The Constant Rabbit is just SO weird, in a brilliant way. It is a crazy, wild world which is brilliantly satirical and all too realistic (aside from the spontaneously anthropomorphised rabbits...) Clever and provoking with a real mix of witty comedy and social commentary.

I opened this novel looking for light relief. Ah, Jasper Fforde is funny, I thought. This will be a space to escape from the crazy days we’re living in. And yes, in some ways, it is. Imagining a world in which spontaneous Events create anthropomorphised animals – elephants in Africa, kangaroos in Australia, foxes, weasels, and crucially rabbits in the UK. The animals tend to grow into more humanoid physical forms and be able to communicate in human languages as well as their own.

After one such event in England, the United Kingdom now lives in a state of political turmoil due to the rapidly growing rabbit population. With such fast breeding times, an entirely different religious and social system, the rabbits, once miracles, are now seen as a threat and treated as invaders who steal jobs, land, and traditional values. The UK Anti-Rabbit Party is the main government party and there is a special Rabbit Compliance Taskforce. Sound familiar?

Peter Knox is a single man living with his daughter in the small town of Much Hemlock in Hereford. Apart from having been left by his wife, and recruited secretly to work for the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce due his innate ability to distinguish rabbit features with accuracy i.e. he is one of the rare humans who can tell rabbits apart – as a spotter, the most exciting part of Peter’s life is speed librarying, in which a team has to return and check out all the books required by the local population in the strict six minute time limit allowed for the library to be open (due to cuts, shortages etc.). It is during one of these crazy speed librarying visits that Connie appears.

Connie is a rabbit Peter knew at college. A rabbit he went to films with. A rabbit he had feelings for.

The inhabitants of Much Hemlock are not impressed with the encounter and very skeptical of Peter’s relationship with this rabbit who has just bought the house opposite Peter. Much Hemlock want rabbits out and are prepared to use Peter as a negotiator to bribe Connie and her family out of their home and their town.

Peter’s work as a spotter for the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce is also soon forcing him to become entangled with his neighbours who are suspected members of the rabbit resistance and all of this is made more complicated by Peter’s role in a previous Taskforce operation that ended in the death of Connie’s first husband.

There are many plots and confusing entanglements as Peter tries to please everyone, keep his job secret, and somehow manage to muddle through with his pension intact. As the government build a Mega-Warren in Wales so large it hopes to keep the rabbits happy and separate from human society – their old warren proving not large enough – Peter is forced to take a step out of his comfortable, middle-class, middle-of-the-road life and choose which way his morals and politics lies.

Satirical in ways that feel both funny and painful, The Constant Rabbit is never quite what you imagine it will be. A fast and gripping read, you will bounce right through it, looking, as the rabbits do, for some way to find the humanity in humankind and to return to a symbiotic relationship with nature. If you’ve liked his previous work, you will love this.

Really enjoyed this well written and original novel.

It stands out because of the way the author tackles moral dilemmas and the premise is so ridiculous it makes for some hilarity.

Read if you want to be taken completely out of reality and in to a strange, funny and thought provoking world.

This is a clever satire on class and racism, dealing with the events that unfold when a family of humanised rabbits move into a middle England village. It was perhaps too clever for me. I just couldn't get behind the concept or characters and the constant wordplay. Unfortunately not one I could finish.

This book was just the thing to alleviate the pressure of the real world! This story, like all I have read by this author, is out of this world, and the sheer outlandish nature of it matched with a rock solid plot - makes it worth every reading minute! I laughed and also had some deep moments of consideration too. I escaped to a good book!

There are 1.2 million human-sized anthropomorphic rabbits in the UK, in Jasper Fforde's new book, The Constant Rabbit.

I have been a fan of Jasper Fforde's since reading The Eyre Affair so I was super excited to receive an Advanced Review Copy of his latest book, The Constant Rabbit. Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder and Stoughton for sending me a copy.

The Constant Rabbit is set in a world which is similar to our own but slightly different. On 12th August 1965, a Spontaneous Anthropomorphising Event turned some of the rabbit population into humanoids, along with some guinea pigs, foxes and weasels. These human-like rabbits have their own culture, religion and traditions, with many living in their own warrens. Some get passes to live outside of these colonies and move into human towns and villages throughout the UK. While some humans are happy to welcome rabbits into their neighbourhood, some aren't — including the Prime Minister, Nigel Smethwick, who plans to relocate all rabbits to the MegaWarren by force.

The story follows Peter Knox from the village of Much Hemlock in Herefordshire. He is a Spotter for the Rabbit Compliance Taskforce (sort of like the police, but for rabbits), identifying whether the rabbit arrested matches the rabbit who committed the crime. Apparently humans really struggle to identify individual rabbits so he is invaluable in making sure that the correct rabbit is convicted.

The world that Jasper has created in this book is incredible. There are so many details (as you can probably gather from just my short synopsis and intro), with small facts at the start of each chapter as well as footnotes giving additional details. Because of this it took me a little while to 'get into it' and understand the world I was in, and it's certainly one I will be re-reading as I'm certain there is a lot that I've missed.

As with all of Jasper's books, The Constant Rabbit compares and contrasts his alternative history with our present. It is full of witty one-liners as well as longer speeches. The footnotes (as with Terry Pratchett's books) are must-reads. There is a lot of social commentary and satire on our present day — for example, budget cuts mean that the local library is only open for six minutes, which is timed and enforced with fines.

However, it's not all jokes and it has a darker side to it too. There is an underlying theme around racism, privilege and tolerance of those who are different to ourselves. It also talks a lot about how silence is acquiescence — while the public is generally not 'leporiphobic', they have allowed many inhumane laws to pass and have allowed an anti-rabbit leader to become Prime Minister.

One of my favourite lines in the book is from Peter Knox:

Although I'd never consciously discriminated against rabbits, read a single issue of The Actual Truth or considered myself leporiphobic in the least — I was. As a young man I'd laughed at and told anti-rabbit jokes and I never once challenged leporiphobic view when I heard them. And although I'd disapproved of encroaching anti-rabbit legislation I'd done nothing as their rights were slowly eroded. My words and thoughts had never progressed to positive actions. No rallies, no angry letters, no funds to RabSAg, nothing. ...My most pressing emotion right now was not a sense of righteous indignation, frustration at the unfairness of my situation or even a courageous sense of a justice that a fight needed to be fought and won. No, what I truly felt was a sense of deep and inexcusable shame.

It really made me think about my own past actions, as well as reflecting on recent movements such as Black Lives Matter. The rabbits are generally law-abiding and compliant, despite all of the oppression around them (and their rights continue to be taken away). It is a well-written commentary on our world as well as being a 'call to action' for people to take a stand against fascism, injustice and intolerance, wherever we see it.

The story itself is compelling, with lots of twists and turns that kept me intrigued. I really liked the characters of Peter and his new rabbit neighbours, Connie and Doc. The rabbits are really interesting and I enjoyed learning more about their traditions, such as duelling with pistols. At times I was terrified for the characters and their fate. The incredible ending was also totally unexpected and had me in tears.

The Constant Rabbit is a fantastic read. It's incredibly original and clever, with the perfect blend of humour and darker themes, that really made me think about my own actions. It's one that I will be re-reading. As always with Jasper Fforde's works, I think fans of Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams will particularly enjoy this.

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Please note: my review will be going live on my blog and my Instagram on 14th May. :)

This is by Jasper Fforde, so it goes without saying that it is well written and an enjoyable read. He is one of my favourite authors and a new book is always a treat to be savoured. In this latest offering he tackles the subject of anthropomophised animals, mostly rabbits, who live alongside humans in a world which is exactly like ours (except for the humanoid rabbits of course). It is a (very) thinly disguised allegory for the racism and political tensions that exist in our own society, and Jasper brings his usual inventiveness and imagination to the tale. Although not on a par with his Thursday Next series (but then, what could be?) I enjoyed it very much and was sad to leave the characters behind at the end of the book.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. Jasper Fforde is, and thankfully after reading this book still continues to be one of my favourite authors.

Now going to get this out of the way first. This book is political. Yes I know all of Jasper Fforde books have in one way or another been political but not to THIS extent. If you have any inkling about UK politics and don't lean to at least the center left, this book is not for you. For everyone else, this is a darn good read.

Similar to his Nursery Crimes (oh when shall we get book three), this is an anthropomorphic world where an "event" 50 or so years ago lead to a few species gaining human characteristics and speech. One of which is the rabbit of the title "Constance" (I see what he did there). The narrator went to university with her in his youth before oppressive rules and a not so subtly UKIP-style government denied rabbit their rights.

Reunited and now - technically - on opposite sides, the stage is set for one of the most creative allegories of modern times ever set to paper, with the author's usual humor, flare for absurdities threaded through. It's not Animal Farm, but it doesn't want to be.

Unfortunately, for me at least, the ending fizzles out with a plop. It's written into a corner that can't really be escaped from, and whilst I can understand why it finishes as it does, personally it's just unsatisfying. But maybe that's the point.

This author is wonderful and I always read his books so am a 'fan'
He never ceases to surprise me and this book has not disappointed.
What happens in a world where rabbits have become like humans but also not?
Somehow believable and with so much resonant about the petty prejudice and unfairness of recent years.
Great.

As a longtime fan of Jasper Fforde this was another excellent read, taking a humourous look at the human condition by making them live with humanised rabbits (and a few other anthropomorphised creatures!)
A running commentary of prejudice, politics and the creation of a ghetto to house those pesky rabbits away from the humans all follow patterns of behaviours seen in history (and the not so distant past).
Some very clever word play and a reliance on the nuances of the animals behaviours and instincts prior to "the event" leads to some novel laws and loopholes that the characters exploit to their own ends.
Some really uncomfortable bits (like the lopping of ears and thumbs) made bits of the book really hard to get through and the story seemed to drag a little in the latter half of the book but still a good read (although perhaps not a great one to introduce yourself to the authors works as other previous books have been a bit more accessible in terms of his writing style.)

Jasper Fforde has given us another entertaining and satirical look at the human condition, this time with the help of rabbits.

Rabbits are now human-sized following an anthropomorphising Event 55 years ago. Rabbits are part of our communities, a cheap workforce, tolerated yet not classified as Human. Most are encouraged to live in colonies and those that live off-colony are licensed and looked upon with suspicion. Yet matters are coming to a head as the government, run by the UKARP, has Mega Warren coming online and intends to move all rabbits into it.

When a new rabbit family moves into the country hamlet of Much Hemlock, a place that revolves around the traditional village life of summer fetes, gossip and Best Kept Village award, it is soon decided by the locals that the rabbits must be encouraged to leave.

A story told with much humour and touching rabbit moments, yet there is a steely undercurrent. The humans, in general, do not come out well in this tale, but our human protagonist Peter Knox finds redemption although along the way he is used by both the human authorities and the rabbit underground.

A highly enjoyable story, uncomfortable reading in places, with the flair and pace you expect from Jasper Fforde.

I really enjoyed this book. It was different in concept to most books I’ve read and I loved the premise of a anthropomorphic event and what ensues. It also lovingly captured the horrific little Britain mentality of those who dislike change and difference.

I loved the Eyre Affair and the next few books in the Thursday Next series and then Jasper FForde's style began to grate on me and unfortunately has never stopped. In this amusing story some rabbits have become anthropomorphised during the unexplained Event in the 1950s. They take on human proportions (think the Cadbury Caramel Bunny) and speech, becoming the newest target of discrimination in the UK. As the story begins the government, run by the United Kingdom Against Rabbit Population is cracking down on the rights of 1.2 million rabbits (denied because they are no human, though they can now make the same contributions) and attempting to re-home them in a huge purpose-built warren in Wales. Peter Knox reconnects with Connie, a rabbit he knew at university before they were denied access as she moves into his conservative and largely hostile village. Peter finds himself increasingly forced to take a stand putting his personal reputation at risk and threatening to reveal his job as a rabbit spotter, a position bound up in the discriminatory policies of the ruling party.

It is chock-full of all the qualities that make Fforde fun; sly, absurdist humour, clever wordplay and brutal satire. He brilliantly skewers prejudice, bureaucracy, insularity and selfish, parochial attitudes. For the first third this is thoroughly entertaining but after that the weaknesses become increasingly apparent. The characters are largely caricatures, particularly the bad ones. This lack of nuance when coupled with the absurdity damages the impact of the important messages . The slow-moving plot meant that once my investment began to wane it was difficult to push through. As I have found with Fforde's, he finds his own cleverness more entertaining than I do and often gets so caught up in his own wit that the story suffers. He is also far to reliant on unexpected revelations that occur without any earlier signposts, finding delight in tricking the reader by playing on their assumptions, but if there have been no hints in the text the deception isn't exactly impressive for the author to reveal that he knows more than the reader. In the end, once the novelty had worn off my lasting feeling was irritation. That being said, the idea of Speed Librarying and the Book Blitz due to austerity cuts is comedy gold.

Clever and entertaining journey with Fforde into a world where after "the event" Rabbits (and some foxes) have taken on human qualities, not always for the best. How the humans cope with the integration after 40 years and the rise of separatist politics is thinly veiled commentary on our current times and is spot on in so many of the observations. Underlying the whole story is one man put in a quandry about what his job requires and his changing view on what he considers to be right. The usual clever setups and brilliant wordplay and oneliners as you would expect if you are familiar with Fforde's writing but this is also a very thought provoking tale and heartily recommended.

Jasper Fforde books are your archetypal marmite books. The Constant Rabbit is no exception. If you have enjoyed Jaspoer Fforde's previous works then sit back and enjoy this. If you haven't read his previous books and are not a fan of the "unusual" then perhaps you should proceed with caution.
Here we have a fantastic array of characters in a slightly unusual version of our world. Following an anthropomorphising event the UK humans share their world with 12 million rabbits. Not just any rabbits but ones which are slightly whimsical with a leaning towards Beatrix Potter. They live alongside humans driving cars, working and in a world where too much burrowing is frowned upon.
In this world we have Peter Knox and his daughter Pippa. They struggle against the small mindedness of the Much Hemlock villagers when they are happy to befriend the family of rabbits who move in next door. All the petty discriminations which people use against those who are different to themselves are used against the rabbit family and Peter & Pippa find themselves alienated.
I won't attempt to describe the story more. It is complex & I cannot begin to do it justice here. The characters are great, the story well structured and it is brilliantly written. It is amusing - and in places laugh out loud funny. I loved it.
I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley

For fans of Jasper Fforde’s satire, The Constant Rabbit does not disappoint. Set within a small Gloucestershire village, Fforde’s alternate future/reality highlights society’s suspicion, and intolerance of, difference and individuality. When the results of the success of human scientific advancement, is perceived to threaten the long-established tradition of village life, fear gives rise to the Hominid Supremacists, UKARP, led by Nigel Smethwick, one of a group of political parties determined to eradicate the threat. Fabulous satire.

I loved it.
This has to be the strangest book I ever read, but it is absolutely fantastic.
The plot is eerily reminiscent of reality. The setting is somewhat unexpected, considering the storyline. It flows beautifully and has many unexpected moments. It interspersed humour with darkness in a whole new way.
The main characters are engaging and interesting, with all the human flaws you might expect. There are other characters who are highly unexpected.
I was intrigued and excited to read this book and it certainly didn't disappoint.
Brilliant

I've enjoyed other novels by Jasper Fforde and I love a good political satire so this book was the best of both worlds. Another classic that cuts beneath the surface and tells hard truths. Perfection. Thank you for the copy!

Quite scathing political satire is given a very gentle touch in this comedic drama, from an author who I always knew I should be reading, but never actually have. After seeing our hero help volunteer at the local library, where as much staff as used to be employed in the libraries are now employed checking the buildings only open six minutes every fortnight, we see what his actual day job is – acting as an identifier for Us against Them. They do all look the same, after all, and have come along, taken our housing, not integrated, kept speaking their own language and promise (allegedly) to breed us out of the country. Oh, and Them are human-sized, anthropomorphised rabbits. As a result here's a lovely evocation of the typical whites-only English village, with gossip mills, and a generally right-wing attitude passed down over the generations. And lo and behold, some Rabbits of Interest to Us are moving into our hero's village – and he has a specific bit of previous with the family.

So often I find literary books that are supposed to be hilarious that I've never smiled at, even if I did realise they were supposed to be humorous. Here we certainly get a large dose of comedy, while never losing sight of the plot – the Yorkshireman and other human disguises, the Herefordshire names (which are certainly realistic), the slang names in the new rabbit's argot, and so on. One quibble is that it does the 'ooh, didn't I tell you that detail?!' thing not once, but twice – once about a colleague of our guy, the next time and much more sinfully about his daughter. I learnt how quick one is to take against such "oops tee-hee sorry I didn't mention he was black" beats.

But I did find the biggest flaw to be something else – this didn't always move with a rabbitty bounce. There is definitely a little too much of this – too much plot, too much depth to this world, and so on, and the quipping does get a little too lost at times. It was not when we crunched to a halt with a sudden ending, but much before, when I'd realised the interspecies warfare (and/or plans thereof) were going on too long. As a result, I guess that that there Wodehouse Prize is still never going to be won a second time by anybody. But I was still really glad I read this, I still laughed, and I'd still encourage people see what Fforde is doing with his blatant metaphor for 2020 Britain. Three and a half stars.

There are certain things I expect from a Jasper Fforde book. Quirky but delightful worldbuilding. Bizarre incidents and exciting action. Characters who are eccentric yet ordinary. Alternative history, first-person narrative, fantastically silly humour, and a good smattering of anti-fascism wrapped up in all of this. All of these things appear in The Constant Rabbit.

I don’t expect the politics to be front and centre; to be the whole point, plot and theme of the book. I don’t expect to feel real fear and anxiety for the characters. And I sure as hell don’t expect to have tears in my eyes at the end of the book. All these things are also in The Constant Rabbit.

If I’m completely honest, I nearly decided not to read this book at all for no other reason than that the name of an animal appears in the title. I couldn’t tell you why this is a thing that freaks me out, but it does. To this day I’ve never watched the film Slumdog Millionaire. However, I bravely took myself in hand and requested it from Netgalley, thereby cunningly forcing myself to read it, since a review that just said “this has the word rabbit in the title so I couldn’t read it” probably wouldn’t go down too well. Anyway, I’m glad I did (maybe I should watch Slumdog Millionaire, too) because I found this book delightful.

We begin with a very typical Ffordian scene in which Peter, our protagonist, is directing the operations of a group of library assistants with military precision. This is necessary because library funds have now been cut so much that libraries can only be open for six minutes per fortnight. And although this is a very funny and delightful episode it’s also serious. Libraries are losing funding, losing workers, and being closed down, and while people like me who have their own excellent laptop (thanks to their friends!), a Kindle, and a couple of thousand books on their shelves might not see libraries as terribly important, they are absolutely vital services for thousands of people.

And, well, Jasper Fforde starts as he means to carry on: the book only gets more political from here. This is unabashedly an anti-fascist book, a Black Lives Matter book, a Trans Rights are Human Rights book, a Crip the Vote book. Admittedly the marginalised communities in it are anthropomorphic rabbits, but the veil is thin and the parallels abound. Peter, for example, thinks he’s not leporiphobic because he disapproves of “juggings” and once fancied a rabbit – yet he also works in a crucial position for a huge rabbit law enforcement agency, which is seen as necessary and good despite the fact that rabbits obviously live peacefully, non-violently, co-operatively and sustainably.

Then there’s the government, run by the fascist UKARP party which is led by a man called Nigel, who provide the background of systemic hatred and persecution to the plot with their plans to round up all the rabbits (whose movement is already restricted) into one big camp, MegaWarren. The final straw for Peter is when a family of rabbits move into the nice little right-wing village where he’s previously been able to consider himself pleasingly liberal. He is going to have to choose a side and make some tough decisions.

This is a book for white people who want to understand why saying “all lives matter” isn’t cool, or who think that we imprison a disproportionate number of black people because they are more likely to be criminals. It’s a book for those of us who are privileged enough to be able to think of the police as providing safety and protection, or who haven’t quite been able to get our heads round the way that systemic oppression works and is designed to work against marginalised communities. There’s still lots of Jasper Fforde’s trademark quirky, funny silliness, but The Constant Rabbit is a much more serious book than any he’s written before (with the possible exception of Early Riser because I haven’t read that yet!). I highly recommend it, and especially to the people I’ve just mentioned.

Many thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. The Constant Rabbit is published on the 2nd of July 2020 in the UK, and in September 2020 in the USA.