Rabbits eARC Review

GoodReads:

What happens in the game, stays in the game…

Rabbits is a secret, dangerous and sometimes fatal underground game. The rewards for winning are unclear, but there are rumours of money, CIA recruitment or even immortality. Or it might unlock the universe’s greatest secrets. But everyone knows that the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes – and the body count is rising. Since the game first started, ten iterations have taken place… and the eleventh round is about to begin.

K can’t get enough of the game and has been trying to find a way in for years. Then Alan Scarpio, reclusive billionaire and alleged Rabbits winner, shows up out of nowhere. And he charges K with a desperate mission. Something has gone badly wrong with the game and K needs to fix it – before Eleven starts – or the world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing.

Two weeks after that Eleven begins, so K blows the deadline.

And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.

My Review

Seeing the blurb for this I was interested. It sounded like Ready Player One meets The God Game, both are books I enjoyed.

The premise sounds interesting, like I said, I was like tempted by it but the execution fell flat.

I don’t know if I cared at all for K. There was nothing to invest you in the MC and the fact he was just called ‘K’ really just grated on my nerves for some reason. He was just this kid who was important, and though you kinda figure out why it just never seems that he was important enough for any VALID reason. A chosen one plucked out of a randomizer.

The romance also was just so unnecessary and boring. But remember that I also wasn’t a fan of the romance in Ready Player One so that’s just personal preference on my part.

Still, once I found out some of the twists and turns toward the end, I found myself even less impressed with the romance aspect. Just, inexplicable rage which I am happy to discuss with anyone who wants to go more into detail.

Anyway the guy gets the girl because he’s special and wears gamer shirts and knows random nerd facts. So that makes him extremely appealing and hot.

Not. Impressed.

The game itself was so convoluted and too much trying to happen all at once. The eerie part was meant to be how sometimes the players didn’t know they were players. However that’s all K ever thinks or discusses and not knowing if he’s playing. It wasn’t fun when you didn’t even feel like anything connected, not thinking it was a game. And then how is the game played pre 1954? And the science behind this was just shoved in like a toddler sorting a square peg into a round hole. It didn’t fit, and it didn’t flow.

The writing style was stilted and even, we’re overloaded with the small details and never given a big picture until it’s too late to care.

The ending was unsatisfying and I didn’t connect with any of the characters. The game was boring, and the prize at the end was not even worth half the heartache that some of these people went through.

Rabbits was a flop for me, 2/5 cups of coffee from me. For those who like the podcast though, this could be a good read for them. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange for my honest review.