Alice and Bee are cousins who are trying to figure out the mystery of why their Moms don't talk anymore. Something happened 7 years ago, and Alice and Bee are determined to get answers once they are reunited at their Grandparents' 50th wedding anniversary. Unfortunately, the pandemic hits, and that makes their quest to find out that much harder. In the end, Alice and Bee are able to figure out the cause of the rift between their Moms, which gives the story a somewhat happy ever after.

In the story, middle school students Alice and Bee are almost 13, but the topics and situations and responses to them made the story seem like the girls were young adults maybe 14 or 15. I had to keep reminding myself that this novel is geared more toward middle school students. The novel also covered so many diverse topics, but it felt as if there was a checklist of topics to include just to say that they were included. This made the reading feel too heavy at times.

I realize that the pandemic is now considered history, but after having lived through it while teaching middle school students, the story felt intrusive. The anxiety I felt during that time became an unwelcome character while finishing the last half of the book. Maybe students will like this one enough to stick with it, but maybe they won't.

Butler and Bacon have crafted an interesting look at family relationships and difficult dynamics with their new novel. While the premise of two cousins who barely know each other working to figure out why their branches of the family barely talk is interesting and has merit, it did feel a bit like they were trying to cram too many (often controversial) topics into one novel. Bee is living in semi-rural Minnesota in a conservative family led by a very aggressive grandfather, while Alice lives with her social activist family in Seattle. When they get together to celebrate their grandparent's 50th anniversary, they hit it off and decide to uncover why their families never see each other. This is almost immediately interrupted by the start of the COVID pandemic and quarantine restrictions. They did an excellent job portraying the realities and difficulties of palliative care and losing family members early in the pandemic. That being said, the girls uncovering that the loss of communication was due to Alice's mother having an abortion for a nonviable pregnancy felt a bit much. The book never addresses the grandfather's frankly abusive behavior in detail and the seeming desire to cram in multiple controversial topics was a lot of a middle grade novel. Overall, I think tweens looking for realistic fiction that deals with family difficulties and controversial topics will appreciate this title, but it's definitely something that I would recommend with caution, especially due to the death early in the COVID pandemic.

The story started out interesting but then took a turn and there were way too many controversial topics and issues all mashed together for the reader. There wasn’t enough development of full stories to make it all come together without feeling like a forced version of acceptance of all.

A cute middle grade that need to work on describing stereotypes better. This became a bit too much like "not another Teenage Movie" with the different persons all filling their designated roles as cute/sporty/black/gay and so on so on.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to review a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alice and Bee are cousins who barely know one another due to past family drama. Bee has grown up in an extremely conservative family in small town Minnesota headed by her borderline abusive grandfather. Alice has grown in a mixed faith, liberal, and social activist family in Seattle. The two girls have dim memories of each other, but have not seen each other for years when they meet again at their grandparents' 50th anniversary. While their families continue to be in conflict over a past mysterious argument, the two girls hit it off and maintain a text-based friendship after the visit and during the COVID pandemic which ultimately claims the life of their beloved grandmother. Tragic as their grandmother's death is, it serves as a catalyst for their mothers to reunite after decades of strife.

The book is interesting but at times veers into preachiness that will be off putting to some readers. The hardcore conservative contingent of the family (Bee's mother and grandfather) rarely rise above stereotypes. While the impact of the grandfather's verbal abuse is described, including at one point a brief reference to Bee's mother 'cowering' behind him while he shouts at Bee, his behavior is never described as abuse or even really questioned beyond it's bigoted content. Bee ultimately pushes back against his sexism, homophobia, and racism, but his verbal violence towards his family is left uncommented on by all characters and the narrators, as if abuse and adults living in terror of one another is a normal feature of conservative homes. Even the overall pitch that the family is divided by political beliefs feels a bit false, as (spoilers ahead) the real reason the family stopped communicating is that Alice's mother, having discovered her pregnancy was not viable, elected to have an abortion, something that Bee's mother didn't agree with and clearly overreacted to in part due to her obvious trauma from her own fertility challenges.

The COVID-19 pandemic, on other hand, is expertly captured. The claustrophobia of those horrible months are rendered truthfully and realistically, as is the persistent unsettling fear and uncertainty. The book also does a wonderful job of demonstrating how the pandemic experience was not universal, with the level of omnipresent concern and fear varying from community to community. The harrowing nature of palliative care during the early pandemic is also expertly drawn and while the scene involving the girls' grandmother's death is brief, caution may be warranted for either generally sensitive readers or those who experienced similar losses during the pandemic as it may be triggering.

Fairly solid middle grade family story/mystery! Conversations over text are hard to write in a way that feels authentic, and I felt like Butler and Bacon did an okay job. I liked that the book was about "what happened to our family??" but also about many other things as well, and I felt that the tricky topics were handled well--a bit didactic at times, but that's somewhat inevitable/necessary. The characters besides Bee and Alice felt a bit underdeveloped (Linda was very important to Bee but we really didn't get much of their relationship?).

This was a beautifully done novel, it had that element that I was looking for and was hooked from the duel perspective. It was everything that I wanted and was glad everything flowed well in this world. Dori Hillestad Butler and Sunshine Bacon have a strong writing style and am excited for more.

I received a free eARC of this book. Thank you for the opportunity to read it!

Bee and Alice are cousins. They used to be close…and then something happened between their mothers. When 5eir grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary comes, the girls have the opportunity to reconnect.

This was a tough book to read for me. 2020 and the COVID pandemic aren’t so long in the past to feel like historical fiction, and the anger and stress and loss was very real. So was the unfortunately current memories of families split due to being on different sides politically.

I do feel like there was a little too much thrown in. Just the family split and COVID would be enough. I’m not sure the book needed one character struggling with undiagnosed ADHD and another struggling with sexual orientation. It almost felt like box checking. And the reveal of the reason behind the split seemed inclined to place one family securely in the “wrong” side.

Overall, though, this is a book that I can see being assigned to kids n the future who want to know what living in 2020 was like. It’s worth reading. Just come prepared.

Two cousins in different parts of the United States tries to figure out why their mothers aren’t talking to one another as well as being a child during the covid pandemic. It brings up a lot of important topics such as BLM and demonstrating for equality, religion and sexual orientation in a, in my opinion, age appropriate manner.

I’m a bit older than the intended demographic of this book but I still enjoyed this story.

Positives
Time frame (2020ish) relatable to readers of different ages
Love the tie to the title and its origination
Great premise

What Didn't Work for Me
The dual perspectives/POV
Too many unexamined stereotypes

There is an audience for this book and I had very high hopes going into it. There was not enough of a hook or a purpose to read it, so it seemed to drag along.

This period of 2020 was rough on all of us. There were a lot of opinions, emotions, snap judgements, and quick decisions made with the best information available to us at the time. In that way this story was very real and raw and relatable. Since this was a dual perspective story, I do not think the authors did a good job of giving Bee's family's perspective a fair representation. It was their side as told by people who disagree with their decisions without giving them a chance to share their very real and equally valid reasons. The portrayal of all the conservative and religious people as bigots and homophobes is just as bad as saying All Lives Matter in the face of a Black Lives Matter message.

This book was trying to do entirely too much and was so annoyingly didactic that I couldn’t bring myself to finish. Something about it felt like someone trying to stick it to their conservative boomer relatives and I just wasn’t a fan. Don’t be fooled, there are fantastic middle grade books that handle subjects like racism, homophobia, coming out, and all kinds of family drama, but this isn’t one of them.

Rabbit Rabbit was such a good book. Omg!!! I loved reading every single second of it. I totally recommend my followers to read this book as fast as they can.

I LOVED THIS BOOK. The fact that is is so rooted in the end of 2019-2020 made it so real, and I loved that the family relationships were strained and messy. Highly recommend this one!