Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this mesmerizing eARC.

In Jennifer Haigh's "Rabbit Moon," the reader is immediately drawn into a world of complex relationships and emotional turmoil. The story centers around a family grappling with the aftermath of a tragic accident in Shanghai, where their daughter, Lindsey, is critically injured. Haigh's masterful storytelling weaves together the past and present, revealing the intricate dynamics between the relationships in this story.

The novel's strength lies in its exploration of the themes of family, love, loss, and the enduring power of connection. Haigh's characters are flawed and relatable, each with their own struggles and vulnerabilities. As the story unfolds, their lives intertwine, revealing the depths of their relationships and the unspoken truths that bind them together.

Haigh's writing is lyrical and poignant, painting a vivid picture of Shanghai and its people. The reader is transported to the bustling streets and ancient alleyways, immersing themselves in the sights, sounds, and smells of this vibrant metropolis

"Rabbit Moon" is a beautiful love story to family relationships and Haigh's ability to create complex characters and explore universal themes makes this book a must-read for anyone who appreciates a story that is emotionally resonant and intellectually stimulating.

I found it a beautifully written story, it is no small wonder the author is a multiple award winning writer.

Additionally, the issue of China's female infants coming into their own identity after adoption by loving families so far from their birth land resonated deeply with me.

"This is how it happens. Your life appears to be about one thing. Then the phone rings, and in a single moment, it is completely and irrevocably about something else." Opening with a hit and run incident that leaves young American Lindsey Litvak in a coma, Jennifer Haigh slowly reveals the mystery of Lindsey’s gap year life in Shanghai. There is too much that would be spoiled by mentioning further plot points, but I relished every detail as they were slowly disclosed through multiple narrators including Lindsey’s estranged parents, her beloved adopted sister and her local hair stylist and confidante.

Themes include the vagaries of life, the Asian idea of the “red thread” of destiny that binds people together, addictive relationships, and international lifestyles. Rabbit Moon is a beautifully written examination of young adulthood in a cross-cultural setting.

Wow what a story! Haigh's characterization of each character was really interesting to read - they were all so complex and magnetic. Loved the way the story came together. It held my attention till the end!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc! :)

4.5 stars

RABBIT MOON by Jennifer Haigh is a unique novel mostly taking place in Shanghai that I couldn’t put down.

Lindsey is a twenty-two year old American living in Shanghai when she is involved in a hit and run. Her divorced parents are summoned to Shanghai as she clings to life in the hospital. This story shows the perspectives of each of the four members of the Litvak family: Claire (mother), Aaron (father), Lindsey, and her younger adopted sister Grace.

The Shanghai setting comes alive, with me wanting to visit there. Haigh’s adept writing unfurls the narrative at a good pace. The reader is intrigued and wants to know more (WHY did Lindsey choose the path that she did?), and at that moment Haigh tells you more. Even the minor characters, like Lindsey’s friend Johnny, are written with a lot of nuance.

If there is a quibble to be had, it’s that I felt invested in the minor characters and wanted to know more from and about them.

I have read almost everything Haigh has written, and this one knocks it out of the park as a character-driven, unique, dysfunctional family novel that I won’t soon forget.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown & Co. for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

RABBIT MOON publishes April 1, 2025.

I loved Haigh’s Mercy Street so I not surprised that I loved this book as well. A college graduate moves to China and becomes stuck in some not so great situations, but her brightness and energy makes it so that she touches so many people in positive ways. When she gets hit by a car and lies in a coma, the story moves backwards to tell us of how she got there. At the same time, her family must deal with the tragedy in each of their own way.
Haigh’s writing is intuitive and the depth of her characters is what gets you hooked. I had a hard time putting this down and just loved how, as a reader, you feel like you are an observer right in the story.
Thank you NetGalley for an ARC.

The catalyst in the book happens early. 22 year old Lindsey Litvak is struck by a drunk driver early in the morning in the financial district of Shanghai-an area deadly quiet at that time of day. She lies comatose with a severe brain injury and her divorced parents are eventually contacted in Newton Massachusetts. This is the central event but there are so many themes to unpack in the ensuing pages. First there is present day Shanghai with its stifling heat and polluted air and millions of people crowding in streets and its unending construction of new high rises in its struggle for modernization.
Post partum depression which Lindsey’s mother endured for the first year after her birth and affected their relationship forever. There is career frustration (Claire as a writer) and marital dysfunction with Claire unfulfilled and Aaron obsessed with his work. Foreign adoption of female Chinese babies with its “ one child policy” accounting for the arrival of Grace as a 7 month old member of the Litvak family, with z Lindsey’s instant attraction to her, their sibling binding and Lindsey’s fascination with China. Sexual abuse of a minor (Lindsey) which changed her life and affects her subsequent relationships and is the final straw that breaks the Litvak marriage. Finally there is Lindsey’s work as an escort and what it says about the power of money and prestige. The final chapter in 2031 has too many “spoilers” to relate-you’ll have to read the book and form your own opinions😂😂😂
As always with Haigh - concisely and well written, and dense with topics for discussion. She’s a winner-read it!!!!!

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book. Jennifer Haigh writes insightful, thoughtful novels covering a range of human experience. In Rabbit Moon, Haigh leaves her usual setting of rural Pennsylvania and sets this novel in Shanghai. When Lindsey, an American student teaching English in China, is hit by a car leaving her unconscious, her divorced parents travel to Shanghai and try to navigate a completely foreign society. Soon they find out that Lindsey is not a teacher and leads a mysterious life. Told through multiple viewpoints, the novel explores Lindsey's journey to China, her parents' marriage and divorce, her younger sister Grace's feelings as an adoptee from China, and Lindsay's best friend in Shanghai Johnny. The setting was inspired by a year Haigh spent in Shanghai, and although this is in many ways a departure from her usual themes and style, her characterization is always compelling.

Jennifer Haigh has been one of my go-to authors for over 10 years. I love the way she skillfully weaves language and compelling narration. My favorite book of hers is Baker Towers, but I also really enjoyed Mercy Street, her latest contemporary novel. I went into Rabbit Moon with high hopes. The action and narration were fast-paced and compelling from the start. However, I began feeling that the story wasn't going anywhere about 2/3 in, and the last part really seemed to drag on with long passages about minor characters that I had no connection to.

I wonder if there was some symbolism that I was missing, but it really felt like the story ran out before the book was over. I think die-hard Jennifer Haigh fans will seek it out, but I don't know if it is worth reading on after things start to drag.

3.5 stars. This is an initially interesting but ultimately disappointing story about the complex relationships between two sisters, Lindsey and Grace, and their divorced parents. Lindsey developed a fascination with China as a girl, when her mother took her to China to adopt a younger sister (Grace). Although there is a gap of over 10 years between the girls, they are very close. Early on, the reader learns that Lindsey blames her mother for something I can't reveal here (or it would be a plot spoiler) and as a result plunges into a self destructive mode, eventually deciding to drop out of school to go live in China. Initially, she and her boyfriend teach English, but when he leaves she turns to work in the escort business ultimately getting hit by a car and landing in a coma in the hospital. The plot moves between her divorced parents who fly back to China to be by her bedside, her younger sister Grace who is away at summer camp, and flashbacks to Lindsey's life in China. As many note, most of the characters are not very likeable. For someone who studied Chinese for a decade, Lindsey is surprisingly culturally clueless and just seems to be mired in anger at her mother. The parents are also strangely checked out, distracted by their frustrations with one another (even though their marriage ended years before). And we do not get enough pages with the two more likeable characters, Lindsey's sister Grace and her best Chinese friend. I could have lived with all of this, however, had the plot gone somewhere. But about half way through the book, I started realizing that it was not really going anywhere. I kept reading mainly because I was given a free copy of the book in exchange for a candid review. This book has the feeling of a first novel, with unrealized potential. (I was surprised to discover that this author has written several books). Wish the editors had asked the author to do more with the plot and to increase the ration of likeable to unlikeable characters.

This is an emotionally powerful novel.
It's a story of loss and grief. It was an engaging book from beginning to end.

I'm honestly perplexed by Rabbit Moon. I'm not sure what I was meant to take away from this book; what I do know is that I couldn't connect with it on any level. It's a confusing mix of a tender sisterly relationship between Grace and Lindsey, Lindsey's reckless decisions and downward spiral, and the complete incompatibility of their parents as a couple.

The majority of characters were deeply unlikable, with the exception of Grace and Johnny Du. Claire and Aaron Litvak's ignorance about life in Shanghai was grating, especially Aaron's nonstop commentary on Chinese culture and customs. I found myself bored by their dynamic as well, and how they constantly blamed each other for the event that fractured their family.

Lindsey's story is rooted in trauma, as she was groomed by a family friend, Dean Farrell. This leads her, later in life, to seek validation and love from a client while working as an escort in Shanghai. While this glimpse into life as an escort was one of the few aspects that piqued my interest, there was hardly any substance or purpose to its inclusion.

Some elements reminded me of They're Going to Love You, another story about strained familial relationships stemming from a cataclysmic event. Unfortunately, both books failed to hold my attention. I wanted to see characters grow and develop; I didn't want it to be told to me through Grace's perspective in the very last chapter. Ultimately, this book's lack of depth left me disappointed.

Twenty-two year old Lindsey Litvak is supposed to be teaching English in Beijing when her divorced parents, Claire and Aaron, receive a call from a stranger informing them that their daughter is unconscious in a Shanghai hospital. Leaving their younger child, Grace, in summer camp, they fly to Shanghai. Neither of them understands Chinese or knows anyone in the city. As they wait for news, they learn that neither of them had any idea of what their older daughter has been doing for the past two years.
Rabbit Moon is an astonishing book about family and identity.
Told from the viewpoints of Lindsey, Grace, Claire, Aaron, and several minor characters who knew Lindsey in Shanghai, it tells the story of a beautiful and gifted young woman who made a series of horrendously illogical life choices. The reader expects to end up blaming at least one of Lindsey's parents, but they both gave her love, opportunities, support, and the freedom to be herself. It becomes clear that ability, privilege and good intentions are not enough to create happiness.
Every chapter is told in the third person except for the first and last, which are narrated by Grace, the sister whose adoption from a Chinese orphanage created Lindsey's fascination with all things Chinese and gave her the purest relationship of her life.
After reading this enthralling book, I look forward to discovering other titles by Jennifer Haigh.
I am grateful to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for giving me the opportunity to read an advance copy of Rabbit Moon in exchange for my honest review.

While this was well written, I'm not sure what it was aiming to do. There wasn't really a plot, just a lot of backstory presented while Lindsey lay in a coma. I'd thought there would be some development, like the parents learning about her life or their relationship with each other changing, but that didn't really happen. It was somewhat interesting as a character study, though all I saw of the parents was why they didn't like each other, not how they came across to those who did like them. It mostly felt like a description of wreckage, with Grace's personal growth tacked on at the end.

"This is how it happens. Your life appears to be about one thing. Then the phone rings, and in a single moment, it is completely and irrevocably about something else."
Another wonderful novel by Jennifer Haigh! In Rabbit Moon, we meet the splintered Litvak family: Claire and Aaron are divorced and daughter Lindsey has been living overseas on a gap year while younger sister, Grace, is currently in summer camp in New Hampshire. Their lives are all changed when they receive a call that Lindsey has been seriously injured in a hit and run accident in Shanghai.
The novel jumps back and forth between time periods, locations and characters, with the story primarily being told by a close cast of characters: Lindsey, her parents, Grace, and her Shanghai bff, Johnny. Much of the novel, however, is set in Shanghai and we're able to get an interesting picture of life in this large city. There's some intrigue - why was Lindsey in Shanghai, why was she in the deserted business district in the middle of the night and why is her closet filled with expensive designer dresses and shoes when she's supposedly teaching English? While her parents never learn the answers to these questions, we do. through Ms. Haigh's clever storytelling.
I especially liked the ending - fast forwarding us to Grace's future adulthood, and in doing so, we're able to really understand the special relationship between the two sisters.
Thanks to Netgalley and Little Brown and Company for the opportunity to read Rabbit Moon. I received a complimentary copy of this book and opinions expressed are completely my own.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Rabbit Moon.

When their daughter's tragic accident in Shanghai brings two divorced parents together, the former couple is forced to come to terms about their child's life and the events that culminate at their daughter's bedside.

I liked the descriptions of Shanghai but I didn't unrderstand the point of the story?

Why should we care about the Litvaks?

The parents are deeply unlikable and spend the better part of their time in Shanghai bemoaning the other person's flaws and eccentricities.

Why did these people get married at all?

Lindsey is young, beautiful, and impressionable, and has deeply-rooted Freudian Daddy issues.

This is apparent from the terrible choices she makes with men and how susceptible she is to certain types of men, namely married men with families. She's obviously seeking a father figure since her own father works tirelessly and ceaselessly and rarely spent any time with him.

Johnny, Lindsey's BFF, and Grace, her adopted sister from China, are the only interesting characters but even their character development is brief.

The writing is good, but dry, the tone informative, lacking depth, empathy and emotion.

There were parts of the narrative that read as filler like the POV of Sun, the landlord. I guess it was to highlight his own feelings for Lindsey and the young ladies renting in his building.

I'm left wondering what's the point of the story?

Is it about Grace, navigating two worlds, her Chinese side and her adopted side by white parents in America? Her enduring love for her sister?

Is it about Lindsey, who never achieved her true potential because of the poor decisions she made?

Is it about their parents, who seem better off without the other, and ironically seem to have flourished after the eldest child's death?

Or is it just about a dysfunctional family and we all know one or are a part of one so who cares?

Review copy provided by the publisher.

The most common reason I bounce off a book is the prose voice. That means that the most common reason I read a book all the way through that I don't end up liking much is *also* the prose voice. This was a very readable book on the sentence level. I have no complaints about its prose.

On a larger scale, though...this book just didn't go anywhere deep or interesting with its premise. It's about a young American woman who is hit by a car in Shanghai when her parents think she's living and working in Beijing, and about that whole family trying to figure out what's been going on. Which they mostly don't do. Mostly they just flail around being a mess. Friendships and relationships are severed more or less by bad luck.

On the up side, the sex workers in the book are treated with respect as people. On the other hand, there's not a lot of depth in that part either--and it's a pretty large theme to tackle without having anything in particular to say about it. I can't say this motivated me to seek out Haigh's other books. Oh well, they can't all etc.

I thought this a somewhat sad tale of Lindsey, a young woman teaching in China who is critically injured in a hit and run and the mystery of events with the accident in the wee hours of the morning she was found. When Lindsay's parents, Claire and Aaron receive word that their daughter was found laying in the streets of Shanghai the divisions that developed during their contentious divorce brings them together to find out what happened to their eldest daughter but left behind in the states is younger sister Grace who adopted from China as a baby and Lindsey's biggest fan is left lost and confused. The events leading to the accident begins with the storyline of Lindsey being seduced as a teen by a handsome married neighbor, the subsequent unfortunate decisions she makes navigating through her life in Shanghai and the outcome. I initially didn't care for Lindsey's character in the beginning but as the story unfolded came to understand her more and this ended up almost being a tear jerker for me because of the loss the whole family ended up sustaining in many ways.

Big thank you to author Jennifer Haigh and NetGalley for a copy of this in exchange for my review all my opinions are my own

This is the story of Lindsey Litvak, a college dropout of 22, who decides to move to China to find work. Lindsey's parents are divorced, and unaware that she is not in Beijing- she is living in Shanghai. Lindsey's adopted sister Grace was born in China, and the sisters remain close.
Suddenly, Lindsey's private life is exposed when she is a victim of a hit and run car as she is standing on a Shanghai street, and her parents and Grace are devastated by this accident. The author is an expert at developing complex characters, while giving us the vicarious experience of seeing Shanghai through their eyes.

Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh completely swept me away. Claire and Aaron’s reunion in Shanghai after their daughter Lindsey’s accident was so raw and emotional—I could feel the weight of their history in every interaction. The family dynamics were messy and real, and I loved how Grace’s connection to Lindsey added another layer of heartbreak and hope. It felt like I was right there with them, navigating the city’s chaos and their own tangled relationships.

This book had me glued to the pages with its gorgeous writing and deep, emotional pull. If you love stories about family, secrets, and the things that bind us together even when it hurts, this is a must-read. It left me both heartbroken and hopeful, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it long after I finished. ★★★★★

I have read many books by Jennifer Haigh and enjoyed them all, so I was thrilled to be approved for this ARC. Once I picked up Rabbit Moon, I could not put it down. The story about Lindsay Litvak, a young American woman living in Shanghai is propulsive. After being critically injured in a hit-and-run, Lindsay’s life is under scrutiny. Her parents thought she was living in Beijing teaching English. So what’s she doing in Shanghai with a closet full of clothes entirely different from the girl they remember? The story visits perspectives of people who loved Lindsay: her little sister, her best friend, and her parents, but they all circle the gorgeous, magnetic, and very smart Lindsay. I loved the way the characters and story came together and was hooked till the very end. I was mildly disappointed in the ending, but not enough to knock it down to 4 stars.

Highly recommended. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.