White Rabbit

By: Caleb Roehrig

Narrated by: Michael Crouch

Length: 10 hrs and 46 mins

Publisher's summary

Caleb Roehrig, author of Last Seen Leaving, delivers another spellbinding YA murder mystery in White Rabbit.

Rufus Holt is having the worst night of his life. It begins with the reappearance of his ex-boyfriend, Sebastian - the guy who stomped his heart out like a spent cigarette. Just as Rufus is getting ready to move on, Sebastian turns up out of the blue, saying they need to "talk." Things couldn’t get worse, right?

Then Rufus gets a call from his sister April, begging for help. He and Sebastian find her, drenched in blood and holding a knife beside the dead body of her boyfriend, Fox Whitney.

April swears she didn’t kill Fox. Rufus knows her too well to believe she’s telling him the whole truth, but April has something he needs. Her price is his help.

Now, with no one to trust but the boy he wants to hate yet can’t stop loving, Rufus has one night to clear his sister’s name . . . or die trying.

©2018 Caleb Roehrig (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Solid Writing, Good Mystery, Great Characters

This book is solid. With a messy start and characters leaving fingerprints all over the place, the characters and twisting mystery take over to create an enthralling piece of fiction. The story is told from a modern perspective with hip lingo but the structure is pure pulp Perry Mason classic, depending on insightful interviews and clear cold detective deduction. I liked this book a lot.

Plenty of murder and twists; easy on the violence

(As posted in GoodReads)
I think I have an affinity towards books addressed to teenagers, but I kind of liked it. It's a mystery with multiple possible directions but, of course, it all ends up happy :) , and it was neither as dark nor as violent or bloody as it could have been, probably BECAUSE it was aimed at teenagers.

good

All the twists and turns and high stakes you want in your life right now! Absolutely loved this story and Micheal Crouch is a stellar narrator for the amazing words of Caleb Roehrig!

Frustrating

First off, those claiming in reviews to have been horrified by graphic sex scenes or something are just homophobes. This book does not have graphic sex scenes. There is implied sex, but honestly the most horrifying sexual parts of this book are when a character talks about previous non-consensual things in a very vague manner.
Onto the voice acting. This is the same narrator from Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. He doesn't really have much variety in his voice for multiple characters but he's a fine narrator. My biggest issue was that there were very obvious tonal differences that made it obvious when splicing occured between different recording sessions. One day his voice was a bit warmer and another day maybe he was a bit further away from the mic and his voice was just pitched higher that day. It kind of took me out of it, especially when splices would happen mid sentence.
As for the content of the book...I found it frustrating. I picked this up because of the romance angle only to find the book leans more on the murder mystery angle. That would be fine if the murder mystery part weren't so frustrating. Oh the clues are very well done and had me changing my mind about who the killer was all the way to the end - that part was fine. I just kept finding myself internally screaming at how stupid the main character was being. He shows up at a bloody murder scene to find drugs and blood everywhere and his sister unconscious with a bloody knife in her hand next to a murder victim. What's his first move? Let me take her to the shower to try to sober her up. Let me put my finger prints everywhere, not call the cops, not search the house for murderers, and instead take a murder suspect (who is clearly lying about what went down) all over creation to interview other suspects, then lie to the police about the timeline. If I tried hard to ignore all that and just focus on the clues he gathered from the other suspects it was ok, but it was very frustrating to see him try to gather evidence while simultaneously saying oh but we can't tell the cops that because then they'll know we lied about the timeline. I also found the final showdown with the murderer frustrating because at no point did any character even pull out their phones and say "oh no, I have no signal" they just suddenly behave as if cell phones don't exist. I forced myself to finish this because I did really want to know who the murderer was, but I wish I knew how frustrating this book would be before starting so I wouldn't have bothered. Still, it wasn't the worst book I've read this week, it was just ok.

by far

honestly this is one of my favorite books ive listened to on audible the narrator is probably my favorite, I seek books hes done just for his voice, in addition the story was AMAZING, it was full of sex scenes the murder mystery was SUPER entertaining, the characters were absolutely great and not over the top, I really would love for there to be more books like this, and would LOVE to hear more of Rufus. AN awesome read\listen!!

Couldn't get past the graphic sexual scenes.

I get it there gay, very progressive. I can't help but feel like we're trying to shock people is it necessary to have graphic scenes? There's a part where they're talking about cleaning themselves up with McDonald's napkins... gross! For gay, or straight.... Gross

Almost as Good as His Previous Novel

When Caleb Roehrig's 'Last Seen Leaving' was released, I quickly bought the book on Audible, listened, and it became my favorite book of that year. While 'White Rabbit' didn't exactly match up, it was close enough and I enjoyed every page*.

Rufus Holt has a lot to deal with on the evening of the Fourth of July; his ex-boyfriend shows up to talk, he learns that he and his mother are in a lot of debt, and his half-sister, April, deliriously calls him to say she needs his help. Rufus doesn't know where to find April at her boyfriend's family cottage, but his ex, Sebastian, knows and offers to give Rufus a ride. Although not wanting to give in to the guy who broke his heart, he can't find another way to find April without utilizing this opportunity. This sets them off on a horrifying night to find who killed April's boyfriend, because they find her next to his body with a knife in her hand. Through twists and turns, neither one of them can piece the story together and they maneuver through the night lost in a sea of lies, murder, and suspicion.

I really can't get enough of Roehrig's story-telling. Even though it's technically YA and about high school kids, the story is not for a kids' network on TV. That's why I find myself engrossed in both of Roehrig's books. I put this one off, because I didn't want to be disappointed, but I shouldn't have. 'White Rabbit' tells an incredible story of manipulation and has characters that really show how talented the author is. Rufus isn'tjust a gay teen, going through stereotypical issues; he's a gay teen who finds himself in the middle of a murder mystery and privileged kids' constant half-truths and lies. It is an incredible story that has a nearly flawless interweaving of present and past. This book is definitely one that most people could find something they enjoy.

I'm going to give the book an A- in my grading scale and I have to explain my grade for narration. *I have a physical copy of this book and that is what I read. If I'd never listened to a book narrated by Michael Crouch, I wouldn't have written this review on Audible; however, since I've listened to the first thirty minutes of this book and the full book by another author, I feel like I can accurately know how Mr. Crouch would've performed for the rest of the audiobook that I didn't listen to. I'm also going to give an A- to Michael Crouch. He's definitely a solid narrator, who brings the story to life in unique ways.

Kind of a slasher

It's starts off kind of slow but about 1/3rd in it really picks up quick and doesn't stop. I enjoyed a lot of the characters as well, the protagonist Rufus was an interesting character. I think my only major complaint (and I guess this is kind of a minor spoiler) is that the book harps so heavily on his various situations at the start and basically none of them are resolved by the end.
Otherwise I really enjoyed this murder mystery bordering on slasher. Fun listen :)

Recommend

Wish this book was longer, even though I really liked it. Narrator sounds as he’s describing scenes from a movie 👌🏼👌🏼

A good mystery

Besides a good coming out story, this was also a good mystery. Plenty of twists and turns, keeping you reading to find out what was going to happen next. Good character development. A good read. I recommend it.