The Rabbit's Paw Book Reviews

This is a beautifully written first novel. The way this author explores relationships and emotions in this story is exceptional. The narrative focuses on the bond between two girls in a family, Genevieve and Arin, from its unusual and intense beginnings into its tortured and anguished future. The main protagonist is Genevieve, who starts life as the only child of hard-working parents, both with complex and tough backgrounds. They are living with Genevieve’s paternal grandmother in a modest apartment. Then one day, Arin comes into their lives, a child relation of theirs who was unknown to them beforehand. Arin and Genevieve form a strong sister bond, both determined to do their best in school to achieve academic success in the competitive small country of Singapore. However, their futures unfold in ways neither of them had predicted, and the differences in their personalities and the ways they each work toward success lead to a serious rift between them. Arin, who was abandoned by her f...

This story follows the life of David Winn, an English boy living with his single mother, a gifted dressmaker. Dave has never met his Burmese father or been to Burma, but the fact that he is half Burmese informs his life in various ways that are illustrated in Holinghurst’s beautifully nuanced story telling style. The main focus of this novel is Dave’s biracial appearance, and the effect this has on his life in English society through the years. The author follows Dave starting in his school years in the 1960s until the COVID pandemic. Hollinghurst expertly demonstrates, through conversation and events,  the backdrop that Dave must navigate to chase his dream of being a serious actor.  The author has also created a realistic cast of characters who influence and interact with David in this memorable, fictional biography. I felt very invested in this story, and missed some of the characters when it was over. This is not an action packed novel, but one more about emotions, beliefs...

The Monsters in Our Shadows, by Edward J. Cembal, is a dystopian, paranormal horror novel set sometime in the not too distant future. This story is a creative plot about the extinction of humanity caused by predation of what people come to call “shivers.”  Indeed, these creatures, or entities, do make one shiver in fear. Shivers are a mystery that people try to shun and avoid talking about. Some people are afflicted with shivers, and it is a bad stigma, as though the afflicted somehow deserve their fate.  The cover of this book may have affected my perception of this novel, because it looks like a Rorschach test. I felt that the plot contained symbolism for confronting mental fears, such as fear of the unknown, and finding a way forward when life gets depressing and scary. Incidentally, the afflicted people in this novel did not have identical shivers.  This story is a memorable one for me, even though I felt that the character development and background information were ...

Haruki Murakami’s latest novel is one of the most thought-provoking I’ve read. In these pages, we meet a man whose name we never get to know, which seems fitting, since this character feels that he does not know who he is.  As a teenager, this main protagonist meets and falls in love with a girl, who is also never named. Together, they dream up a town that is surrounded by a high wall and populated with people who have been permanently separated from their shadows. His girlfriend informs him that she herself is just a shadow of her real self, who lives inside that walled town.  At this point, I started to expect a fairy tale infused with magical realism. However, the narrative  became something more complicated. There are many issues to mull over here, and it’s hard to know where to begin.  Eventually, when the main character finds his way into this walled town, he experiences its many quirks. For instance, there are the town walls themselves: they do not...

The Stone Witch of Florence is an enjoyable and complex historical fiction novel that follows its  protagonist, Ginevra di Gasparo, during the time of The Plague in Florence, Italy. We meet Ginevra as a young girl in Genoa, around the year 1330. The historical background of her city and the things that changed during The Plague make a fascinating read. During this time, Ginevra attracts the attention of Monna Vermilia, a woman known for her special healing powers. Monna Vermilia helps Ginevra realize her unusual aptitude for working with magical gemstones and helping others. Eventually, Vermilia sends Ginevra off to work in a Florence nunnery, where she will be supervised by Vermilia’s sister. Unfortunately, Ginevra is eventually exiled as a witch, and returns to Genoa. The next part of the story is a mystery, in which Ginevra is summoned back to Florence to help catch a thief who is stealing the relics out of village churches. In return, she is hoping to clear her name and t...

The Volcano Daughters is a well written, dense narrative that follows the separate lives of two sisters, Graciela and Consuelo, who manage to escape from a dangerous, crushing dictator in El Salvador in the early 1930s. The story moves nonlinearly through tumultuous times in both their native country and elsewhere. The author combines cultural traditions and storytelling, magical realism, and real historical events to weave a fascinating story. The prologue of this story was at first confusing to me because I did not know what was to come, but it is beautiful, and I’m glad that I kept reading.  Some of the voices telling the stories of Graciela and Consuelo are fantasmas, or what we’d usually call spirits or ghosts. In this way, the sisters’ memories, friends, and family stay with them, in their hearts. Gina Maria Balibrera has written a memorable and special saga that I am grateful to have read. Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf, Pantheon,Vintage and Anchor for the opportunity to r...