2.75
Teddy’s father dies by suicide on the tenth anniversary of her older sister’s disappearance leading her into a spiral of grief and Reddit threads.

Wary as I am of thrillers nowadays, I thought this sounded great – especially given this description: “A twisty debut exploring the dark side of true crime fandom and the blurry lines of female friendship, perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn, My Favorite Murder, and Fleabag.”

Perhaps if not for this description I wouldn’t have had high expectations and as a result, I might have enjoyed the book more for what it was: an examination of grief and family trauma. Unfortunately, it’s not ‘twisty’ at all and it certainly didn’t have the fast-paced plot of a Gillian Flynn novel. Also, the mention of MFM and Fleabag suggests some dark humour, which is definitely not the case.

I found the book more engaging in the beginning, when Teddy’s investigations start. Later, I found the pace slowed and the plot wasn’t moving forward. I was frustrated by the lack of a big twist or reveal, as this was the style of thriller I was expecting. That’s not to say there isn’t a mystery nor surprising revelations; it was just a little more subdued than I had expected.

What really made me come down on the lower side of a neutral rating was the treatment of animals in the story. I’m not a particularly sensitive reader but this book had a particularly upsetting scene involving a dog that did not seem to fit with the character and didn’t add much to the narrative in my opinion.

I really think this book will find its audience if readers are willing to adapt their expectations. If it sounds like one for you, it’s out now!

Thank you, NetGalley and Soho Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This book felt like two things: A book that never ends, and a party you went to with a friend and thought you were having a good time at but realize about halfway through that you’re not having as good of a time as you thought, but you can’t really leave so you stick it out and you really regret it by the end of the night.

Yeah. That’s what reading Rabbit Hole felt like to me: Unnecessarily long, uncomfortable in a misleading way, and then utterly miserable when you realize you hate everyone in the book and the plot has gone from somewhat interesting to moderately interesting into, “This really isn’t interesting at all anymore and I don’t want to read this anymore but now I’m about 65% in and I might as well finish”, and then, “I should have just quit”.

I know this seems harsh. It may be. I don’t know. All I know for sure is that I broke up the reading of this book into two chunks because I thought maybe it was just me and I needed to take a break and come back to it for it to seem more fresh and interesting. Usually it’s the second act of a book that fails me in mysteries and suspense novels. For Rabbit Hole, it was the third act that failed me. The second act was the most interesting part, in my opinion. In the third act, the whole book and every single character unraveled for me and no one and nothing was ever capable of redemption. I quite simply wasn’t feeling any of it.

TW/CW for animal suffering and death.

I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Amateur Sleuth/Mystery/Suspense Mystery

My first book of 2024 and while I for sure finished it, it was just an ok book from my point of view. A book that could be described as much more character driven then plot and had a very slow roll. I have found over my years of reading that I tend to lean and enjoy those books where the characters are great, but there is definitely some plot movement with great pacing.

Teddy Angstrom's father has committed suicide and this is the second mystery that she is trying to solve. The first is the ten-year-old mystery of her older sister's disappearance. Teddy wonders if the two are related and why her father has chosen now to end his life. She heads to reddit, the chat boards, and old school sleuthing to try to gather the clues to solve it all.

For me, when I read the synopsis I felt as though the book was leaning towards the real mystery of it all and while that is the heart of the story, this book is more literary fiction and coming of age as Teddy is really trying to find herself without two of her family members in her life.

The book was very raw and real, and to warn the sensitive readers, this one had some scenes that while appropriate for the book, could make you blush. I personally don't have someone that I would recommend this book to, but I hope with describing it this way, a reader could find it for themselves.

I really struggled with this book as the quality wanes and waxes depending on what part of the story you are in.
Kate Brody creates a novel to that looks at internet voyeurism by placing the reader in a missing person story. Ten years ago, Teddy Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, disappeared. When she is never found, Teddy’s father kills himself, starting the actions of the novel. He had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and obsessed with finding out if Angie is alive and where she is. Teddy falls down the same rabbit hole, dating a guy on the mysterious list of phone numbers her dad left behind. She also meets a young woman who wants to help finish the search. Teddy herself becomes obsessed with her sister even when it seems like there is no hope.
I had a hard time getting into this book. I found the exposition boring and emotionless even though the book opens when Teddy’s father drives off a bridge and dies Teddy’s voice stunted and I didn’t like her from the beginning, and it just got worse as the book progressed. But that progression helps the plot at least. The reader lives vicariously through Teddy. We all love a good mystery and, often, a conspiracy.
The pacing moves wonderfully except there is no real concept of time. I have no idea when Teddy moved her things into her new place and the period of time the story elapses. This could have been handled more smoothly if her editor had bothered to look at the progress from one story point to the next. You’d be reading and suddenly in the next paragraph, you were somewhere else. I had an advanced ARC so maybe this has been fixed in the editing of the printed book. This would be super helpful to the readers.
The other twist was easy to predict (Brody’s clues are too blatant). This combines with an ending that just…ends. I was unsure what to think of it. What was I supposed to take away from this story? Is this an end?
Rabbit Hole has some compelling writing that gets bogged down with other issues.

Thank you to Soho Press for sending me a copy of RABBIT HOLE. This one is out now.

I had a very hard time getting into this book. It has all the ingredients for a perfect thriller but it's almost as if they were added in the wrong order. This was all it took for me to not have a good time with it. I don't recommend this one at all.

DNF at 35%. I think this book might be suffering from the way it is described. Even though I saw a review before and went in knowing it was more of a slow burn book about grief than the thriller that the description made me expect - this still didn’t work for me. It was too slow and ultimately decided to stop. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook and audiobook to review.

Imagine your child disappears one night never to be heard from again. The police got nothing. No suspects. No closure. I’m pretty sure I’d be diving down the rabbit hole too! That’s what Mark did, and ten years later, with no real leads, he drives his car off a bridge, leaving his daughter to pick up where he left off. Theodora or “Teddy” who had just signed a lease and was ready to move out, is sucked back in, taking care of her mom and following her dads leads to figure out what happened to her sister Angelina.
The question that hangs in the air the whole book through - is she investigating or is she just grieving?
I read a review that said this book was more of a lesson in grief than it was a twisty thriller and I approached it from there and I’m so glad I did!
The investigation really takes a backseat to everything else that’s going on, which isn’t a lot on the surface, but the writing and the details are so rich in the internal dialogue that it sucks you in. You start caring for Teddy and the people she cares for. Even though these are all deeply flawed humans, we hang on to the ones we have for dear life. Perhaps especially when we know loss.

The rabbit hole here can be so much in my opinion. Yes - Reddit and the World Wide Web is one, and doom scrolling is a real thing to get lost in. But since Mark was an addict and Teddy seems to follow in his footsteps, that psychedelic drug trip is also a rabbit hole she is drawn towards.

I found this book compulsively readable, and it kept me up way past my bedtime. Did I agree with Teddy’s choices? Absolutely not. Can I relate? Not in the slightest. But there was just something about her, perhaps it’s curiosity in what drives her when absolutely everything about her life looks and feels like shit. As she takes over the life of the father who killed himself, what keeps her going? I don’t know. I don’t even know if I liked it. But I could not stop reading it, so that says something. It’s definitely a book about grief though, with mystery as a sub-genre since we don’t know what happened to her sister. I might place this in the company of “What happened to Ruthy Ramirez” (which was one of my favorites last year).

TW: Language, death of parent, death of spouse, death of child, mourning, animal death, death by suicide, drug addiction, alcoholism, toxic parent relationship, eating disorder, bullying, sexual assault, rape, graphic sexual scenes, animal cancer, death of dog (graphic), use of r-word,

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Ten years ago, Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s older sister, Angie, went missing. Her case remains unsolved. Now Teddy’s father, Mark, has killed himself. Unbeknownst to Mark’s family, he had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, and Teddy can’t help but fall down the same rabbit hole.

Teddy’s investigation quickly gets her in hot water with her gun-nut boyfriend, her long-lost half brother, and her colleagues at the prestigious high school where she teaches English. Further complicating matters is Teddy’s growing obsession with Mickey, a charming amateur sleuth who is eerily keen on helping her solve the case.

Bewitched by Mickey, Teddy begins to lose her moral compass. As she struggles to reconcile new information with old memories, her erratic behavior reaches a fever pitch, but she won’t stop until she finds Angie—or destroys herself in the process.
Release Date: January 2nd, 2024
Genre: Thriller
Pages: 380
Rating: ⭐

What I Liked:
1. Liked how the story was written
2. Ohhhh livejournal ❤️

What I Didn't Like:
1. Every thriller has a romance
2. Very little happens that moves the plot forward
3. Repetitive
4. More sex scenes then thrilling things

Overall Thoughts:
"His breath smells like hotdogs and whiskey."

Ew that sounds absolutely disgusting.

It's so weird how in your face Mickey was.

So I guess it's Bill who killed Angie

I didn't know that teachers bring dates to a school dance. I've never heard of this before. How weird. Seems unsafe.

There is a lot of trigger warnings in this book.

There was a moment where they are watching You've Got Mail. How weird because I just watched it two days ago.

Sorry I think Mickie is the one who is all these people and she keeps pushing everyone to find her sister. She doesn't even try to hid her last name when it was well known and attached to a drug dealer that Teddy's sister would get drugs from.

We get a whole oral sex scene that adds nothing to this book. What is the point. We're 270 pages in and this the kind of things we are getting as a readers.

I skimmed the ending because I was desperate for anything to happen that lead anywhere.

We then get all these random different thoughts of what could have happened.

Final Thoughts:
There were moments where this didn't feel like a mystery because when Teddy finds out about it so many people already had some elements solved.

It was completely underwhelming. It was so boring and so monotone. This is not a thriller.

After Theodora “Teddy” Angstrom’s sister Angie went missing a decade ago, her family never quite recovered especially as the case remained unsolved year after year. Then, on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance, her father kills herself. As Teddy packs up her father's things, she realizes that he had continued to actively search for Angie, including through an online community dedicated to Angie's disappearance. Despite wanting to move on, Teddy finds herself falling down the same rabbit hole that ensnared her father. Picking up where her father left off, Teddy soon is fixated on her investigation, throwing the rest of her life into increasing disarray especially as Teddy starts questioning herself, those around her, and everything she has long believed about her sister and her family.

This was an engaging book. It explores interesting themes around grief, the impact of unresolved (and unresolvable) questions about one's family, and friendship.

Highly recommended.

I feel like I have read this plot one too many times already.

Truly felt like nothing new or exciting. Teddy was one of the most one-note and uninteresting main characters I have read from in a while. She didn't even seem to care that much about her sister in the first place and the pacing was also a bit odd. I thought the mixed media was a cool addition, but felt sort of THROWN IN at weird parts most of the time. Also, why the "romance" subplot? Felt unnecessary and made me care about our main character less, if that could even be possible.

The twist did not shock me, but I think I enjoyed the very end...but I am also a bit confused by it? However, I am fairly certain that that was the intent. If so, well done!

Kate Brody’s arresting debut novel delves deep into the heart of a modern young woman trying to make sense of a life of tragedy with its unrelenting tides of grief. When Teddy Angstrom’s father kills himself on the tenth anniversary of her sister’s disappearance, Teddy and her mother Clare are almost too numb to react. Angie Angstrom hadn’t been her father’s favorite daughter, exactly, but he had been the only person capable of handling the teenage girl in the years before she vanished. Teddy had certainly relied on him to help protect her from her volatile elder sister:

QUOTE
When she did shake me awake so that she could yell at me for some perceived slight, some way that I thought I was better than her or ignored her at school or whatever, I would tune it out and wish for Dad. And most of the time, he heard me calling for him in my head. Most of the time, he was there within a minute or two to whisk Angie downstairs for a pot of coffee and a serious talk and a lot of crying.

Mom thought he was too soft, too sympathetic. She thought Angie was getting caught on purpose, so that she could get his attention.
END QUOTE

Dad and Angie had both suffered from substance abuse issues, a problem that was only exacerbated for Dad after Angie went missing. Teddy had known that her father was damaged, but only discovers the extent of his grief after Clare asks her for help sorting through his personal effects and their bills. Teddy is horrified to discover how broke her mother is now, and mystified by the puzzling expenses her father had incurred before he died. As she seeks to close his accounts and make life easier for her mother, she finds that he had been involved with various online communities still seeking answers as to what might have happened to Angie.

Unable to resist carrying on his work, Teddy starts calling the numbers on his burner phone and making posts on the websites he frequented. Her inquiries soon bring her not only to a romantic entanglement with a figure from her past, but also into the orbit of a disarmingly quirky teenager named Mickey, who reminds her uncomfortably of Angie. And while, at first, her sleuthing is in service of her father’s memory, she quickly comes to the realization that this is all her way of dealing with her still unresolved anguish over both his death and Angie’s disappearance. At least she knows why her father died. No one in her family has yet been able to figure out what happened to Angie and why.

Because of this, Teddy is still tormented by her memories of her sister, and by her own actions ten years prior:

QUOTE
Other times–most of the time–I felt good about keeping Angie’s meaningless secrets. <i>Angie</i>--I would think, back when I still almost-prayed to her–<i>Ange, I told them next to nothing</i>. And in my prayers, she would pat my head appreciatively. I imagined her coming back and realizing how seriously I took our confidence. I imagined us growing closer than we’d ever been. Angie taking me seriously. Both of us in our twenties, in our thirties–best friends. Angie realizing that I was the only one who cared about who she was. The two of us living like sisters in a movie, laughing and giggling in the daylight together, crying with each other at night.
END QUOTE

Haunted as much by the loss of her sister as an actuality as she is by the loss of her sister as a possibility, Teddy is driven to make increasingly risky choices in her pursuit of the truth. But when her own survival is at stake, will Teddy be able to prioritize her present instead of chasing after a shadowed past or a fantasy future that looks ever less likely with each of her impulsive moves?

Pensive and grave, Rabbit Hole examines how the Internet allows the emotionally unstable to not only escape from reality but also to find community, for better or worse. Instead of processing her grief, Teddy allows modern technology to distract her with hits of dopamine, in much the same way that older generations used mind-altering substances or other dissociative devices to cope with their pain. While this book doesn’t provide definitive answers as to what happened to Angie, the aftereffects of her disappearance are clearly outlined, with both unflinching realism and an almost painful level of empathy. Teddy is a disaster, but she’s also very human and vivid, the perfectly portrayed protagonist of this dark psychological thriller.

Whew this was a ride! I love when thrillers are so well done that you don't see the ending coming and this was certainly one of those. So many feelings came into play when it came to the main character and it felt so realistic, just like if this person was in your life. The writing was so immersive and this was definitely one I could not put down.

In Kate Brody's debut novel, the main character, Teddy Angstrom, is pulled into the abyss of Reddit, trying to put the pieces together in hopes of discovering what happened to her older missing sister. The reader is pulled right along with her. You will feel sympathy for Teddy but also cringe at the poor choices she makes. An exploration of grief, desperation, and denial, Rabbit Hole is a dark and gritty slow burn novel.

Overall, I thought it was a decent debut novel. A few minor things detracted from the story. I was a bit put off with the format of the book. Essentially, it was a long conscious stream of thought without breaks or chapters. We were stuck in Teddy's head, and honestly, at times, she was insufferable. The words twisty and page-turner were used to describe the book, and my expectation was for more of a thriller, but this was more of a dark mystery.

I was provided a complementary digital copy through netgalley and the publisher in trade for an honest review.

Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody
★★★ 3/5 stars

First Book of 2024 & a Debut Pub Day review!

✦ Synopsis
10 years ago, Teddy's older sister, Angie, went missing. Her case remains unsolved. Now Teddy's father has killed himself. Unbeknownst to his family, he had been active in a Reddit community fixated on Angie, & Teddy can't help but fall down the same rabbit hole. Conspiracy theories from Reddit seduce a disaster-prone woman into an obsession with solving her older sister's cold-case disappearance.


✦ My Thoughts
The netgalley tagline “A twisty debut exploring the dark side of true crime fandom-perfect for fans of Gillian Flynn & My Favorite Murder” got me, but it was a bit misleading. This book didn’t read as a thriller to me, I would say it’s more of a slow-burn character study about grief, loss, & searching for answers.

Written in a stream of consciousness style, it was interesting, but confusing at times. You really stay inside of the MCs head exploring her grief, spiraling mental health & destructive coping strategies. The ending left me wanting more answers, but the tension was high, & the emotions were raw. I definitely felt like I had gone down the rabbit hole with her.

✦ Read if you like:
- cold cases
- unreliable narrators
- true crime + internet sleuthing
- doggie best pals

*be sure to check trigger warnings before you read this one, it’s very heavy*

Thank you to Netgalley, Kate Brody, RB Media, + SoHo Press for the opportunity to read + listen to this ARC ◡̈

3.5/5

Rabbit Hole was a challenging read for me. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but I don't think it was this. I think I went into the book expecting a fast-paced, twisty-turny thriller. Instead, this was more like a slow, dark character study that follows a protagonist who begins to unravel as she uses social media and new social connections to investigate her sister's decade-old disappearance.

I would absolutely recommend checking the content warnings for this book. I found the writing to be fairly anxiety inducing, and there were multiple scenes that made me feel gross and uncomfortable. But this is honestly a testament to Kate Brody's strong writing. She successfully wrote an unlikeable (self-described "revolting") protagonist who made some truly infuriating decisions, and as a result I spent most of the book feeling either horrified or stressed out.

This last paragraph isn't necessarily a spoiler, but you might want to skip it if you want to go into the book with no knowledge or expectations. I personally found the ending to be frustrating. I expected more resolution, and the fact that the mystery remained mostly unsolved was unsatisfying. I also didn't love the way Teddy (protagonist) began to question her own memory and reliability right at the end of the story.

Thank you to NetGalley for my advanced copy.

Wow.

I fell down a Rabbit Hole of such reading this book. Absolutely ignored all I was supposed to be doing for NYE and finished this book is 4 hours.

This story felt so vaguely familiar? Perhaps the reddit thread section reminded me of so many other murder mystery books I’ve read recently, or maybe I was reminded of the very real world we live in today, where crimes go unsolved constantly.

Besides feeling like I’ve read the story before, I was pulled in so deeply but all that was happening. I was immersed into Teddys life, romances, thoughts, feelings, almost immediately. I started having my own guesses to who did it, I started my own Insanity Wall (in my head, but still).

Although the ending wasn’t as satisfying as it could’ve been, I loved that this book did have a very strong ending all together.

4.5/5 stars, thank you for the ARC via NetGalley

I originally submitted my review as a DNF but decided to go back and finish it. Am I glad I did? Not particularly. I found the characterizations a bit muddy and, as other reviewers have pointed out, there is some very upsetting content involving animals (dead kittens, a dead cat in a completely different scene, and the drawn-out needless suffering and death of a family dog). There's enough promise here that I'll check out further titles from this author, but this one was an unpleasant slog.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC, which I received in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely heartbreaking in the best possible way. This wrecked me through every single emotion but left me grateful for my life on the other side.

This book wasn’t for me.
I didn’t understand nor like a single person in the book.
What the main character did to her dog was just appalling.
I couldn’t relate to anyone in the story and didn’t particularly want to.

I FLEW through the first 60-70% and I was sure it would be a 5 star read. I loved the writing and was intrigued by the story, I kept thinking about it when I wasn’t reading, etc.

Then things get a little weird. I am mostly fine with a lot of triggers (I have no soul 🙃), but this has an animal trigger that I was sensitive to. Idk if I had known about the trigger I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up, but I’m still glad I read it. But I don’t want to recommend it to people who are sensitive to this - I could handle it but others might not be able to (again, I have no soul 😅).

This is not a thriller… it’s more of a slow burn *almost* mystery with a side of grief and complicated family dynamics. I LOVED those aspects of it.

I loved the writing style, but there aren’t really cohesive transitions. I felt this was in line with our main character’s state of mind, so it made sense and I liked this writing style. Others may have a hard time with this - it can give you some whiplash! But again, I enjoyed it and devoured the first half of the book easily.

I am giving it 4 stars and I will continue to read books by Kate Brody because I absolutely loved the way she writes. But this book is not for everyone! In good conscience I can’t recommend it to anyone with triggers for animals, but I did still like this book.

Thank you NetGalley and Soho Press for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.