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This one is bleak. Tiffany/Blandine has aged out of the foster system in a dying mid West post industrial city. She and three young men live together in a low income apartment complex nicknamed The Rabbit Hutch. Blandine says little about her past – or anything else – but we can surmise it was difficult to horrible. When she goes back to school she has her trust betrayed by a teacher. She tries to make a meaningful impact through social change. Meanwhile the three men fall deeper into a pit of drug use and escalating animal abuse. Like I said, bleak- but the ending is at least a little hopeful.

Maybe it’s chance or maybe the theme of the past few years has been children mistreated in institutional settings; regardless I’ve read a lot of books recently on child victims of the people who should be looking out for them. Although the book is well written, I’ve had a mental block on writing this report because of the issues that are brought up.

But don’t take this report as the final word. The novel received the 2022 National Book Award for fiction. Nevertheless, it’s interesting to me that it garners just a bit over 3.5 stars on Amazon and Goodreads.