction with Constance, the real story is that of the Rabbits and Humanity. As I said before, nothing has united humanity like someone else to hate. For years, we’ve been hating our neighbors, be it over religion, heritage, ethnicity, gender or creed. When there wasn’t any of that around, we came up with something else. So, drop a bunch of Rabbits in the gene-pool—anthropomorphized or not—and our fear of all things new and different takes it from there. The premise of the Constant Rabbit can be interpreted in so many ways, it’s difficult to know where to start. So much so, in fact, that I’m going to skip most of them. You know when you were in school, and your English teacher told you to read whatever book and correctly interpret what the author was thinking, only to later tell you that you were dead wrong and that they were actually trying to tell you this other thing? Yeah, I always hated that. Because the only one that could really know what the author was thinking was the author—and in Fforde’s case he isn’t talking (yet). So I’m not going to wildly speculate about what the author was trying to impart—I’m just going to pick the most obvious (to me at least) one. And talk about it for a sentence or two.

So, the Constant Rabbit deals quite a bit in the overwhelming leporiphobia of the Rabbit, the bigotry and abuse they suffer, how the government monitors and mistreats them, how radical groups go a step further—just short of killing them and making a stew. And now imagine our own world, where there is more than enough of this around despite the lack of 6ft, fuzzy, fully anthropomorphized Rabbits.

There’s no sex, in case anyone was wondering, so I’m fairly certain Fforde isn’t advocating beastiality. It’s probably just the racism one.

Reading this at the time I read it, with the backdrop of protests and racism and all else—it was impossible not to make some connections. But you can interpret those for yourself. I’m just going to deal with the story from here on out.

And… the story’s pretty good. It’s enjoyable, no matter your politics, if you can get past that. There’s the usual dry humor that Fforde imbues into the text, predominately through subtle wit, sarcasm, and the use of footnotes. It’s all quite entertaining, even the story of star-crossed lovers reuniting after an age apart. Even if one of them is an anthropomorphized Rabbit and the other’s English. Honestly, the romance was more compelling than I’d’ve thought, as it was the driving force—not the plot itself, which is by no means bad—that saw me through this book. The plot is alright, but one more interwoven with politics, which soured me on it (I loathe politics). The love story is more genuine, more real—even though Constance is a bit of a mystery throughout and Peter (though English) has quite a bit of character development and change to go through before the end.

Oh, and I still can’t explain Speed Librarying. As hooks go, this one was a bust—I was so thoroughly confused halfway through the first chapter that I ended up skipping straight to the second and beginning the book there. But this was one of only a few hitches in the story, as mostly everything carried on quite nicely over Peter Knox’s POV (he’s the only POV), through twists and turns, up hills and down valleys, until at some point it turned into not just a political piece, but an entertaining and enjoyable read as well.

TL;DR

The Constant Rabbit is the height of Jasper Fforde’s game, as it combines the author’s unique and shrewd writing style view and blends it with current hot-topics such as racism, bigotry and giant, anthropomorphized Rabbits. Then tops that with a healthy dose of absurdity, tomfoolery, and carrots. Peter Knox was an ideal narrator; a liberal view but one used to the comfort and order of the status quo. Though few other characters fleshed out quite like he did, it was Peter’s development that really sold the plot, the way that he viewed things altering the way I thought about even the most inane detail. While some may read into the politics of the book too much to enjoy it any, if you’re able to look past the present day parallels drawn to race, hatred, bigotry and violence—you might just find an enjoyable adventure within, albeit one that still involves anthropomorphic rabbits. One might even buy in to the romance within the story, one that—while a bit odd—was enough to keep me reading through to the end.

I’m a huge Jasper Fforde fan. I always find its best to leave any preconceptions at the start and just sink into the story and enjoy. His ability to take something relatively normal and turn it on it’s head is sublime, ridiculous and so enjoyable! Quirky, funny, satirical tale with pertinent reflections on current times.

Thank you Netgalley.

This satirical tale of anthromorphicised rabbits (and foxes, weasels etc) trying to live amongst humans in England seems particularly prescient given recent events. It makes you stop and look at the way we treat each other, particularly those who are 'different' in some shape or form. Add in a prime minister and government who are actively trying to rid society of this 'problem', the local enforcers, the humans who stand alongside the rabbits and the general commentary on society and you get a satire that works on many levels. I struggled a wee bit in reading this simply because of the time and situation but will go back to this again - to satisfy my curiousity that this could be the new Animal Farm.

I would have liked this bit as ‘Introduction’, just to understand quicker what was/did/going to occur:
On 12 August 1965 there had been an unexpected flurry of snow on the night of a full moon following the warmest of summer days, when the sunset glowed an eerie shade of green. Aluminium foil had inexplicably tarnished within ten miles of the Event, and glass had adopted a sheen like that of mineral oil on
water.The eighteen rabbits of the Event morphed and grew into a semi-humanlike shape overnight, stretched, yawned – then asked for a glass of water and a carrot, adding: ‘But really, only if it’s no trouble.’

An incredibly detailed story, told in the realistic manner of an actual observer. I can well believe that if a group of animals could suddenly interact with humans in the same way humans do, there really would be a government department or two quickly set up ruin things. There would be pressure groups fighting for the animals ‘human’ rights and opposing groups would be there doing their utmost to eradicate the thinking talking animals. The author writes about impossible things in a way that sounds entirely plausible, with plenty of humour, you just have to pay attention to see the many ways he pokes fun at, well, us. Especially all those people who hate anything and anyone different to themselves. I chuckled at bits like :a small herd of Friesians, who looked as though they’d suddenly realised that it was a Tuesday and would have to reconfigure their plans.
Although it worked, I was ever so slightly dissatisfied with the end, I just wanted the two main characters to get, well, more. They deserved to! A funny book, by an intelligent author, with plot twists that were impossible to predict.

I’m absolutely sure I read a Jasper affords book years and years ago, and I wasn’t a fan. However, I can’t seem to find this book, but again, on starting to read it I felt that I knew this author. Anyway, I’m so pleased I requested this one as I absolutely howled through it.

I have always had rabbits at pets, so I had a feeling I would enjoy this. Pete Knox reminded me a little bit of Arthur Dent (Of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy), he seemed to get caught up in a lot of things, and get swept along without being asked. I’m still not sure on what Constance really was upto mind...I’m not sure I trust her! And the Major!!! What a man...I mean rabbit...erm

Anyway. This was hilarious, absurd, and downright daft at times. Loved it.

My thanks to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for the copy.

I've been expanding my reading genres to include fantasy novels recently and Jasper Fforde's new standalone novel, The Constant Rabbit, caught my eye. With his previous novels having humourous literary themed titles, I've wanted to read a Jasper Fforde novel for a while and The Constant Rabbit is a great introduction to the bestselling author.

You've got to expect the unexpected when giant rabbits (and a few other animals) are living and working among humans. They may have human attributes, as in the ability to walk and talk, but they still have their animal instincts. So putting a fox in charge of the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce is really just asking for trouble!

Jasper Fforde's humour is evident throughout the novel, from laugh out loud funny to more subtle quips. I particularly liked the Star Wars references and always find them a welcome addition to any novel. I made a note when I was about a quarter of the way through the book: 'Animal Farm on crack'. That pretty much sums it up and like Animal Farm, The Constant Rabbit does have some serious and thought-provoking issues at its heart.

When a rabbit family moves into the village of Much Hemlock, the villagers just want to get rid of them whatever the cost. I was so mad that the rabbits weren't accepted in the village, simply because they were rabbits, giving a prejudice and discrimination slant to the story. Written with such satirical humour, I guess it can be as light or as dark as you want it to be as I would never have imagined saying a novel about talking rabbits is very thought-provoking.

One thing that simultaneously amused and annoyed me were the footnotes. When reading on kindle, the footnote wasn't always on the same page so I often missed the humour by reading the note a few pages after the point it referred to. When the note did appear on the same page they were a brilliant addition to the story, but I don't think they really worked in kindle format.

The Constant Rabbit is witty, satirical, highly original and cleverly thought-provoking. It encourages further discussion and consideration of how anyone 'different' is perceived and treated on sight without even getting to know them. I'm so pleased that I have added fantasy to my reading genres as The Constant Rabbit is a gem (lettuce) of a book. Well I had to get a rabbit pun in there somewhere!

I chose to read an ARC and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I first read the descripion for this book, but as it was something completely different to what i normally read i decided to give it a shot.Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder for allowing me an eARC of this book.

Summary:
Peter Knox lives in a village that is very much quiet and it's only goal is to win a coveted village garden of the year award. Unfortunately those plans are out of the window as soon as Doc and Constance rabbit move in next door. This causes so many upturns in Peter's life, including upsetting the locals (many are members of the United Kingdom Against Rabbit Population party) and making his job as a rabbit spotter considerably harder. He is forced to take a stand and become a supporter for rights for the population on anthropomorphised rabbits all over the country.

Review:
Firstly this story is very much topical in the world at the moment, and is something I found an absolute delight to read. The references to current British affairs and politics, making them both humorous and making you, as a reader, think about how commonly some of these phrases are said in slightly different contexts was jarring and enlightening, It's a story that left me thinking well after i finished the final page and will definitely stay with me for a while to come.

The pacing of this story was really good, fast and kept the reader engaged and thinking.

The characters were wonderfully written, with Peter, Constance and Doc being the centre three. I loved watching the development of Peter in particular as he went from being very quiet to actively rallying for rights which is wonderful to see.

I will say that as a world-building experience goes this is by far one of the most imaginative and clever ways I have read., absolutely dazzling

Overall:
If you are wanting to read a story that makes you think, and i mean really think, and compare the UK to everything going on in the world right now, read this book. It is a humorous take on something that is a serious topic and is definitely worth the investment.

I've read most of Jasper Fforde's books and enjoyed them, but this was disappointingly a DNF for me. I found the satire missed the mark by a long way and came across, at best, as clumsily executed and not very subtle.. I find racism and xenophobia upsetting even when the victims of such attitudes are thinly disguised as rabbits...

Thank you to NetGalley and to the publisher for allowing me to read this.

Jasper Fforde is as absurd and wonderful as ever! As with all his books, this is refreshing and clever with a perfect balance between wit and darker themes. There were also some particularly relevant parallels with our own world. An excellent read!

A clever idea that works well as a platform for social and political commentary. It is difficult to judge if the work is satirical as humour is not a universal constant and I didn't see anything that was amusing. The story is well-paced with some good thought as to how such a sociological system might arise. The plot has a steady pace and slowly unfolds as the story progresses.

An interesting read with many levels, the trademark humour is there but with a razor sharp edge that cuts deep. This is definitely the perfect time for this to be published as it highlights a lot of what is currently wrong with politics. It questions bias and belief, and addresses hate crimes.
Not the easiest of reads, it took me a while to find my pace but well worth it.