📖 the rabbit hutch

24 May, 2026

i finished the rabbit hutch¹ and (one of) my very first thoughts when closing it was “what a deeply human book.” it’s been hard for me to tell folks what the book is about because saying “it’s a book about people trying to survive in a post-industrial town in the midwest” feels reductive and, truly, that’s only a small portion of it.

so, sure: it’s about surviving in the midwest, but it’s also about: curiosity, connection, and community; loneliness and relationships and how the suburbs exacerbate those same feelings; people surviving the best they can—the only ways they know how—under systems that were designed to fail them; building more high rises and chain stores and expecting capitalism to fix the problems it created, but high rises don’t create communities that help folks thrive—people do.

it’s also about: people are always asked “what’s wrong with you” instead of “what happened to you?"; children who age out of the foster care system and have experienced so much pain—who have had their childhoods ripped away—and then are told at 18 "you’re on your own now"; the secrets we keep and the lies we tell ourselves out of fear of alienating those closest to us because if they saw the darkest parts of us, would they still love us? would they understand? and more importantly, would they stay?

i saw so many parts of myself in this book—especially in blandine—and my heart continues to ache for them. with that, here are a handful of lines that refer to scenes i think about regularly when i move through the world:

• “you weren’t adequately loved.”
• “is this what you tell people about me?”
• “i want to wake up.”

#book reviews #bookstagram