Don't worry, the rabbit doesn't talk *much*

Winman, Sarah. When God Was a Rabbit. New York: Bloomsbury, 2011.

When God Was a Rabbit is the weird, wonderful, moving story of a girl who would name her pet rabbit "god" and the family who would let her and love her. The reader follows main character Elly through a slightly jumpy but relatively thorough (like a hungry rabbit?) narrative of her life, from girlhood with trauma that maybe didn't feel traumatic to new friends in adolescence to a halting approach to adulthood. The rabbit isn't always around, but a sense of mystery and hope remains, right up to the last few pages when I was convinced at least three times that there was no way things would turn out well.

Multiple times as the story builds, Winman drives the narrative on with flashes of the future. In a description of an afternoon Elly spends with her brother, the reader is told "he would be gone by the following year, to finish his schooling in London, a sudden decision taken on a whim." I liked having these glimpses, confidence-builders that the characters were living their lives even when they weren't watching. Even more interesting is that when such foreshadowing isn't explicitly given, when the reader jumps to his own conclusions--as is nearly impossible when a tale drifts toward New York in September 2001--that guess is likely to be wrong. I loved this lack of cliche. Winman knows her readers deserve more.

I think the only thing that is keeping me from giving four stars to this book is the time it took me to read. I'm not sure if it's the book's fault or mine, but I think a four-star book would have gripped me just a bit more, driven me to the finish line quicker. In ounces of tears shed and millimeters of tentative, hopeful smiles, though, When God Was a Rabbit certainly measures up.

Rating: ***1/2