War Bunny (War Bunny Chronicles)

I enjoyed this story so much! The characters and plot are somehow both charming and chilling. Think post-apocalyptic Watership Down meets A Handmaid’s Tale meets the gritty determination of Arya from GOT, all with a dash of Charlotte’s Web thrown in. Funny, heartfelt, and thought provoking, I’m still pondering it a week later and can’t wait for the next book!

Hilarious, serious, thoughtful, satirical. I especially enjoyed the social commentary. Definitely worth a read!

I enjoyed settling in with a novel filled with characters adapting to their changing circumstances. Somehow this book is both escapist and relevant. From the opening chase sequence to the final celebration scene, the characters attracted and held my attention. Heroes to villains - all written with compassion and depth. And not to get too heady, this is a good read with adventure, overcoming obstacles and growing friendships. Love the dialogue and humor! And, several strong female characters - thank you for that!

I loved this book so much I immediately got a copy as a gift for my sister. I loved the Redwall books when I was younger because of the detail and the world. War Bunny is like a fresher, gritter, slightly aged-up Redwall. I'm so glad I found this book and I can't wait for the sequel!

This fable is set centuries into the future, in the woods and meadows, wolf lairs, fox holes and burrows of what might be Canada. This is a post apocalyptic world where humans no longer exist--but scraps of books and newspapers tell of their prior existence. But this is no barren landscape of smoke and ash. Instead, i we are introduced to fragrant forest rich with grasses and herbs, where creatures such as rabbits, squirrels, fox, deer and wolves eat, fight and pray--sometimes competitively and sometimes cooperatively. The rabbits are the stars of the show, and the story is mostly told from their point of view--with wolves and foxes chiming in. The rabbit leader is Anastasia, a rebel rabbit shunned by her warren for what academics and enlightened parents would call "critical thinking." In cooperative efforts, she and other animals craft cast off human artifacts such as an X-ACTO knife, a Canada Dry bottle cap and shards of Perrier bottles into weapons and protective gear against predators. She also uses sharp aloe and yucca and sticks and roots. Anastasia wrings her paws over whether she is playing defense or offense and there are moral teachings woven into a text rich with nature imagery and poetry. The author also knows a lot about rabbit habits and movements--there are snippets of animal behavior interwoven here too. Chapter Four begins with what is called a "traditional rabbit nursery rhyme":
Rye in the morning, fescue in the evening
Millet when the day is hotter still
Tussock, deer and fountain
Feather, sedge and mountain
Every little bunny loves dill
This adventure story is suitable for readers of all ages and with colorfully named characters such as a suspicious squirrel named Dingus, ("why should l I trust you with my nuts?"), a merchant water rat named Bric-A Brac--and the golden wolves Micah and Sephora Summerday--this tale lends itself to illustrations or animation. The simple dialog, fun rhymes and names and descriptions will amuse the kids, and the deeper Darwinian messages will resonant with the adults. I I look forward to the sequel.

War Bunny is a fast-paced story of an army of rabbits, which deals with the question of what it means to be a prey animal (or a hungry predator). There are inevitable deaths, nicely handled; it is full of heart. The plot is rich and complex. Set in the relatively near future (humans are extinct), it gets to the core of what it means to be alive and thus facing certain death. It is an achievement of imagination and empathy. I recommend it highly if you are willing to go to another world and another time.

First off I received this book for free from a Goodreads giveaway! This is the first book I ever received from a giveaway so I was super excited.

If I bought this book with my actual money I would have stopped reading it and not finished it. This book was not for me and here is why....

In the beginning of the book, say the first 2 or 3 chapters it seemed like a huge "info dump." These names, places and terms were all mentioned right st the beginning like we are supposed to know what half of them are.

Yah
Anastasia
Bloody thorn Warren
Sweet leaf
Ring of love
Glorified
Sunbeam
Rememberer
Aiden
Bricabrac
Nicodemus
Reader
Briar
Olympia
Darius
Freddie
Rose
Snowdon
Tobias
Harmonizer
Acolyte
Blessed ones
Shandy vale conclave
Million acre wood
Thistledown
Loved one

They weren't strategically added in my opinion. Literally just bombarded. I was BEYOND LOST. How many characters and places can you possibly introduces withing a chapter. Slow down!

Sticking with the talk of characters. I have never read a book with so many characters. Maybe it is me not being able to comprehend but there were way too many. It seems like every other paragraph was a new animal being introduced. I literally kept notes the entire book and couldn't remember who was who. Even at the end of the book I was still lost. The only one I actually cared even a little bit about was Anastasia and not even that much.

Around location 1351 when the coyotes were all talking together it was wayyyy to overwhelming. Just spewing names of a different coyote left and right. In the matter of a page or 2. Then in the same chapter they started using a secondary language?  I feel like it adds nothing to the story. It actually became so excessive that I just stopped even trying to figure out what they're saying after constantly clicking back and forth to the meanings every few sentences

Yes, Dangerous One.
My dear.
Welcome to the Warren Without Glory!
Run by a beautiful lady.
stick dog.
Sausage .
Literally, "in bench." Figuratively, "as a group."
Literally, "break yourself." Figuratively, "shove off."
Thug.
Literally, "badger." Figuratively, "jerk."
Boy.
Literally, "blood sausage." Figuratively, "stupid."

These were all terms that were translated from this rabbit language. Didn't really add value to me and by the end of the story I think there were near 100 of them. I stopped even caring what they were after a while.

This book would have been much easier to keep up with if there was an x-ray option on the kindle. Although I would have been clicking back and forth constantly!

The story was a pretty unique and fun idea. Rabbits fighting back against the "blessed ones."

I just feel it wasn't executed well. I stuck thru the book to get to the ending and find out not much really happened at the end. I hated the ending tbh. Pretty lame unless you're excited for next book which I'm not.

The best thing done in this book was the dialog in my opinion.

I truly appreciate the free book and the opportunity to review this new book. I regret that I didn't like it but I have to remain honest.

"War Bunny" won a bunch of awards, and honestly, I don't understand why. The writing isn't terrible, but the story itself is deeply flawed. Most annoyingly, the story uses a variety of French words for no apparent reason, and then it includes footnotes to explain what these words mean. Each time you hit a French word, or a footnote, or a French name, it pulls you out of the moment and you lose whatever immersion you had going. At the very end of the story, we realize that the story was set in Louisiana, so I suppose these animal characters still use some French because the humans that once lived there did? But by this point, I found myself so annoyed that no revelation could undo it.

The book also has a ton of loose threads. We read about a wolf pack that lives nearby and they exist as a menacing presence, but then never DO anything or interact with the main characters in any way! One of the characters is a spy for an enemy warren who is told that he'll be expected to kill Anastasia, but that goes nowhere. No one ever tells him to. There's a clear setup that a rat will betray the warren to the wolves, but again, it doesn't happen. There's tons of intrigue that gets set up and is never used.

Other gripes: Lots of head-hopping where the author can't decide which point-of-view to use. No clear main character! I guess it was supposed to be Anastasia, but she's only in a small number of scenes. There's a single character that speaks in a very modern way (calling people Bro and what-not) and there's no explanation of why he's the only one talking this way. The climax is very anti-climactic and the trap that the bunnies set up never gets used. The rabbits are deeply religious, but it's used only as a club to subjugate them, and there's never any indication that any good flows from it. The story shows lots of things going on at Anastasia's old warren, but none of it ever seems to matter. We think they'll attack them or something, but they never do. At the start, Anastasia was portrayed as crazy and did lots of compulsive things, but I guess the author got tired of writing about them, so they just stop happening. Again, it seemed pointless.

On the plus side, the story does have some creepy songs and neat world building, but it feels wasted, like the story just didn't know what to do with it.

A surprisingly wonderful read. I love books with talking animals but this one exceeded my expectations. It was so beautifully written and the characters were really well done.
In a world devoid of the human race, animals reign throughout the land. There are two types of animals... the prey and the predator. Yet in one rabbit warren, one little bunny with OCD will change everything. This little one is named Anastasia and when she is turned out on her own for being considered "sick" she decides that she is not going to do as she is told and just let herself be prey, she is going to fight back. Word gets around and other rabbits and small creatures decide they are tired of being the eaten as well. A courageous community is created and this is their story.