Abandoned at the 50% mark. Thanks to NetGalley for an ARC.

The premise was great but I disliked just about everything about the execution of it. The characters all behave in ways I felt were implausible and annoying.

If I used language like Chloe, I would say something like, "This book is f'n great! Come on, K, you have to read it. Now!" But, I am not Chloe or K but a delighted reader just finishing Terry Miles Rabbits. Combine a bit of The Night Circus ala Erin Morgenstern and The Bear and the Nightingale ala Katherine Arden and you will get a bit of the flavor, mind bending, nonstop action, wish-I-could-write-like-that prose, and with-you-for-a-lifetime characters found in Rabbits. Add this to your Top 100 and Could Not Put Down book lists. Rabbits gets my rare (and I like to think) coveted 4 Star rating, i.e. just shy of an all time classic.

I really liked the Rabbits podcast, so I was excited to receive an advanced copy of this book through NetGalley. I was not disappointed--this book was an insane thrill ride, and I mean insane in the best way possible. If you like the podcast, you'll definitely like the book. If you're not familiar with the podcast but you're fascinated by the Mandela effect, mysterious games, freaky coincidences, or the possibility of alternate realities, you'll probably like this book. Be prepared to, at times, be confused or freaked out when reading this, but it's definitely worth it!

Rabbits by Terry Miles is a superb and engrossing read which will keep you reading until the end. Well worth the read!

Have you ever had a fact you've known from childhood proved wrong?

A place you have vivid memories of being in a different location?

You may be playing the game...

K knows that there is more to this world than what you see... that happens when you are a pattern-recognition genius. What he doesn't know is what will happen when he starts to uncover the truth about the game, and the fabric of reality itself.

For lovers of The Matrix, Neuromancer, Donnie Darko, ARG-play and conspiracy theorists of all sorts! I could not put this book down, and am really looking forward to what else Terry has coming. Be sure to check out his Podcast as well, and ask yourself...

R U Playing?

I was given an ARC copy through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I want to start this review by saying I really wanted to love this book. It has everything I genuinely enjoy like mystery, fantasy, and science fiction elements pulled in to the real world. I love the podcast Tanis and Rabbits, so when I saw there was a book coming out, I was ready to immerse myself in to the world even further. However, there was some things that took me out of the book.

I'll start with the positives:

I loved the concept and ideas of this book. I would definitely give the idea alone 5 stars as it is intriguing and keeps you guessing. There are twists and turns that you won't see coming, and I loved that about this book. There were moments where I was sucked in to the book, wanting to know more about the game and how it worked in the real world.

I absolutely loved some of the characters in the book. The antagonist was perfect. The way K and the antagonist interacted creeped me out in a way that showed how bad the antagonist was without giving too much away. There were moments I was scared for K just because the antagonist was so well written.

I also loved how I felt sucked in to the world of Rabbits. Following the clues with the narrator and tracking down the discrepancies was a personal favorite part of this book for me. I wanted to keep following the clues and become obsessed with the game just as the narrator was obsessed with it.

Now for the reasons I had to give this 3 stars:

There were two things that really took me out of this book and made me leave the world created.

The first thing is how the flashbacks are integrated in to the book. Especially in the beginning, there were moments where the flashbacks from childhood did not flow with the story as well as the flashbacks that happened later in the book. The flashbacks in the beginning are jarring and just don't seem to fit well with the entirety of the story. I think part of the reason it took me out of the story was how the book told me what was going on and did not show me.

The other thing I did not like about this book were some of the female characters. Personally, I felt like two female characters in particular were written as basically the same person. There were interactions in the end that threw me off because of how the same conversation would have been had with the other female character in the exact same way. I think I would have liked to see a difference of how the two interacted with K to show how they were two different people and different choices.

Even though I gave this book 3 stars, I would still recommend it to readers. I think the concept itself is really cool and it is easy to get sucked in to the world of Rabbits with the narrator. The twists and turns keep it interesting and leaving the reader with wanting more.

If you want a darker version of Ready Player One, this is the book for you!

This book was such a surprise. Such a mind-bending surprise full of bizarre and thrilling experiences and characters. I mean, I could never have imagined this book if I tried. It is weird and cool and full of learning opportunities and odd, interesting, funny, frightening, sad, lovely people and story lines. I love this book. Love it. 📚💜

The title of the song playing on the radio is a combination of the name of the restaurant you're walking past followed by the name of the street you're walking on. Or maybe you receive two wrong number calls four minutes and forty-four seconds apart. And maybe those two numbers are identical except for the area code, or maybe the numbers are completely different but the two unrelated callers have the exact same name.

Is it just a coincidence? Or is it Rabbits?
We start the book when the eleventh iteration of the game is about to begin.
But something is wrong, and while the game has always been dangerous, players are disappearing and turning up dead at a very high rate.
Is it just a game? Or are there other forces at play here?
Well, you just have to win the game and found out.

This book was very good, I couldn't even tell that it was a debut novel.
The pacing was good, and you get absorbed from the start. And while it wasn't perfect, I would definitely recommend it.

The game Rabbits is inspired (in my opinion) by the real-life game Cicada 3301. If you haven't heard of it, check it out on Youtube. And I just found out that there is a podcast called Rabbits, which I would definitely check out after reading this book.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing the ARC

Rabbits is an absolutely terrific novel that fans of Ernest Cline or Blake Crouch will devour.  I loved everything about this book.  It's a great story with intriguing characters and enough pop culture references to keep the reader going to google to look the references up.  I had to look up quite a few things from Steely Dan albums to paintings by Andrew Wyeth to old video games that I loved playing when I was growing up (Dragon's Lair and Space Ace to name a few).  I didn't know anything about the book when I started reading it and it has some really good twists and turns I didn't see coming which was a pleasant surprise.  I highly recommend Rabbits and will handsell the book when it comes out.

"Rabbits" is a book for those who couldn't get enough of the tv series Lost, the tv series Stranger Things, or Ursula Le Guin's Lathe Of Heaven. Forget it's a debut novel cause it's spectacular. It takes the world of computer gaming combines it with drifting between multiverses and throws in cults, conspiracies, blackouts, deadly fog, and coincidences that may just be more than coincidences. Is it just a game or is it about saving the world before it's too late?

One of the great things here is that like the lead character K. (And yeah it's just K.) you, the reader, are never sure where this cosmic chess match is going to take you next. On one hand, you get a handful of retro hipsters who hang around arcades and like to play on the dark web via their tor browsers. But, there's this mysterious game, which like Fight Club you are never supposed to talk about, and it's a game of following patterns and finding coincidences, following the clues. But, you've been warned that something's wrong with the game and players are disappearing, even well-known multi-billionaires. At what point is it real and at what point merely a game with reality as you know it being the stakes?

It's not possible to say enough good things about this ultra-absorbing novel. Maybe you just need to wait till the next iteration of the game begins. That is, if it's not too late.

Kudos to the author for this wildly imaginative story. It is unpredictable, compelling, and includes interesting characters. I didn't know about the podcast, so I haven't heard any of it. I'll have to check it out. Ready Player One fans are an obvious audience. Recommended.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

Is there an alternate underground reality running parallel to our own? Have you ever felt like there are patterns or sequences in our every day lives that are trying to tell us to look deeper than what is just on the surface? I really enjoyed this novel and had never heard of the Rabbits podcast before picking this book up. If you’re a fan of Warcross or Ready Player One, this book is for you. There are so many Easter eggs for us 90s kids—especially if you’ve ever owned a Nintendo, Atari or Sega Genesis, or played D&D growing up. It’s a page-turning thriller with a protagonist who will feel like one of your buddies down the street you grew up gaming with and you will not be disappointed.