Rabbit & Juliet

*SLJ Best Book of the Year*

*Kirkus Best Book of the Year*

"Toothsome, smart, and darkly glittering, Rabbit & Juliet is a tour de force and one of my favorite reads of the year." —Brittany Cavallaro, New York Times bestselling author of A Study in Charlotte

Mixing the complicated queer love from People Like Us and the dark snark of Do Revenge—with searing commentary on misogyny and rape culture à la The Female of the Species—Pushcart Prize–winning author Rebecca Stafford wraps a haunting story inside an irreverent contemporary novel about agency, grief, and toxic first loves.

Seventeen-year-old Rabbit has been struggling to stay above water since her mom died. In the span of a year and half, her small Georgia town has become unbearably hellish: Her ex-boyfriend, resident golden boy Richard, turned into an unrelenting stalker; her friends are nonexistent; and her dad is campaigning hard for Functioning Alcoholic of the Year.

But all that changes when the sarcastic, gorgeous, and frustratingly impenetrable Juliet Bergman walks into Rabbit’s life. All hard angles and James Dean bravado, Juliet throws Rabbit a life preserver just before her depression threatened to sink her.

Then one morning, Rabbit’s ex-best-friend Sarah—Richard’s current girlfriend—shares a horrific discovery about Richard and his crew that pitches Rabbit back into darkness. The three girls vow to enact revenge on the boys for what they’ve been doing to unsuspecting girls at parties. With Juliet leading the charge and demanding blind loyalty from the girls, Rabbit falls harder for her than she thought possible. It isn't until Rabbit is faced with a startling act of violence that she must decide how far she's willing to go—for herself, for Juliet, and for justice—when love and grief threaten to topple everything.

Sweet Revenge: Fierce female protagonists seek retribution from the toxic guys who have harmed them.
Slow Burn Romance: Rabbit was underneath a world of pain until she met Juliet, who was able to pull her from the depths of her grief.
Dangerous liaisons: Rabbit is enthralled with Juliet...but can Juliet be trusted?

Dysfunctional

I couldn’t disagree with the blurb more.

Rabbit aka Sadie befriends Juliet, in part because she has a crush. Rabbit is also mourning the loss of her mother, struggling with her father’s drinking and frustrated that the friends she pushed away have stayed away.

I disliked Juliet from her first scenes screwing with the moderator of a self help group. Rabbit was so needy for attention and positive regard she overlooked Juliet’s sociopathic tendencies, like leaving Rabbit and another friend in the middle of a lake, naked and without life preservers. Juliet is just as abusive to Rabbit as her ex, Richard although in different ways.

Revenge doesn’t work for me when a sociopath is leading the charge.

As much as I sympathized with Rabbit, I didn’t fully buy into her character. Most high schoolers don’t speak in SAT words like Rabbit.

RABBIT & JULIET is well-written, in terms of wordbuilding. I liked the premise for the book more than the book.