Book Review: Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett

My Rating:
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Annie Hartnett’s debut novel follows the Alabama based Babbitt family - ten-year-old Elvis, her older sister fifteen-year-old Lizzie, their father Frank and their family dog Boomer as they come to terms with the death of the girls’ mother and Frank’s wife, Eva Rose Babbitt who died from drowning in the Chattahoochee river after sleepwalking into it.

“Mom always said we needed a cake to mark every new beginning, and whether it was a birthday or a first day of school or a new moon, rabbits mean good luck to a new start.”

Elvis’s mother always used to bake a cake in a rabbit mold to mark special occasions. Sadly on her tenth birthday, her mother accidentally burns the “rabbit cake” and soon after tragedy strikes. This devastating loss affects each member of the family and their grief manifests in different forms. Their father seems to withdraw from them, spending more time with his newly acquired pet parrot who coincidentally speaks in a voice similar to his late wife’s. Frank is also seen dressing up in Eva's clothes and makeup while at home. Lizzie’s sleepwalking disorder, inherited from her mother, seems to get worse and her behavior during her nocturnal sleepwalking episodes becomes increasingly destructive. She also has trouble in school leading to her being suspended. Elvis, obsessed with her mother’s death is unable to reconcile with the death being ruled “accidental” and maintains that there was more to it than everyone assumes. She has sessions with the school counselor who helps her map out a grief chart but her progress seems to be stalling on account of the dysfunctional dynamic on the home front. She is busy balancing her own needs, investigating her mother’s death and taking care of her sister whose behavior leads to a stint in a hospital for mentally disturbed children.

“Maybe my grief had turned abnormal, before the eighteen months were even up. I always felt as if I had swallowed something sharp, like a house key or a thumbtack, something causing a deep pain down in the pit of my stomach."

“Rabbit Cake” by Annie Hartnett is a beautifully written novel that revolves around themes of grief, mental illness, family and moving on-from the perspective of now twelve-year-old Elvis Babbett and covers the twenty months following the tragic night of Eva's death as the family members navigate through their grief, both as individuals and as a family. Elvis’s narrative is charming, smart, and honest and reflects her inquisitive nature, wisdom and innocence in the ways of the world. The author excels in voicing the thoughts and emotions of a ten/twelve-year-old child - her sorrow, her denial and her frustration with her family members and the other adults in her life are refreshingly honest, very real and never out of place. She is a child who misses her mother and this is expressed beautifully through flashbacks of Elvis’s memories of Eva throughout the narrative. When she enrolls in the volunteer program at the Serengeti Park Zoo, we bear witness to her utter devotion to animals, an interest she shared with her late mother. Her interactions with the zoo animals are full of compassion and curiosity and make for some heartwarming moments and the plethora of animal facts interspersed throughout the novel are truly interesting. The author, while dealing with the more serious issues of grief and mental illness with respect and sensitivity, manages to inject a healthy dose of humor and some truly funny moments throughout the narrative as well. Losing a loved one is never easy and each of us deals with grief in our very own way. There is no one-size-fits-all coping mechanism that applies universally to grappling with loss - a fact that the author honestly and sensitively depicts in this charming, sad yet hopeful and heartwarming novel. The writing is beautiful, the pace never falters and I liked how the story is wrapped up. I had a lump in my throat but a smile on my face by the end of the story.

“…… but I’d figured out by now that death never makes sense, no matter how someone dies: murder, accident, old age, cancer, suicide, you’re never ready to lose someone you love. I decided death will always feel unexplained; we will never be ready for it, and you just have to do the best you can with what you have left.”