Welcome to my stop on the Rabbits blog tour! Huge thanks to Black Crow PR for giving me the opportunity to take part in this! I was provided a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
Publisher: Del Rey UK
Publication Date: 08/06/2021
Length: 448 pages
Genre: Sci-Fi | Dystopian | Thriller
CW: n/a
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 pm. You go to check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize it is April 4th–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?
GoodReads
Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses our global reality as its canvas. Since the game first started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. Their identities are unknown. So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe itself. But the deeper you get, the more deadly 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, the alleged 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 and Eleven begins. And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.
Review
When I saw a book in my inbox marketed as ‘Murakami meets Ready Player One’ I just had to know more! Although Ready Player One disappointed me, I loved the idea of it and those who have been here for a while now know of my love for Murakami. After reading this book that line is probably the most perfect way to describe this rollercoaster of a novel which I was gripped by!
Now, this review may seem a bit vague, and shorter than normal, as you’re not supposed to talk about the game.
Straight away you know that whatever game is, or isn’t, being played is dark and dangerous which immediately grabbed my interest and had me devouring most of the book in one sitting. I loved the way the novel opened and set the scene that what we’re reading is a true story with hints of fiction to make it more, well, believable.
I really liked K, Chloe and Baron and thought they were a great group of friends who complemented each other well and could all keep up with each other, which I enjoyed as I was worried that K would be the one making all the connections himself. In fact, all of the characters we meet over the course of the novel were fascinating to me and, whilst there were some I wish we saw more of, they all brought something interesting to the novel and the game. The only slight issue I found with our protagonists is that I was unsure of what age they were supposed to be as it wasn’t clear from the outset. Whilst I enjoy the mystery of not knowing much about our protagonists, it would have helped place them in the world for me and understand a few things.
The novel is mainly told as K and his friends are in the present day chasing clues and connections, however we do get the occasional flashback and interlude with notes from ‘Hazel’ (one of the most famous players of Rabbits) about the game scattered throughout the novel. For me this brought an extra depth to the plot as well as the characters and helped you, the reader, make your own connections too. Miles mixes science, horror and humour wonderfully in this book from the character dialogue to the chapter titles which makes this book very difficult to put down!
Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and it was everything I hoped that it would be. I will definitely be checking out the Rabbits podcast to learn more about the world as it fascinates me! There’s so much more I would love to say about this novel (especially regarding the game itself), however, I know it’s dangerous if I say too much. So, all that’s left is, what are you waiting for? The door is open. R U PLAYING?
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