This is a book that took me by surprise! A book about clinical depression isn't going to be an easy read, but the author has done a really wonderful job of capturing the 'madness' of mental illness perfectly - from the impact on the closest family members, to the attempts of the medical profession to help, all told from the POV of Bunny who is the one suffering and makes fun of the illness, herself and all those she comes into contact with.

Told from various stages in her life, we see her in an asylum doing all she can to avoid the lame 'therapies' she's told to take part in and how that triggers off certain memories of key moments in her past. We also see life with her husband - the man is a saint! - and how she knows he's trying to help her but she's often so dismissive and flippant towards him. It really does try to scratch the surface of the illness of depression and how her mind works in a very different way, the random thoughts, the irrational behaviour - it's a book that often takes you to dark places but the humour really does take the edge off and shows the light and dark moments in her life.

Bunny knows she's hard work to those around her, and she tries to make sense of it all, but also being very perceptive to the circle of friends she and her husband have who sympathy for 'sick' friends but not those 'sick in the head' - how awkward people are around those suffering from mental health issues.

It isn't an easy read at all at times, but it's so brilliantly executed that I loved spending time with Bunny and watching the world through her eyes.

Binnie Kirshenbaum's novel presents a bitingly funny and insightful exploration of mental illness, relationships, and the complexities of human emotion. Set against the backdrop of New Year's Eve, a time often associated with joy and celebration, the protagonist Bunny's experience stands in stark contrast, offering a refreshingly honest and acerbic take on societal expectations and personal disillusionment.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

This novel was okay. It was different than other novels I’ve read about mental health, and I felt like it worked well attempting to put the reader into a position that could easily understand both sides of the main characters struggles (both as her & as her spouse).
I’m not sure where there was humor in this novel, , nor did feel like she see “the world too clearly,” (as stated in the synopsis).

Wow this book was so much darker than I anticipated. The back cover describes it as "mordantly witty" and I mean, sure Bunny has her funny moments, but my god!! I have so many questions about the realistic nature of this book, i particular the psych wards in hospitals. Are they truly that heinous? How can anyone be expected to get better when they are treated like that? All in all, would I recommend Bunny? I don't know. It was well written and not a terribly dense read, but I am walking away more depressed than when I began reading.

This book was not for me, but I think the author is extremely talented. I think post- (during?) pandemic I was absolutely not ready for a book about a mental breakdown and depression. That said, the writing is excellent, and fractured in ways that make sense for the narrative. I will need to read more books by Kirshenbaum! I think there is immense talent here, and I loved how the threads came together for me by the end. I will be a bit haunted by Bunny for a while, and if that's not a sign of a good book I don't know what is. Three and a half stars rounded to four because it is memorable and thought-provoking- even if not in a good way.

I've yet to see any accounts talk about this book, but when I first ran across it, it was described as the best depiction of depression ever written (I really wish I could remember who I got this recommendation from!). While I definetly don't have clinical depression, there are times where I feel overwhelmingly sad...I mean, who doesn't? But I'd be lying if some of my bouts of sadness and lethargy don't concern me just a teeny, tiny bit. So I searched this book out and requested to read it.

I'm thankful to say, after reading this, my sadness doesn't concern me. What I'm feeling are normal ups and downs attributed to living life (I honestly didn't think it went beyond this, but my curiosity was piqued!). What I learned from this book made my heart hurt. The struggle of true depression must be such a difficult thing to navigate and understand...without a lot of options besides medication (which comes with its own set of negative side effects).

Bunny is a character that pulled at my heartstrings. I wanted her to find help so she could life a more happy life - be more appreciative of the life she had. But even Bunny realizes that she should be more content - and therein lies the whole issue with depression. Sometimes it's hard to be accepting and appreciative of what you have...something is just off in the chemicals of one's brain. It's not that they don't realize it or recognize it...they just can't seem to find the correct combination to create the balance they need/want. Also equally frustrating it must be to love someone who struggles so deeply with depression, as Bunny's husband, Albie, did. His devotion to her was so sweet. Though he made some poor choices, I still had a place in my heart for him and the difficulties Bunny's depression caused for him.

Sometimes after finishing a book one word comes to mind, over and over again – honest - it is what oozes out of every word, every comma and full stop inside this book. It is honest, truthful. Raw.
Bunny, our narrator, is a person with so much humour and so much heart, so much character and together with her we embark on a journey through her life and her mental illness. This novel is at the same time funny and sad, beautiful and difficult to handle, it’s - life.
Bunny is a writer who describes her experience in the psychiatric ward through writing assignments, prompts in her creative writing classes there. Through prompts like An Introduction (300 words or less), A Favorite Song (300 words or less) etc. we learn about her life, we can glimpse into how she got to that point that she had to be admitted, how she got to rock bottom. In seemingly different and unrelated texts we get the feel of Bunny, we get to know her character, the people around her, her family, work and outlook. Her struggles, her pain, the way people didn’t understand her or just didn’t care enough to look, didn’t try hard enough to understand her.
This is a story about the most difficult part of having mental health issues: understanding that there is a serious problem, asking for help and starting to work on it. Even though our main character has been aware of her mental health troubles most of her life, going to therapy most of her life, changing therapists very often, getting medication most of the time, that still wasn’t enough for her to get better. The process is what this novel shows us, a process that is, often, unfortunately, never ending, hard, horrible, difficult, that leaves the person without strength and the will to go on. But it works, slowly, gradually.
Not only does she start writing for a class in the psych ward, Bunny starts writing a book about her stay in there. She starts healing herself through writing, through fiction. Fiction is comforting, helpful, not real but just a possibility.
Because, in a way, this is fiction and this is not fiction. Making a meta-textual twist. We are reading a work of fiction that describes “real” life and “real” characters. And a “real” character in the work of fiction writes - fiction. This novel she writes - is it the same novel we are reading? Fiction within fiction about fiction. This might sound fun and creative (and it is), but the whole novel is about much more. About the real world, a very cruel real world in a very true way. Fiction is here to help us but only if we figure out the problems ourselves and start working on solving them on our own. Fiction shouldn’t be a delusion, a non-reality, it should be a reality similar to our own so we can imagine ourselves the way we could be – healthier, calmer, better.
Finding out the truth is hard, a journey, but a journey that has to be taken, because that is the only way to continue living. And start living well.

A deep dive into depression that is somehow funny and bleak and disconcerting. Bunny is a complex character and I liked how acerbic she was. I'm not sure about the ending, but then, how do you end this kind of novel. A thought-provoking novel I'll be thinking about for a while.

WOW! The most engaging and touching novel on mental illness I've read in a very long time. I felt it lost a little steam when the main character found herself in the asylum/facing EST - but still ultimately moving and groundbreaking. I LOVE seeing more and mroe titles about mental health. Let's normalize these problems people! Talking about it, reading about it, writing about it helps more than anything.

Wow this has been everywhere and now I can see why! This is fun and heartbreaking at all the same time! Glad I have this a go!

Thanks to NetGalley.

I read one of Ms. Kirshenbaum's books that I loved so when I saw this one, I had to read it. Plus, the title intrigued me -- what can it be about? I read the plot before I decided to download this and decided why not.

I'm not saying this is the worst book I've read but I don't know if it was worth finishing. Luckily, it held my interest (for what it's worth), and it was fast reading.

I hate open ended books too. Not sure what happened with Bunny and all of the people there but would like to find out without reading the whole book.

The blurb oversells this, or else markets it as being something that it isn't quite, but I did like the book nonetheless. In the first few chapters, I thought it was going to be amazing, but it turned out to sort of fall into a holding pattern and stay there, without much progression in plot or emotion-- much like depression itself, though I'm not sure that was the intent here. Kirshenbaum's depiction of mental illness and severe depression is one of the most accurate I've seen, not just in the clinical sense, but also in the smallest ways, particularly as she constructs Bunny's thoughts. Though I don't know much of the author's story, this felt like the line between fact and fiction had been blurred to the point that it seemed more memoir than novel. I think that, given its ability to stray from any real events, as well as the prevalence of nonfiction work in the same genre/setting, this would've been better had it possessed more of a plot or more action. Instead, it relies heavily on Bunny telling (versus showing) her life, which is understandable when there's a reality to which one must be faithful, but seems lazy when it's unrestricted by truth. Additionally, the 'writing prompt' sections were jolting to me.

Well, no one would call RABBITS FOR FOOD uplifting, but that said, it is an important, but difficult read. It shines a light on depression and other forms of mental illness in much the same way that Kaysen's GIRL INTERRUPTED or Greenberg's I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN did. the writing is excellent and the characters are beyond description. While many in the U.S. seem to still see mental illness as a character flaw, rather than a genuine disease, literature like RABBITS FOR FOOD starkly illustrates that mental illness is real, serious and not easily overcome. We should all read this book.

Without question my book of the year.

Bitingly funny, with a dark edge. Vividly written and Bunny is a joy of a character to read. Such heart and emotion, I was captured and read in a single sitting.

Highly recommended, don’t want to give anything about the book away, just needs to be read!

I found this book brilliant in some ways and in others places it lagged a bit for me. I didn’t find it laugh out loud funny as billed. Our main character Bunny is a smart, talented writer who lives in Manhattan with her husband. Unfortunately, she struggles with serious depression. One night during dinner in a fancy restaurant with friends she experiences a breakdown, She spends a large part of the book on a psych hold, or sectioned as we’d say here in the UK.

I commend the author for her descriptions of depression because it’s very accurate. I have had depression and I’m now a trained therapist so I could recognise her lack of motivation and sense of being disconnected from everything. It clearly wasn’t always this way because she’s a published writer, but now she’s totally unproductive. She sits in the flat, in dirty pyjamas and doesn’t have the mental strength to wash. She also has no appetite and barely notices her husband. What I didn’t quite see was the hilarious Bunny. She’s very sarcastic but I’m not sure whether that’s humour or if she’s unpleasant and rude. It’s hard to really understand her, because we’re only getting a snapshot of her life. Maybe it’s because I’m a therapist but I really wanted to understand her with a back story or some flashbacks.

There was no one else in the book who really furthered our understanding of her character. I didn’t really get to know her husband and her friends were more like people she saw out of habit than actual supportive friends. She’s memorable but not a fully rounded character or story.

RABBIT'S FOR FOOD allows readers a front row seat in watching the effects of severe depression play out in Bunny's life, our main protagonists, who eventually finds herself in a psychiatric hospital. The narrative zooms both in and out as we experience life filtered through Bunny's perspective while also experiencing Bunny through the eyes of others. Admittedly, Bunny is a tough character to like--even her own family heartlessly reminds Bunny that she herself is to blame for no one liking her. Bunny is sarcastic, flippant, rude, and unpredictable. Yet even so, Bunny is a sympathetic character who I came to care about, and she speaks to the complexity of treating mental health disorders that are elusive and intangible. This book also explores the common perception that depression can be blamed on the individual, all while importantly exposing the inaccuracy (and cruelty) of this stereotype.

This is a "quiet" kind of book in terms of plot, and I would describe it as more of a character study than anything else, as well as a cerebral examination of the experience of depression on an individual level. As such, it is an emotionally heavy book-- even the humor present in the book is sardonic and has a biting edge to it. With that said though, this book is certainly one worth reading for those interested in the topic of mental health, and Kirshenbaum's mastery of her prose adds to the experience. Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me a eARC of the Kindle version of RABBITS FOR FOOD in exchange for an honest review.

Forty-three year old Bunny has suffered from depression virtually her entire life. During a New Year’s Eve dinner with friends, she has a serious psychotic episode and is hospitalized. The novel focuses on her time on a psychiatric ward where she encounters others suffering with mental illness. Bunny (and, to some extent, her husband Albie) must make decisions concerning her treatment.

The book has a third-person narrator, but there are also first-person sections where Bunny writes short pieces based on writing prompts like “a shoebox” and “a business meeting” and “a pair” and “a hat”. Bunny often uses these creative writing prompts to describe events from her past so they help to develop her character. It is in one of these 300-word pieces that we learn about what happened to Bunny’s best friend, an event that has had a major impact on Bunny.

This is not an action-packed narrative; it is a sensitive portrayal of chronic depression. Bunny has tried different therapists and various drugs and drug combinations to little effect. She feels misunderstood because few people know what it’s like to be her and “what it’s like not to be taken seriously, having no idea how it is to feel ashamed of who you are.”

Some suggestions as to contributing causes of depression are mentioned, though it is repeated that “Despair can’t be monitored like blood pressure or measured in centimeters like a tumor”: “It’s often genetic, this disposition of melancholy” and “It is all too apparent: wounds never heal, but rather, in a torpid state deep inside the medial temporal lobe of the brain, grief waits for fresh release” and “a lack of attention that might well have been a contributing factor. A contributing factor. One. One of many. Because it’s never just one thing.”

Bunny describes herself as “a headache of a person who is not easy to like.” Living with a depressive would not be easy, but I found myself growing to like her. I loved her insightful and sarcastic comments. When an extended family member has a child and everyone carries on “as if the parents had actually done something extraordinary,” Bunny only says, “’The earthworm is impressive because it impregnates itself.’” When people are excited that a child has begun to walk, Bunny comments “’I’d be excited if he were flying. But walking? No.’” When friends are “engaged in passionate discourse about balsamic vinegar,” she comments, “’Excuse me . . . but do any of you really give a shit? I mean, you’re going on about balsamic vinegar like it matters. Does it? . . . Does it really matter?’” This is a perfect response to such a vapid conversation. Even if one does not like Bunny, it is important to remember what she mentions at the end of the book: “People who are not easy to like, they have feelings just like nice people do.”

I found myself feeling a great deal of sympathy for Bunny. Her family does nothing to help her; her sisters want an explanation for her depression: “Whatever the reason, they want to be assured that it was her own damn fault.” She has experienced loss in her life. She is in pain: “Bunny’s pain has no place. She hurts everywhere. She hurts nowhere. Everywhere and nowhere, hers is a ghostly pain, like that of a phantom limb. Where there is nothing, there can be no relief.” She engages in self-harm because “Only when she hits herself or pulls her hair or bends her finger back or bites the inside of her mouth can she experience the pleasure of pain found and pain released. It is the only way to be rid of the pain that is Bunny. She is the point of pain.”

The author has bravely written about the complex topic of mental illness. Her protagonist may make people uncomfortable, but her pain is heart-wrenching. This is a novel well worth reading for its insight into depression.

Note: I received a digital galley from the publisher via NetGalley.

Bunny is depressed and has been depressed her entire life, although she was usually able to function in the world. She hasn't left her apartment in weeks and bathing is an unsurmountable chore. But she is going to make it to the regular New Year's Eve dinner out with their friends and to the gathering afterward, even though her patient and kind husband tells her, over and over, that she doesn't need to.

Rabbits for Food by Binnie Kirshenbaum tells how Bunny's life has been derailed by her chronic depression, which she can't escape, no matter how many therapists and doctors she visits, no matter how many drugs and combinations of drugs she's prescribed. The novel follows Bunny's experiences and thoughts closely, but this isn't a sad instructional tale. Bunny is too much herself for that - she's not a very likable character, although one can see that she's witty and sarcastic when she's at her best. As she spirals down into needing to stay at a psychiatric facility (not a spoiler, it's revealed in the opening pages) she finds herself making a drastic choice, a choice make believable by how well Kirshenbaum has described Bunny's lived experience.

Kirshenbaum is a talented writer and I'm not sure many authors could have kept me reading about a woman whose life is reduced to a few shades of grey, occasionally colored by annoyance. I thought the final sentence reduced the impact of the novel and I wish it hadn't been there, but complaining about a single sentence is to be looking very hard for things not to like about this unusual and extraordinary book.

I didn't enjoy this as much as the blurb lead me to believe I would, it rambled on quite a lot and I didn't feel any strong emotions one way or the other. All in all it was okay but nothing like the funny and heartbreaking story blurbed.