Review of Rabbits by Terry Miles

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine (Del Rey) for providing me an ARC of this excellent debut novel.

Allow me to disclose from the outset that I am not a gamer. Far from a gamer, I am a retired college mathematics professor. Several decades of immersion into mathematics (and probably the reason I have an affinity for it) has given me a respect for order, logic, patterns, linear thinking, and maybe even a strong skepticism of coincidences. I believe this is what made me want to read this book. I did wonder after reading the synopsis if I could make it through the book or if it just really did not sound like my “cup of tea.” I decided to go for it, and it did not take long to realize that my concerns were unfounded. I really enjoyed this book. Yes, the story is filled with patterns (noticing and following), coincidences that are just too plentiful to be coincidence, logic, and linear thinking (what following patterns requires). It is also filled with the world of serious gamers. This was not a turn-off for me. The story is interesting and addicting. Honestly, I could not put down this book. There were times that I did not understand the gamer language and/or conversations, but they did not detract from the storyline. The story is complex and interesting. It also moves ahead swiftly like a thriller (my favorite book genre). I was never lost in the complexity. I never once wondered what was going on. I just wanted to know more. Isn’t that what all books should do?

Throughout the book are references to wonderful old movies and fabulous classic rock music. I loved the way these were a part of the story. I am not a reader of romance novels. But for those of you who are, there is a branch of the main story that will feed your need for romance. The love stories are sweet and do not distract from the game. I am generally a reader of thrillers and murder mysteries. Rabbits offered me enough of both to make me very happy. In fact, I would classify this book as a thriller. The pace of the novel is great...exhilarating and exciting. I think Terry Miles has done a great job of writing a book about a complex game that appeals to gamers and non-gamers alike.

One word of warning: if you are offended by or have a low tolerance for bad language, know that this book is filled with f-bombs.

One last thing...there is a 10-episode podcast (2017-2018) with the same name. I am going to let this book “percolate” for a while in my mind and then give the podcast a listen. I hope I enjoy it as much as I did this book.

My star rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4 stars)

Special thanks to Random House Publishing, Ballantine Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

I started this book and was really intrigued. It is about two things that I'm not fond of, science fiction and gaming. But I started to read it and got intrigued by each page. I put it down to read another book, but my mind was still on Rabbits, soooo...I put the other book down, that wasn't as exciting to me and went back to Rabbits. It's nothing like Ready Player One, Rabbits is a mysterious real life game where it's very exclusive. Clues and connections may be anywhere at any time.. But the main character "K", who is a serious gamer has heard about the game "Rabbits" a s a teenager, when he was taking a ride with two sisters who were friends of his family. The sister driving put on a staticy radio station and turned off her headlights driving in complete darkness. All of a sudden, the radio said "The door is open", next thing you know, they crash with the sister driving dying in The crash. The phrase "The Door is Open" is where the rounds or "ititerations" of the game begins, meaning someone won the last round. K is both scared and intrigued. As he gets older, he hears the word "Rabbits" here and there. But no one knows the winners or what they get. Some people say it's a million dollars, some people say it's an entrance to become CIA, but you have to be smart enough and intelligent enough to connect the dots. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I'm not into gaming or sci-fi, but people who get to close to Rabbits, either win and are never heard of again, or are dead from trying. I gave this book 4 stars. It's definitely a "page turner", I couldn't put it down..*****

A huge thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As a child, K overhears the daughters of his parents' friends talking about an underground game. One of the girls mentions a radio station and they take off on a drive, taking K with them, and try to find a location and hear some clue through the static on the radio station.

Surviving a tragic accident that night, K grows up to be adept at recognizing patterns, and makes money on investments. K spends his time gaming and giving intro tours to people who are interested in the game which has come to be known as Rabbits. One night, after giving one of those presentations, a man named Scarpio, who is alleged to be one of the winners of the prior iterations of Rabbits named Californica, approaches K. They talk at a diner across the street from the arcade, and Scarpio tells K there is something wrong with Rabbits that needs to be fixed before the 11th iteration starts or they are all in a lot of danger.

Then Scarpio gets a phone call that makes him nervous, makes plans to meet with K the next morning, and gets in his car and leaves.

By the next day, Scarpio is missing.

Blending gamer nerd folklore and history, ancient media, science, and pseudoscience in a brilliant compilation sure to garner interest across the board, Terry Miles has created a fantastic novel of conspiracy theory and paranoia. Prepare to fall into the rabbit hole that is Rabbits.

I adored this book. I have left two reviews on my BookTube channel, The Caffeinated Book Wyrm, if you would like to see just how much I loved this book. Looking forward to purchasing the final edition in June and re-reading to see if anything changed.

I enjoyed the story and the uniqueness of this book but did find that it lacked focus. At times I felt like there were too many elements competing to be on top that it came off as disjointed. The ending was ok, but was a little unsatisfying. I give this author kudos for the story alone which will most likely stick with me for a long time. It is a book I am interested in getting in hard copy and will be reading it again to pick up on little easter eggs that I may have missed the first go round.

I wish it were more compelling than it was, although there were suspenseful and exciting parts to it. I could see many literary and cinematic influences on this work. I found that there were too many loose ends without ties and rabbit holes with no ends.

3.5 stars total, but I rounded down for the amount of time it took me to read this. Has the potential for greatness but definitely needs more focus. I am looking forward to listening to the Rabbits podcast though.

My full review is published on Goodreads here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3883242674

"There's something wrong with Rabbits." But there's nothing wrong at all with <i>Rabbits</i>. This fast-paced conspiracy thriller is like <i>Ready Player One</i>, but better. You're not supposed to talk about playing Rabbits, a game (or is it?) that exists in the periphery of reality. If you've ever experienced deju vu, maybe you've played Rabbits. If you've ever noticed coincidences that seem too coincidental to be random, maybe you've played Rabbits.

This debut novel from Terry Miles is an exhilarating ride from start to finish.

This was a very different read for me. My best friend loves the podcast, so I figured I would read the book when I saw it available. I cannot wait to buy this for her when it comes out!

I am sorry to report that this did not work for me. As a fan of Terry Miles' podcasts, this makes me sad, but I think these stories work better in that format. It's possible that if the audiobook has a similar production value that it will distract from the thin story here. I had listened to all of the Rabbits podcast, so I already knew what was going on and it made reading this a bit of a slog. I honestly couldn't get through it. I am sorry to have to throw the towel in on this one because I was really looking forward to it, but it looks like it worked for some other readers.

This novel was a little outside my usual--not being a gamer or anything like that--but I enjoyed it and can see the appeal. It will resonate most with people who do enjoy gaming and mystery, I think.

What happens when games and reality become intertwined? This is the heart of Rabbits, a fantastic novel by Terry Miles. The story is a cross between Ready Player One and the Matrix. Rabbits is a game that most of the world is unaware of and those who are aware of it do not talk about it. Those who talk about it are disappearing but are they dying or being sent to alternate dimensions? The game must be won for the sake of everyone.

The plot, characters, and writing pulled me in and kept me interested from the first page to the last. I highly recommend this book.

Addictive, adrenaline-pumping, and a total mind f*ck. This is not my usual read, but holy smokes it is one of the most surprising books I've read in a LONG time.
(Full review to come on The Nerd Daily as Seven Jane)

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was invited to review this book and I was hesitant to do so because the subject matter was not something I gravitate towards.
It was flighty, hopping from one scene to another, somehow assuming you knew what they were taking about even though I was clueless to the topic changes. I didn't care for the book, but that doesn't mean you won't, honestly it just wasn't my cup of tea.
Give it a try, I bet you'll like more than I did.

What a crazy but great ride! When I read the description for this book I was all in, wanted to read it seeing it was about a secret game you are not supposed to talk about. I have not listened to the podcast so I went I to it without knowing anything. I enjoyed the premise and execution of the book and the world the author presented. The characters were likable and I could relate to a few of them in different levels.

There were a few times I got a bit confused but it was fast paced and could not put it down. I was taking it everywhere with me to read and one last page or chapter turned into 2 or 3.


https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3969809514

Great for fans of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and most of Neal Stephenson’s works. This book takes you on an engaging journey from the very beginning. Touching upon numerous fields of study, there is something for everyone. And just when you think you’ve grasped the truth, everything you know shifts to another dimension of reality, leaving you with more questions than when you began. With engaging characters and creative concepts, this story will keep you reading well past bedtime!

From my post at https://thoughtsalongthewayblog.wordpress.com/2021/04/27/rabbits-by-terry-miles/

{Available June 8, 2021}

Wow, such a wonderfully twisted wild ride!

I kept thinking in the early stages that I was so familiar with this story. I thought it must be based on a a short story I had read, but I had forgotten that I had listened to a podcast with the same name. The podcast whetted my thirst, but it didn’t completely prepare me for the intense journey that was Rabbits. You will find yourself frequently thinking you know what’s going on, only to discover that you are as wrong as the characters in the story.

It is really challenging to put people through this many twists and turns without losing them. Terry Miles does an amazing job of this, giving us enough information to think we *might* know what’s going on and then wrenching that out from under us. Even better, the book has a twisted, but understandable conclusion—something SciFi has been lacking since the influence of Gardner Dozois left writers thinking they are supposed to be inconclusive.

This book is thoroughly engaging and entertaining. The only thing preventing me from giving it my highest praise is that the characters seem unable to say "Hello" without dropping F-bombs. The cumulative effect goes past annoying to offensive, and adds a totally avoidable barrier to full enjoyment of the story.

(Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free for pre-publication review.)

Thanks to Del Rey+ Terry Miles for an advanced reader copy of RABBITS in exchange for an honest review.

This was a good amount of fun! RABBITS is one of those books that sticks with you because reading it is an entire experience. It feels like one of those world shifting books, like you’re reading something seismically different than anything else, and you’re in on something secret, like you’re a participant of the game itself.

In RABBITS, we follow K as they navigate through the game Rabbits. The game itself is ultra-secretive. You don’t even know if you’re playing, who else is playing, what the stakes are, or what the prize is. There’s rumors of CIA, secret societies, conspiracies, world bending, and more. The game is about connections, coincidences, and puzzles, and the globe is the playing board. But something in this iteration of the game has gone wrong, and it’s up to K to fix it before the end of life as we know it.

A couple critiques. My first is that at some points the writing just feels a bit...off. A paragraph ending on a weak statement, or the dialogue being a bit choppy. It’s nothing that really turned me off at any point, but it was noticeable.

My second, and biggest, critique is that the ending is rather disappointing. This is a book where you’re discovering and uncovering until the very last page. But within the last five percent of the book, everything that had been built, explained, explained again, woven, and imagined...gets a lackluster wrap up. I think we could have done without the last few stops on the map of the story to wrap things up in a more concrete way that matches the thoroughness within the rest of the book.

Ultimately, this felt like MR PENUMBRAS 24 HOUR BOOKSTORE on secret, weapons grade drugs. If you like ultra-weird creepy conspiracy based puzzles and galaxy brained concepts sprinkled with magic science and tied up in non-stop action, this is for you.

What a bizarre book. I love the idea of a secret game hidden in messages. It kind of gave me Ready Player One vibes but throw in some retro video gaming. The only word I could think of that really describes this book is CHAOTIC. The story just jumps around so much at the beginning that I was completely lost. Which is never a good thing when starting a book. It evened out some towards the middle but that word still stuck with the plot through the book.

What do you get if you mix Dark Matter (Blake Crouch), Finity (John Barnes), and a dash of Ready Player One (Ernest Clines)? Well, you get Rabbits.
The basic idea is that there is a GAME played out in the world and us where the clues are odd occurrences that allow a player to follow along to the next clue. The protagonist is K, a somewhat OCD person who is obsessed with the game ever since a traumatic childhood experience. This, by the way, is almost the total character description... interestingly, there are never gender pronouns or physical description given of the protagonist (an interesting authorial choice that can allow readers to picture the personify however they want... but also removes any preconceptions that might come from whatever description might be given). K is told by someone respected that the GAME (Rabbits) is broken and only K can fix it. Thus begins a search for clues and patterns through a series of pop culture references and shifting realities.

As a positive, the story moves along rapidly and the book is a very quick read. Unfortunately, the protagonist is presented as highly intelligent, wealthy, and likable yet often acts like none of these things. The author gives fancy, descriptive Italian names to the dishes K prepares, but seems to run out of pages in the book and has to rush the ending. The game at the heart of the books is super secret and dangerous but K gives lectures on it to random groups of people and all over the world people are playing it and sharing information. It would be like if the first rule of flight club was "don't talk about fight club unless you need to talk something out with others or make money".
In fact, I think the missed potential is what bothered me the most. The book has great ideas that could result in exploring the possibilities of multiverse ideas, but the ending kinda shrugs and says "meh, having a multiverse seems like a bit much... it was probably just coincidence any way." AAAARRRRGGGHHH... why did I just spend hours reading this then???

Here's the thing... I wanted to like this book. A LOT. Somehow though, almost none of the characters really had enough personality to really make me care who lived and who died (exception: Emily... a spin-off novel exploring more fully what she says she went through would be fascinating because it would fulfill the potential in a way this novel didn't quite). In the end, while it was an OK read, it couldn't take that next step to becoming a must-read in the genre.

Thank you to the publisher (Del Rey) and Netgalley for the chance to read a prerelease copy of this book.

Excellent gripping novel. There already are the inevitable comparisons to RP1, even the television series <i>Lost</I>, but Miles' debut work shouldn't be compared...it stands on its own. Miles doesn't overwhelm the reader with such as he unfolds the world and mystery surrounding the protagonist with a slow pace that accelerates until a frenzied whirlwind of surreal twist after twist. And the ending? A twist and a half. I am not familiar with the podcast on which the world of this novel is based, but I can say this had me rushing through pages to find out what happens next, what the next clue...or twist... was going to be. Readers of RP1 might enjoy this, but it is only tertiarily similar. As I said, it stands on its own.

I received a review copy of this from <a href="http://www.netgalley.com">NetGalley</a>

[I rarely summarize fiction plots, mainly because I think it unfair to the author - there are plenty of people who do for those on the hunt, and there is almost always an extra teaser blurb somewhere - and I think it unfair to the reader who, like me, dislikes spoilers.]

"A deadly underground game might just be altering reality itself in this all-new adventure set in the world of the hit Rabbits podcast.

It’s an average work day. You’ve been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air - 4:44 p.m. You check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize the date is April 4 - 4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444.

Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses the entire world as its canvas.

Since the game started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. The identities of these winners are unknown.

So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to the secrets of the universe itself.

But the deeper you get, the more dangerous the game becomes. Players have died in the past - and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin.

Enter K - a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, rumored to be the winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts, or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing.

Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline: Eleven begins.

And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake."

I freely admit I've never heard of the podcast where this book is set, but now I HAVE to learn more about all of it because isn't a better Ready Player One?

Wow, this was a wild ride of a book. I loved the pop culture references. Still trying to process all the twists and turns that “k” went through.