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Little Rabbit
When the unnamed narrator of Little Rabbit first meets the choreographer at an artists' residency in Maine, it's not a match. She finds him loud, conceited, domineering. He thinks her serious, guarded, always running away to write. But when he reappears in her life in Boston and invites her to his dance company's performance, she's compelled to attend. Their interaction at the show sets off a summer of expanding her own body's She follows the choreographer to his home in the Berkshires, to his apartment in New York, and into submission during sex. Her body learns to obediently follow his, and his desires quickly become inextricable from her pleasure. This must be happiness, right?
Back in Boston, her roommate Annie's skepticism amplifies her own doubts about these heady weekend retreats. What does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man, for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one? Is she following her own agency, or is she merely following him? Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?
Combining the sticky sexual politics of Luster with the dizzying, perceptive intimacy of Cleanness, Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and desires that defy the hard-won boundaries of the self.
Back in Boston, her roommate Annie's skepticism amplifies her own doubts about these heady weekend retreats. What does it mean for a queer young woman to partner with an older man, for a fledgling artist to partner with an established one? Is she following her own agency, or is she merely following him? Does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?
Combining the sticky sexual politics of Luster with the dizzying, perceptive intimacy of Cleanness, Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and desires that defy the hard-won boundaries of the self.
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 3, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 729 reviews
May 5, 2022
ling ma was right. this is "a darkly sensuous tale of awakening that will quietly engulf you in flames."
i need to take 14 deep breaths and watch a children's movie.
i said i felt Magically Drawn to this book, and then i started reading, and it turns out it's about a protagonist who lives in boston (me, sometimes) who is from philly (me, factually) with sally rooney themes (my obsession, for all my days).
so how could i not like it!!!
this was like if bobbi and frances' friendship aspect from conversations with friends also included the sex-in-sweden part from normal people and the nick and frances romance part?
so if that sounds good to you, go for this. personally i find explorations of BDSM in relation to patriarchal power dynamics a little bit obvious, but i also couldn't catch my breath while reading this so who am i to talk.
bottom line: i want to say this is underrated, but it is barely past its release date, so i will say i hope it isn't underrated!
----------------
tbr review
i feel Magically Drawn to this book AND i got an e-arc.
life rules.
i need to take 14 deep breaths and watch a children's movie.
i said i felt Magically Drawn to this book, and then i started reading, and it turns out it's about a protagonist who lives in boston (me, sometimes) who is from philly (me, factually) with sally rooney themes (my obsession, for all my days).
so how could i not like it!!!
this was like if bobbi and frances' friendship aspect from conversations with friends also included the sex-in-sweden part from normal people and the nick and frances romance part?
so if that sounds good to you, go for this. personally i find explorations of BDSM in relation to patriarchal power dynamics a little bit obvious, but i also couldn't catch my breath while reading this so who am i to talk.
bottom line: i want to say this is underrated, but it is barely past its release date, so i will say i hope it isn't underrated!
----------------
tbr review
i feel Magically Drawn to this book AND i got an e-arc.
life rules.
December 17, 2022
4.5 stars. This book is going to be living in my brain for a very long time.
I will often groan aloud when I see that a book is about a young woman and a much older man. There are so many of them out there, if you are going to do it you have to justify its existence. Songsiridej more than delivers. Our protagonist (who is unnamed for most of the book) is not the young, straight, white woman under 20 we often see in these stories. She is 30, biracial, and identifies as queer. She has a day job but mostly she is a writer and she is not exactly successful but she is not all that far off from it. She meets the man, a choreographer, at an artists' residency and doesn't like him. It is only later that they meet again and she starts to see him differently.
While there is an imbalance in their relationship (he is not just successful but well-known and wealthy along with being at least a couple of decades her senior) it is just that--an imbalance. They may turn heads, she may be taken for his daughter, their friends may disapprove, but it isn't inherently bad. He does not have a habit of chasing much-younger women. She spends most of her time with queer women and while she is dazzled by him, she is also wary of his status. She is not unaware of what is happening, of how they look.
And how they look to his friends is quite different than how they look to hers. Her friends are mostly queer people close to her in age, well-educated and underemployed. To them, her choice of the choreographer is a choice that rejects their community and identity. Not just because he is a man but because this kind of relationship is so wrapped up in the power dynamics of patriarchy and heterosexuality. Not only that, but our protagonist is making textbook bad relationship choices: spending all her free time with her new boyfriend, making all the effort for them to see each other while he makes hardly any, etc. This is particularly galling to her roommate, who has been her closest friend since college.
Our protagonist knows she is making bad decisions. She thinks about it often. She questions herself. She also knows what her desires are and luxuriates in the rewards of satisfying them. Gradually they incorporate BDSM into their relationship, and she struggles with the mixture of happiness and sadness the relationship brings her. She also starts to see the rest of her life in new ways. The patterns she starts to see, particularly with her roommate, show us that this relationship is not a sudden shift but may in fact have been a long time coming.
Not long before this I read another novel about a relatively young queer woman who has a notable affair with an older partner (WE DO WHAT WE DO IN THE DARK by Michelle Hart) and they went well together even though they were quite different. But actually the contrast only made each more distinctive. I definitely spent both books feeling very old as I watched these young women jump fully into obsessive relationships that to someone like me whose spent years in the dating pool were full of red flags. I understood their choices, I just did a lot of cringing. I wanted so badly to take them both aside and give them some good advice, even if I didn't think they would take it.
The end of this book is a real gut punch. I knew it would be. As I got closer and closer to the end and we still hadn't reached some kind of resolution I realized that it was going to be one of these books that doesn't walk you there and let you take a breather but one that would leave you gasping and oh boy it did. It shifts the entire narrative. It was the first time in a long time that I went back to reread the last ten pages.
Songsiridej's prose is lovely, I like the comparison to CLEANNESS because she shares a frankness of prose with Greenwell. Her writing about sex is sometimes focused on the details because she wants us to see the story in it, what it means for the characters, how the dynamics play out in this most delicate arena. Sex and desire is much of what draws our protagonist into this relationship, it's important that Songsiridej doesn't gloss over those things or close the bedroom door. We need to understand how she feels, and this book is one of the best I've read at helping the reader understand obsession.
I tore through this in a day and I am pretty sure I will read it again.
I will often groan aloud when I see that a book is about a young woman and a much older man. There are so many of them out there, if you are going to do it you have to justify its existence. Songsiridej more than delivers. Our protagonist (who is unnamed for most of the book) is not the young, straight, white woman under 20 we often see in these stories. She is 30, biracial, and identifies as queer. She has a day job but mostly she is a writer and she is not exactly successful but she is not all that far off from it. She meets the man, a choreographer, at an artists' residency and doesn't like him. It is only later that they meet again and she starts to see him differently.
While there is an imbalance in their relationship (he is not just successful but well-known and wealthy along with being at least a couple of decades her senior) it is just that--an imbalance. They may turn heads, she may be taken for his daughter, their friends may disapprove, but it isn't inherently bad. He does not have a habit of chasing much-younger women. She spends most of her time with queer women and while she is dazzled by him, she is also wary of his status. She is not unaware of what is happening, of how they look.
And how they look to his friends is quite different than how they look to hers. Her friends are mostly queer people close to her in age, well-educated and underemployed. To them, her choice of the choreographer is a choice that rejects their community and identity. Not just because he is a man but because this kind of relationship is so wrapped up in the power dynamics of patriarchy and heterosexuality. Not only that, but our protagonist is making textbook bad relationship choices: spending all her free time with her new boyfriend, making all the effort for them to see each other while he makes hardly any, etc. This is particularly galling to her roommate, who has been her closest friend since college.
Our protagonist knows she is making bad decisions. She thinks about it often. She questions herself. She also knows what her desires are and luxuriates in the rewards of satisfying them. Gradually they incorporate BDSM into their relationship, and she struggles with the mixture of happiness and sadness the relationship brings her. She also starts to see the rest of her life in new ways. The patterns she starts to see, particularly with her roommate, show us that this relationship is not a sudden shift but may in fact have been a long time coming.
Not long before this I read another novel about a relatively young queer woman who has a notable affair with an older partner (WE DO WHAT WE DO IN THE DARK by Michelle Hart) and they went well together even though they were quite different. But actually the contrast only made each more distinctive. I definitely spent both books feeling very old as I watched these young women jump fully into obsessive relationships that to someone like me whose spent years in the dating pool were full of red flags. I understood their choices, I just did a lot of cringing. I wanted so badly to take them both aside and give them some good advice, even if I didn't think they would take it.
The end of this book is a real gut punch. I knew it would be. As I got closer and closer to the end and we still hadn't reached some kind of resolution I realized that it was going to be one of these books that doesn't walk you there and let you take a breather but one that would leave you gasping and oh boy it did. It shifts the entire narrative. It was the first time in a long time that I went back to reread the last ten pages.
Songsiridej's prose is lovely, I like the comparison to CLEANNESS because she shares a frankness of prose with Greenwell. Her writing about sex is sometimes focused on the details because she wants us to see the story in it, what it means for the characters, how the dynamics play out in this most delicate arena. Sex and desire is much of what draws our protagonist into this relationship, it's important that Songsiridej doesn't gloss over those things or close the bedroom door. We need to understand how she feels, and this book is one of the best I've read at helping the reader understand obsession.
I tore through this in a day and I am pretty sure I will read it again.
July 11, 2022
the ratio of nicely formed literary sentences and genuinely bad sentences (like 'caused me to independently remember the concept of "pepper jack cheese" in sporking communities for the first time in two internet generations' bad - iykyk) is absolutely lawless in this, as is the sexual ethic. like look i love a tight examination of a fucked-up relationship with an unsuitable older man but my fellow residents of the bisexual community have got to figure out a way to handle this narrative in the 2020s without landing on "perhaps this is the queerest dynamic of all?" i also absolutely did not believe the protagonist's friends would be riding her dick about dating above her age range if SHE was past thirty, and several of her dizzy bitch behaviors would have read much more convincingly coming from a much younger twentysomething. but above all i absolutely cannot believe i had to read a full page of scoldy dialogue about the damage of bisexual erasure in an adult novel, my sisters are UNWELL.
May 21, 2022
"How was that?" he asked, mouth pressed against my forehead, my hair.
"You were awful." My voice sounded strange. Hungry.
"But you came to me," he said, his voice low and thin. "Little Rabbit. You followed. You obeyed."
I'm completely torn on this strange, languid modernlove lust story.
A thirty-year-old writer, who normally identifies as a lesbian, falls hard for a male choreographer who's in his fifties. On the surface, it seems to be a pretty unbalanced, possibly even unhealthy relationship, particularly when the BDSM stuff comes into play. Yeah, I was a bit put off by the Fifty Shades of Grey sex scenes, though I believe they were necessary for the story, and for establishing character.
Although . . . by the end of the book, I felt like I didn't really know either of the main characters, and really had no idea where their relationship was headed.
But . . . at the same time, Songsiridej's story is so wonderfully written, and oddly involving that I kind of hated to see it end.
See. Torn. Though I do know that I'll be there for whatever she writes next.
"You were awful." My voice sounded strange. Hungry.
"But you came to me," he said, his voice low and thin. "Little Rabbit. You followed. You obeyed."
I'm completely torn on this strange, languid modern
A thirty-year-old writer, who normally identifies as a lesbian, falls hard for a male choreographer who's in his fifties. On the surface, it seems to be a pretty unbalanced, possibly even unhealthy relationship, particularly when the BDSM stuff comes into play. Yeah, I was a bit put off by the Fifty Shades of Grey sex scenes, though I believe they were necessary for the story, and for establishing character.
Although . . . by the end of the book, I felt like I didn't really know either of the main characters, and really had no idea where their relationship was headed.
But . . . at the same time, Songsiridej's story is so wonderfully written, and oddly involving that I kind of hated to see it end.
See. Torn. Though I do know that I'll be there for whatever she writes next.
August 14, 2023
4.5
i love a sleeper hit! i always enjoy books that explore questionable relationships and power dynamics, so i should’ve known i’d love this one. i was unsure at first, but once i got into it, i found it practically impossible to put down again.
i know it’s becoming a little redundant to call a book ‘sally rooney-esque’ as almost every book is marketed that way now, but this book really gives the vibes of if frances and bobbi from rooney’s conversations with friends lived in boston in their thirties, and frances was dating an older, rich male choreographer.
for such a relatively short novel, songsiridej manages to fill the pages with sharp prose and such gripping character relationships and dynamics. the novel is a new kind of coming-of-age story, following our unnamed narrator at the start of her thirties as she attempts to figure herself out, while simultaneously losing herself to her desires. the novel’s main focus is on queer identity, and exploring what happens to that identity when it becomes mixed up with the dynamics of heterosexuality and patriarchal power.
the tagline of this book is ‘does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?’ - and that sums it up perfectly.
i love a sleeper hit! i always enjoy books that explore questionable relationships and power dynamics, so i should’ve known i’d love this one. i was unsure at first, but once i got into it, i found it practically impossible to put down again.
i know it’s becoming a little redundant to call a book ‘sally rooney-esque’ as almost every book is marketed that way now, but this book really gives the vibes of if frances and bobbi from rooney’s conversations with friends lived in boston in their thirties, and frances was dating an older, rich male choreographer.
for such a relatively short novel, songsiridej manages to fill the pages with sharp prose and such gripping character relationships and dynamics. the novel is a new kind of coming-of-age story, following our unnamed narrator at the start of her thirties as she attempts to figure herself out, while simultaneously losing herself to her desires. the novel’s main focus is on queer identity, and exploring what happens to that identity when it becomes mixed up with the dynamics of heterosexuality and patriarchal power.
the tagline of this book is ‘does falling in love mean eviscerating yourself?’ - and that sums it up perfectly.
April 14, 2022
“What he’d done was crack something new inside of me and let it break the world.”
If Sally Rooney and Katie Kitamura had an American cousin together, and that cousin had a similar “voice,” Alyssa Songsiridej may be that person. Still aspiring, but getting there. Now, I’m not talking about plot (but there are some overlapping themes), and Songsiridej has a few steps to go to reach their utter brilliance of executing story, but I know that she will get there. This is her debut, which impressed and often riveted me; I have a strong sense that this author has a successful career ahead of her. This story of identity, boundaries, and the journey and search to fulfillment on all fronts is a winner, with a few flaws that mostly stayed out of the way.
The unnamed narrator and protagonist is a thirty-year-old struggling novelist, queer, biracial (Asian and Caucasian, although that doesn't much enter into the story on the surface), living with her best friend (also a toiling writer) and former college roommate, Annie. They have gone down every adult path together. They aren’t lovers, and they both consider themselves queer, and their shared sense of adventure is infectious. When the narrator entangles herself with a man, a fifty-year-old wealthy dance choreographer, Annie struggles to understand, and tensions between them rouse. The identity of their queerness together is threatened, Annie believes. She can't wrap her head around her friend's attraction to a man, which causes problems in the women's relationship.
The two friends live near Boston (Somerville), and the choreographer has two homes that take hours to get there—NYC and a place in the Berkshires. So, to visit the choreographer, the writer spends the weekends. I love how Songsiridej demonstrated the best friends’ relationship to be just as compelling as the one between the narrator and choreographer. To spice and complicate things even more, there’s the choreographer’s main dancer, a woman who the writer is attracted to, also. And the choreographer stands ready to exercise that, but not how you may think!
The push-pull on both sides causes the protagonist growing anguish. And the reader feels it. Beyond that, there is sexiness and drama and drama-role-play-sex between the choreographer and writer. Is she going down a dangerously explosive path? Is the choreographer pulling a grenade pin on her? That’s a question I kept asking while reading. The unnamed narrator (as Kitamura has done) demonstrates her lack of self-identity, as well as how she doesn't name the choreographer. She’s not so much every woman as she is no one, lost in the choreographer’s desires, and drowning in her own. “When he first saw me, he didn’t react, my identity failing to register” is an example of the theme. Also, he mostly calls her Little Rabbit or Rabbit, his chosen identity for her.
There's also the power of his status, his elegant stature, his body, and his willingness to support the writer in her ambition. His devotion terrifies her. "Money and power and sex and devotion. ...I played with the four words like marbles."
There’s also a meta- moment or two, which I liked, the author exposing herself through her story, without it being distracting or intrusive. During a scene together, it is noted that Annie has always considered herself a writer of life, while the narrator is a writer of ideas. Songsiridej is absolutely a strong writer of ideas in this book. But she also shared that the protagonist, with her ideas, and concepts, sometimes has difficulty with the plot, making it work the way Annie’s does. And, perhaps this book, too, is occasionally stronger with ideas, themes, character, than with plot. There are a few moments, especially near the end, where the plot is executed in a stagy way. The storytelling isn’t a problem—it’s the execution at those times, so it feels a bit awkward or hammy. But, fortunately, the rest was so strong that I wasn’t too bothered.
A few growing pains, sure, but I'm still thinking about this novel. As resonant and sensuous as it gets. Never bored, never once, it was a page-turner for me. One other note: I liked how Songsiridej created her male character as a choreographer (and former dancer), as his character facilitates the theme of space-- the boundaries as ever mindful with a dancer.
Although I rate it 4 stars, it is a superb 4 stars. These are the times that I really wish we had half star allowances.
Thank you to Bloomsbury for sending me a galley to review.
If Sally Rooney and Katie Kitamura had an American cousin together, and that cousin had a similar “voice,” Alyssa Songsiridej may be that person. Still aspiring, but getting there. Now, I’m not talking about plot (but there are some overlapping themes), and Songsiridej has a few steps to go to reach their utter brilliance of executing story, but I know that she will get there. This is her debut, which impressed and often riveted me; I have a strong sense that this author has a successful career ahead of her. This story of identity, boundaries, and the journey and search to fulfillment on all fronts is a winner, with a few flaws that mostly stayed out of the way.
The unnamed narrator and protagonist is a thirty-year-old struggling novelist, queer, biracial (Asian and Caucasian, although that doesn't much enter into the story on the surface), living with her best friend (also a toiling writer) and former college roommate, Annie. They have gone down every adult path together. They aren’t lovers, and they both consider themselves queer, and their shared sense of adventure is infectious. When the narrator entangles herself with a man, a fifty-year-old wealthy dance choreographer, Annie struggles to understand, and tensions between them rouse. The identity of their queerness together is threatened, Annie believes. She can't wrap her head around her friend's attraction to a man, which causes problems in the women's relationship.
The two friends live near Boston (Somerville), and the choreographer has two homes that take hours to get there—NYC and a place in the Berkshires. So, to visit the choreographer, the writer spends the weekends. I love how Songsiridej demonstrated the best friends’ relationship to be just as compelling as the one between the narrator and choreographer. To spice and complicate things even more, there’s the choreographer’s main dancer, a woman who the writer is attracted to, also. And the choreographer stands ready to exercise that, but not how you may think!
The push-pull on both sides causes the protagonist growing anguish. And the reader feels it. Beyond that, there is sexiness and drama and drama-role-play-sex between the choreographer and writer. Is she going down a dangerously explosive path? Is the choreographer pulling a grenade pin on her? That’s a question I kept asking while reading. The unnamed narrator (as Kitamura has done) demonstrates her lack of self-identity, as well as how she doesn't name the choreographer. She’s not so much every woman as she is no one, lost in the choreographer’s desires, and drowning in her own. “When he first saw me, he didn’t react, my identity failing to register” is an example of the theme. Also, he mostly calls her Little Rabbit or Rabbit, his chosen identity for her.
There's also the power of his status, his elegant stature, his body, and his willingness to support the writer in her ambition. His devotion terrifies her. "Money and power and sex and devotion. ...I played with the four words like marbles."
There’s also a meta- moment or two, which I liked, the author exposing herself through her story, without it being distracting or intrusive. During a scene together, it is noted that Annie has always considered herself a writer of life, while the narrator is a writer of ideas. Songsiridej is absolutely a strong writer of ideas in this book. But she also shared that the protagonist, with her ideas, and concepts, sometimes has difficulty with the plot, making it work the way Annie’s does. And, perhaps this book, too, is occasionally stronger with ideas, themes, character, than with plot. There are a few moments, especially near the end, where the plot is executed in a stagy way. The storytelling isn’t a problem—it’s the execution at those times, so it feels a bit awkward or hammy. But, fortunately, the rest was so strong that I wasn’t too bothered.
A few growing pains, sure, but I'm still thinking about this novel. As resonant and sensuous as it gets. Never bored, never once, it was a page-turner for me. One other note: I liked how Songsiridej created her male character as a choreographer (and former dancer), as his character facilitates the theme of space-- the boundaries as ever mindful with a dancer.
Although I rate it 4 stars, it is a superb 4 stars. These are the times that I really wish we had half star allowances.
Thank you to Bloomsbury for sending me a galley to review.
October 22, 2022
I try not to leave negative reviews, but I felt underwhelmed by this novel in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on. in some places it felt like an indulgent phonecall you might subject a very patient friend to, all interiority with little narrative friction to push back against, characters that felt more like stand-ins for terminally-online morality plays.
scanning the dust jacket at the bookstore, I remember thinking, 'this novel feels like it was grown in a lab to appeal to me' — the knotty entanglements of intimacy, power, creativity, fidelity to one's artistic vision — but little of that truly emerges from its pages. its protagonist writes 'experimental' fiction, but we spend very little time with her work or her process (beyond the fact that she rises, early, to write) nor do we move beyond the claim that her recent novel is 'interesting' and 'different,' perhaps even radical, as if those politics could be earned through assertion alone. our protagonist regularly wrestles with the ethics of dating someone older, wealthier, more established, but little happens in the way of true confrontation that would give her dilemma some meatier stakes. as it is, the only 'fallout' is with her thinly-sketched roommate, as if interpersonal disapproval were a death sentence in itself.
there are moments when Little Rabbit gestures towards making good on these questions: the older choreographer talks too much at the fellowship, sublimely unconscious of his own positionality vis-a-vis the up-and-coming; he steers her through crowds of fiendishly wealthy and well-connected patrons, a performance just as (if not more) elaborate and high-stakes than the exertions of his dancers onstage. these settings are ripe for exploration of the class and material interests that scaffold creative life, and the acquisition of C's work by an agent orchestrated by her more successful beau makes clear that power and pleasure are irrevocably bound up with one another. but the fallout from this incident is strangely muted, and we are again left with little more than the protagonist's internal equivocations.
the treatment of C's bisexuality and the conflict over her would-be partners also feels truncated; its consequences deferred, perhaps sublimated, into intensifying patterns of submission. but this also means that our protagonist's eventual surrender to desire — and the ostensibly momentous reveal of her full name — does not feel earned. I can imagine how this might be a statement about 'coming into being' (ha) and the refusal to subject intimacy and desire to a rigid, inflexible moral code. but as it is, little has actually been overcome. maybe Little Rabbit is a story about getting over oneself, but in that case, how hard did our protagonist ever work against her desires in the first place? what should be a climactic moment, replete with musical crescendo, interpretive dance, etc. rings hollow. when the curtain falls, how much has been sacrificed, how much has been gained?
scanning the dust jacket at the bookstore, I remember thinking, 'this novel feels like it was grown in a lab to appeal to me' — the knotty entanglements of intimacy, power, creativity, fidelity to one's artistic vision — but little of that truly emerges from its pages. its protagonist writes 'experimental' fiction, but we spend very little time with her work or her process (beyond the fact that she rises, early, to write) nor do we move beyond the claim that her recent novel is 'interesting' and 'different,' perhaps even radical, as if those politics could be earned through assertion alone. our protagonist regularly wrestles with the ethics of dating someone older, wealthier, more established, but little happens in the way of true confrontation that would give her dilemma some meatier stakes. as it is, the only 'fallout' is with her thinly-sketched roommate, as if interpersonal disapproval were a death sentence in itself.
there are moments when Little Rabbit gestures towards making good on these questions: the older choreographer talks too much at the fellowship, sublimely unconscious of his own positionality vis-a-vis the up-and-coming; he steers her through crowds of fiendishly wealthy and well-connected patrons, a performance just as (if not more) elaborate and high-stakes than the exertions of his dancers onstage. these settings are ripe for exploration of the class and material interests that scaffold creative life, and the acquisition of C's work by an agent orchestrated by her more successful beau makes clear that power and pleasure are irrevocably bound up with one another. but the fallout from this incident is strangely muted, and we are again left with little more than the protagonist's internal equivocations.
the treatment of C's bisexuality and the conflict over her would-be partners also feels truncated; its consequences deferred, perhaps sublimated, into intensifying patterns of submission. but this also means that our protagonist's eventual surrender to desire — and the ostensibly momentous reveal of her full name — does not feel earned. I can imagine how this might be a statement about 'coming into being' (ha) and the refusal to subject intimacy and desire to a rigid, inflexible moral code. but as it is, little has actually been overcome. maybe Little Rabbit is a story about getting over oneself, but in that case, how hard did our protagonist ever work against her desires in the first place? what should be a climactic moment, replete with musical crescendo, interpretive dance, etc. rings hollow. when the curtain falls, how much has been sacrificed, how much has been gained?
April 25, 2022
“What he did, I wanted, true. And I feared what I wanted, the urge to jump over, dive deep. What he’d done was crack something new inside of me and let it break the world.”
From the very first page of Little Rabbit, I was spellbound. I read it eagerly and voraciously, not at all sure where I was being led, but gratified where I ended up.
Our unnamed narrator is barely 30 years old, on the cusp of her writing career, experiencing all the possibilities of life – including her own sexuality. She identifies as queer, and she is part of a trio of supportive friends who seem to genuinely care for each other. But early on, she meets a much older (51-year-old) man, a renowned choreographer, at an artists’ retreat in Maine. Suddenly, she is in uncharted territory, expanding her own body’s boundaries, wondering, “How did I get here? You are so unexpected.”
The question that permeates the book is: “Can a queer young woman who is in the state of becoming truly desire a confident and celebrated older man without deleting the very essence of herself?” The answer is not easy. Our narrator’s roommate and best friend, Annie, is invested in preventing the transformation of the woman whom she knows so intimately. Her parents are far from on board.
Our narrator consistently feels the push-pull of wanting something so badly that the wanting threatens to obliterate her. The allure of power and sex combined in a man who truly wants her with every fabric of his being is as threatening as it is intoxicating.
The result is explosive and invigorating, enormously sensual and downright hypnotic. The novel digs deep into the thin line between healthy versus punishing love and ravenous desire versus obsession. Along the way it touches on the nebulous boundary between art and real life (what happens when art begins to encroach upon your real life), and the various ways we define self – from sexual identity to the negativity of ageism. And it explores the very chemistry of erotic love and sexual fluidity and freedom.
To say I was enthralled is an understatement. I owe a debt of thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for enabling me to be an early reader for what will be one of my favorite books of the year.
September 19, 2022
An erotically charged novel exploring the possibility that losing and finding oneself do not have to be two mutually exclusive events. At times though it felt a bit vague and for a dedicated writer the narrator had a surprisingly limited vocabulary.
September 23, 2024
eARC provided by netgalley in exhange for an honest review.
little rabbit is a suffocating and overwhelming debut that still somehow manages to blend itself into all other books like it, until it all becomes an overbearing wave of abusive relationships and BDSM and unamed narrators with very little originality or thoughtfulness. hand in hand with the likes of sally rooney, little rabbit focuses only on human connection, with the relationship with the narrator and her best friend often mirroring her relationship with her partner, though it lacked any of the nuance that made rooney's work a worldwide phenomenon, reading as surface level discussions of sex and love in its many different forms.
little rabbit is a suffocating and overwhelming debut that still somehow manages to blend itself into all other books like it, until it all becomes an overbearing wave of abusive relationships and BDSM and unamed narrators with very little originality or thoughtfulness. hand in hand with the likes of sally rooney, little rabbit focuses only on human connection, with the relationship with the narrator and her best friend often mirroring her relationship with her partner, though it lacked any of the nuance that made rooney's work a worldwide phenomenon, reading as surface level discussions of sex and love in its many different forms.
April 26, 2023
felt more like an erotica novel with literary elements than a literary novel with erotica elements (not saying that's bad, but it does seem like it's TRYING to do the latter rather than the former)
January 26, 2022
Holy shit. Magnificent
January 17, 2023
Little Rabbit is a story of a queer young woman enamored by an older choreographer. We follow their relationship through a secluded house in Massachusetts, the bustling NYC, and his interjection to her life in Boston. We also witness her relationship with his dancers, her roommate, and other women she is involved with.
I was surprised to rate this as highly as I did, but it all boils down to still thinking about it months later. That is after all what we are looking for in a book isn't it? One that doesn't leave our minds after it's last page.
also I've been fantasizing about the east coast.
I was surprised to rate this as highly as I did, but it all boils down to still thinking about it months later. That is after all what we are looking for in a book isn't it? One that doesn't leave our minds after it's last page.
also I've been fantasizing about the east coast.
July 6, 2022
Look, if there is a story about a younger woman and her fucky, messy relationship with a bad news old dude, I’m there with bells on, this is my truth. That bias aside, this knocked me out flat, I loved it.
Read
May 3, 2022Thank you to Bloomsbury and Netgalley for the eARC
Unfortunately, I am going to DNF this at 20%. I didn't care for the narrative voice and my eARC had many formatting errors that made it difficult to read. This has all the elements I typically look for in lit fic, but unfortunately just didn't work for me. May revisit this as an audiobook in the future.
Unfortunately, I am going to DNF this at 20%. I didn't care for the narrative voice and my eARC had many formatting errors that made it difficult to read. This has all the elements I typically look for in lit fic, but unfortunately just didn't work for me. May revisit this as an audiobook in the future.
June 7, 2022
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Little Rabbit is a book about an unnamed thirty year old woman and her relationship with a much older man. Power dynamics are largely at play within the relationship to the point where it is expectedly unbalanced and uncomfortable.
Going into this book, I thought I was going to read a character driven novel that dissects power dynamic in BDSM and age gap relationships. Instead, I pulled myself through a novel with a flat narrative and no discernible reason for being. This book was not for me. I don’t understand the author’s intention. The characters felt stiff and unchanging throughout.
I think the relationship between the main character and her roommate was infinitely more interesting than that of the main character and the choreographer, but unfortunately it was overshadowed by constant discussion of weekend plans.
There were some good lines in this story. The author obviously is capable of writing a good and thoughtful story. I just don’t think this is it.
Little Rabbit is a book about an unnamed thirty year old woman and her relationship with a much older man. Power dynamics are largely at play within the relationship to the point where it is expectedly unbalanced and uncomfortable.
Going into this book, I thought I was going to read a character driven novel that dissects power dynamic in BDSM and age gap relationships. Instead, I pulled myself through a novel with a flat narrative and no discernible reason for being. This book was not for me. I don’t understand the author’s intention. The characters felt stiff and unchanging throughout.
I think the relationship between the main character and her roommate was infinitely more interesting than that of the main character and the choreographer, but unfortunately it was overshadowed by constant discussion of weekend plans.
There were some good lines in this story. The author obviously is capable of writing a good and thoughtful story. I just don’t think this is it.
June 10, 2024
i don't think i would have enjoyed this emotional debut as much if it hadn't reminded me so sharply of a relationship i was in when i was 25. age gap relationships are complicated, particularly between a straight man and a queer woman. there are plentiful differentials in perspective, power, wealth, status, and way of life.
but i was captivated by this story of misguided desire, unflinching vulnerability, the sheer confusion of being in a passionate relationship that doesn't fit your life. a toxic relationship as self harm, BDSM as self harm. walking a path that feels inevitable. above all, the painful pleasure of being with someone who allows you to tap into your rawest vulnerability.
our narrator, c, is a 30-year-old sapphic writer from boston, living with her lesbian bestie, annie, and enjoying their community of lgbt+ artists and intellectuals. she embarks on an intense and sexually-charged relationship with the choreographer, a fifty-something dance professional with an established career in NYC.
maybe my reading involved some projecting from my own experience, or maybe c's journey is ambiguous throughout - but i never knew exactly what was happening. is she being swept up in an unhealthy obsessive relationship and abandoning herself, or is she falling in love and finding herself anew? i'm still not sure.
much of their relationship is about c's deep fear of being alone, and her yearning to be broken apart, grounded by her lover, fused to him:
▴▴▴
toward the end,
the ending itself
but i was captivated by this story of misguided desire, unflinching vulnerability, the sheer confusion of being in a passionate relationship that doesn't fit your life. a toxic relationship as self harm, BDSM as self harm. walking a path that feels inevitable. above all, the painful pleasure of being with someone who allows you to tap into your rawest vulnerability.
our narrator, c, is a 30-year-old sapphic writer from boston, living with her lesbian bestie, annie, and enjoying their community of lgbt+ artists and intellectuals. she embarks on an intense and sexually-charged relationship with the choreographer, a fifty-something dance professional with an established career in NYC.
maybe my reading involved some projecting from my own experience, or maybe c's journey is ambiguous throughout - but i never knew exactly what was happening. is she being swept up in an unhealthy obsessive relationship and abandoning herself, or is she falling in love and finding herself anew? i'm still not sure.
much of their relationship is about c's deep fear of being alone, and her yearning to be broken apart, grounded by her lover, fused to him:
We're so alone inside ourselves, I thought. Bumbling through the world, trapped. But with him, I'd felt my body go gaseous, expand. I lost myself in the world we made together, dissolving into the shared oblivion. As emptiness, I had found myself no longer so alone.
▴▴▴
toward the end,
the ending itself
I curled up against him, my cheek pressed to his chest. His heart thudded beneath me, accelerated with imagined exertions. Alone as a child in bed, I couldn't believe that one day I might lie close enough to hear another person's heartbeat. That it would pump just alongside my ear, sounding like mine. Even more miraculous, that it wouldn't be, near but still outside.
December 19, 2022
3.5⭐️ A juicy drama that tries to fool the reader into thinking the stakes are much higher than they actually are.
This book is described as “a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story”. Our narrator is THIRTY years old. She has a master’s degree. Throughout the book she discovers things about herself, unlocks parts of herself she didn’t know existed, sure! But a coming of age? That’s a stretch.
Our narrator is in a relationship with a man twenty years her senior. At any age, one may expect shocked reactions with perhaps a few follow up questions but let me reiterate, she is thirty years old. There is nothing inherently wrong or shameful about the age gap in this relationship. If her age was never revealed and you went solely off the dialogue and reactions of her friends/family, you would be convinced our narrator is in her late teens, early twenties.
She is constantly infantilized by her insufferable and judgmental roommate who cannot comprehend how or why our narrator could even consider being in a relationship with a man. Though there are instances when she has reason to worry or ask questions, she takes it too far every time, losing any empathy or understanding I might have for her position.
The writing was a little all over the place. It shined in the descriptive paragraphs and when in our narrator’s mind, specifically in her struggle to understand her desires. Despite a few instances of awkward phrasing, I thought those bits were written extremely well.
Where it suffered was the dialogue. Wholly unconvincing, it felt as if pulled straight from a poorly written screenplay. Our narrator is a writer, yet again and again she is unable to find the words to describe how she is feeling beyond the most basic of statements.
Despite all of this, I did enjoy reading it once I decided to approach it as more of a fun, entertaining read. Songsiridej proved her potential and I’d read her next book.
This book is described as “a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story”. Our narrator is THIRTY years old. She has a master’s degree. Throughout the book she discovers things about herself, unlocks parts of herself she didn’t know existed, sure! But a coming of age? That’s a stretch.
Our narrator is in a relationship with a man twenty years her senior. At any age, one may expect shocked reactions with perhaps a few follow up questions but let me reiterate, she is thirty years old. There is nothing inherently wrong or shameful about the age gap in this relationship. If her age was never revealed and you went solely off the dialogue and reactions of her friends/family, you would be convinced our narrator is in her late teens, early twenties.
She is constantly infantilized by her insufferable and judgmental roommate who cannot comprehend how or why our narrator could even consider being in a relationship with a man. Though there are instances when she has reason to worry or ask questions, she takes it too far every time, losing any empathy or understanding I might have for her position.
The writing was a little all over the place. It shined in the descriptive paragraphs and when in our narrator’s mind, specifically in her struggle to understand her desires. Despite a few instances of awkward phrasing, I thought those bits were written extremely well.
Where it suffered was the dialogue. Wholly unconvincing, it felt as if pulled straight from a poorly written screenplay. Our narrator is a writer, yet again and again she is unable to find the words to describe how she is feeling beyond the most basic of statements.
Despite all of this, I did enjoy reading it once I decided to approach it as more of a fun, entertaining read. Songsiridej proved her potential and I’d read her next book.
March 19, 2023
4.5 rounded down
Rtc two weeks before publication!
Rtc two weeks before publication!
November 21, 2022
This was perfect. I need to take so many deep breaths. I just inhaled this, just absolutely annihilated it.
I read this through every good and bad feeling it gave me, because it was allowing me to feel something and that felt special. It rushed through me in a day- reading this was a physical experience. This felt reminiscent of Fleabag, with the unnamed main characters and the coming-of-age aspects. I guess part of me thought this would mostly be a sexy, really hot read and to a certain point it was sensual and sexy and all that. But it was so much more, and I couldn't just ignore that. This book made me feel like tenderized meat, which is disgusting and weird and slightly disturbed. It feels like poking an old bruise, there were parts of this that made me feel so soft, so loved. Songsiridej's dramatic swelling prose and poetic chunks and one-liners were so impressive in the ways they knocked the wind out of me. At times, it made me feel accused, frightened, like something tender in my stomach had been cut open and people would laugh at it. What a fucking feeling to have for a piece of writing. It just made me think a lot about dynamics of power and sexuality, I thought it did a great job exploring an experience of a queer woman dating a cishet man, what is good art, exploring sexual discovery and friendship burning out with old gradually- like airing out your bedroom in the spring after a long winter. It was strange and it made me deeply sad, it made my stomach and my chest ache, I cried during a sex scene. I wept shakily into my book over a scene with two characters going at it, it feels ridiculous. It gave me a lot that was unexpected. This honestly might've been one of my top reads of the year.
Fucking gorgeous, just ate my heart out.
I read this through every good and bad feeling it gave me, because it was allowing me to feel something and that felt special. It rushed through me in a day- reading this was a physical experience. This felt reminiscent of Fleabag, with the unnamed main characters and the coming-of-age aspects. I guess part of me thought this would mostly be a sexy, really hot read and to a certain point it was sensual and sexy and all that. But it was so much more, and I couldn't just ignore that. This book made me feel like tenderized meat, which is disgusting and weird and slightly disturbed. It feels like poking an old bruise, there were parts of this that made me feel so soft, so loved. Songsiridej's dramatic swelling prose and poetic chunks and one-liners were so impressive in the ways they knocked the wind out of me. At times, it made me feel accused, frightened, like something tender in my stomach had been cut open and people would laugh at it. What a fucking feeling to have for a piece of writing. It just made me think a lot about dynamics of power and sexuality, I thought it did a great job exploring an experience of a queer woman dating a cishet man, what is good art, exploring sexual discovery and friendship burning out with old gradually- like airing out your bedroom in the spring after a long winter. It was strange and it made me deeply sad, it made my stomach and my chest ache, I cried during a sex scene. I wept shakily into my book over a scene with two characters going at it, it feels ridiculous. It gave me a lot that was unexpected. This honestly might've been one of my top reads of the year.
Fucking gorgeous, just ate my heart out.
January 5, 2024
I am officially declaring a war on bad books in 2024.
I feel misled by the language used in the both the book summary and the reviews with high praise. Usually, I would not go for a book like this but the way it was advertised led me to believe that it was worth reading and branching into.
I.e. “Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and exercise that defy the had-won boundaries of the self.” — Are we reading the same book?
The characters lacked the depth and complexity to create the compelling narrative that was promised. Underwhelming, to say the least.
I feel misled by the language used in the both the book summary and the reviews with high praise. Usually, I would not go for a book like this but the way it was advertised led me to believe that it was worth reading and branching into.
I.e. “Little Rabbit is a wholly new kind of coming-of-age story about lust, punishment, artistic drive, and exercise that defy the had-won boundaries of the self.” — Are we reading the same book?
The characters lacked the depth and complexity to create the compelling narrative that was promised. Underwhelming, to say the least.
April 3, 2022
I haven't read an entire book in just one day in years - probably not since I was a teenager. I felt all of it. How it aches to be alone in a body so much, but also how dangerous it feels to let anyone inside - especially in ways others would say are the "wrong" ways. What our relationships to other people mean about our own identities even as we desperately try to have sole control over how are perceived, of we who were and who we want to be. Devastated. Moved. Going to be thinking about this one for a long, long time.
May 29, 2022
a complex look at desire and what it makes of us, what it leaves behind after we fill it.
July 14, 2023
i just love when a book is cut from the sally rooney cloth
April 13, 2022
First, the good stuff: this was short enough to read in a day, if you don’t have much planned.
Now, the not as good stuff. I had a few issues with this book. the first being that neither the protagonist, nor her love interest have names for almost the entire book. Being that it is told in first person, the fact that the protagonist isn’t named wasn’t as noticeable, but why does she have to refer to her partner as “the choreographer” the entire time? Is the author purposely trying to keep readers from connecting to the character or…?
Secondly, early on this book seemed like it was just going to be lit porn, or erotica, or whatever the genre is called. Which is fine if you’re into that. I’m not, really, so I was glad to see that eventually a plot did start to emerge, even if it wasn’t that great.
Also, I’m not clear why the central relationship in the story is such a problem. Yeah, he’s twenty years older. But they’re both professional, working adults, who seem capable of deciding who they want to date. It’s not like the protagonist is eighteen. She’s thirty, for crying out loud, and a published author! Who cares?
And that leads to my last issue: why does her best friend care so much? Why is she such a complete disaster when the main character gets a serious boyfriend? Isn’t it expected that most people will eventually move out of the apartment they share with their college roommate into the next phase of their lives? It just became pathetic.
Thanks to #netgalley and #bloomsburypublishing for this #arc of #littlerabbit in exchange for an honest review.
Now, the not as good stuff. I had a few issues with this book. the first being that neither the protagonist, nor her love interest have names for almost the entire book. Being that it is told in first person, the fact that the protagonist isn’t named wasn’t as noticeable, but why does she have to refer to her partner as “the choreographer” the entire time? Is the author purposely trying to keep readers from connecting to the character or…?
Secondly, early on this book seemed like it was just going to be lit porn, or erotica, or whatever the genre is called. Which is fine if you’re into that. I’m not, really, so I was glad to see that eventually a plot did start to emerge, even if it wasn’t that great.
Also, I’m not clear why the central relationship in the story is such a problem. Yeah, he’s twenty years older. But they’re both professional, working adults, who seem capable of deciding who they want to date. It’s not like the protagonist is eighteen. She’s thirty, for crying out loud, and a published author! Who cares?
And that leads to my last issue: why does her best friend care so much? Why is she such a complete disaster when the main character gets a serious boyfriend? Isn’t it expected that most people will eventually move out of the apartment they share with their college roommate into the next phase of their lives? It just became pathetic.
Thanks to #netgalley and #bloomsburypublishing for this #arc of #littlerabbit in exchange for an honest review.
December 18, 2022
It's like a 3.5? I liked it a lot in the beginning, but closer to the end I just became so uncomfortable (which might have been the point?), triggered, and sad.
Little Rabbit is about 30-year-old 'C' – a biracial, bisexual woman – who gets into a relationship with a man over 20 years her senior. Her friend circle consists of other queer women, namely her best friend Annie, who doesn't approve of or understand C being so eager and willing to be submissive to a white, cis man. To Annie's credit, C does really lose herself in the relationship and the lines become blurred between what she actually wants and what she thinks she wants out of it and from him.
They start to experiment with BDSM and C becomes confused and ashamed as to why she likes the power imbalance, which is also present in other areas of their lives (her lover is a rich, successful choreographer and she is a writer still trying to get her work out there). It feels like C gives up her life for him, and in trying to convince her friends and family that this is good for her, she's actually trying to convince herself.
I think I really need to put a pause on these toxic relationship books because it was really hard to get through when things got bad. I didn't really care for the graphic details of the BDSM scenes, or how possessive the man was. It triggered some fight or flight response in me and made me not wanna pick up the book in the last 1/3. If you're looking for a book with a happy ending, this isn't it.
Little Rabbit is about 30-year-old 'C' – a biracial, bisexual woman – who gets into a relationship with a man over 20 years her senior. Her friend circle consists of other queer women, namely her best friend Annie, who doesn't approve of or understand C being so eager and willing to be submissive to a white, cis man. To Annie's credit, C does really lose herself in the relationship and the lines become blurred between what she actually wants and what she thinks she wants out of it and from him.
They start to experiment with BDSM and C becomes confused and ashamed as to why she likes the power imbalance, which is also present in other areas of their lives (her lover is a rich, successful choreographer and she is a writer still trying to get her work out there). It feels like C gives up her life for him, and in trying to convince her friends and family that this is good for her, she's actually trying to convince herself.
I think I really need to put a pause on these toxic relationship books because it was really hard to get through when things got bad. I didn't really care for the graphic details of the BDSM scenes, or how possessive the man was. It triggered some fight or flight response in me and made me not wanna pick up the book in the last 1/3. If you're looking for a book with a happy ending, this isn't it.
March 5, 2023
"No one, I'd written, understood the dancer's power, how it took everything to reach the edge and let go."
Little Rabbit is my kind of book - not much plot, complicated and borderline toxic relationships, and realistic characters. It is the story of a relationship between a woman and a man twenty one years her senior. More than that, it's the story of a woman's growth and transformation, as this relationship allows her to come into her own. The narrator, called Little Rabbit by her older boyfriend (who the narrator refers to as "the choreographer"), is a working class queer woman - which adds to the complexity of her relationship with the choreographer - who is cis, straight, and wealthy. Not only is her relationship with the choreographer complex and compelling; her relationship with her friend and roommate of over a decade, Annie, is equally complex and compelling. Both women are queer - though Annie comes from money and seems to have an easier time navigating the writing world they both occupy. Interestingly, the narrator's talent as a writer seems to be more pronounced than Annie's (the narrator was chosen for the writing retreat where she met the choreographer, though both she and Annie applied, and the narrator was selected to have her story appear in a prominent literary journal that Annie was rejected for) - adding to the complexity of their relationship.
My only critique of this novel is that the dialogue and social interactions felt quite stiff and not as natural as I would have liked. I am definitely hyper aware of these elements in a novel so this may not bother everyone. The good definitely outweighed the negative here, though - I will absolutely look into anything else Alyssa Songsiridej writes in the future. I also wish that I could read the narrator's novel and other stories in their entirety!
June 6, 2022
It’s everything 50 Shades wasn’t. Tender. Deep. Well-written. The characters and relationships are complex and dark enough to be interesting without being a depressing trauma-porn. This is the kind of love story I want to read (and will probably re-read).
August 5, 2022
Didn’t quite stick the landing but I loved it all the same! THIS is the exploration of subverting antiquated relationship and sexuality norms that other unnamed books with much bigger buzz wish they were.
January 10, 2023
This book hit really hard. Losing yourself in a relationship, the feelings of bodies in motion and how they make you feel. A setting 5 minutes from my house, and where I used to live.
The ending scared me. I'll think about it for a while!
The ending scared me. I'll think about it for a while!
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