Oh where do I begin with this. I loved the idea behind it. The adventure of some brave bunnies leaving their home and overcoming adversity on their way to setting up their own burrow. However, for me, the execution didn’t meet my expectations and I was left massively underwhelmed.
I found the prose over long and over descriptive. Adams seems to have a great love and understanding of the countryside, but there was just *too much* description of it. By the last chunk I read I was skimming over whole paragraphs of it. Because the narrative was so descriptive, I felt disconnected to the characters. The rabbits. I didn’t root for them, or fear for them, despite knowing things would be getting worse before they would get better. Finishing the book was a relief.
My final gripe is the stories of the El-ahrairah seemed to be just plonked in there and didn’t add a whole lot to the story other than the knowledge that the rabbits pass down stories in the same way humans do.
My edition had 656 pages (617 of actual story) while some editions when I compared on goodreads only have 476. So I’m wondering if I read some extended version that had been padded out, and if, had I read a shorter version I would have preferred it.