Jasper, Jasper, Jasper....the things your brain comes up with. I mean who else is going to do an alternative history social commentary satire with life-sized anthropomorphized rabbits?

The Event happened in England 55 years ago. One night, with no knowledge of how or why it occurred, animals in several spots all over the world suddenly were more like humans than ever before. Gifted with speech and rational thought, and in most cases, higher intelligence than humans, they sought to find their place in society. The largest group affected by this was rabbits.

But many humans didn't like the idea of integration and made laws to keep rabbits out of their own communities. Burned out of their homes, ousted from education institutions, restricted in movements, and limited in opportunity - everything feasible was done to maintain the distance for decades. And the latest idea? The British government has put forth a plan to rehome all of the rabbits to the MegaWarren in Wales. But the rabbits have reached a breaking point and have something very different in mind. Something that will once again change the face of history.

It would be impossible to convey all of the details that make this work - new language, governance, religion, etc. Jasper Fforde has an uncanny way of building multi-layered worlds that still feel recognizable as our own. It's a primary reason why he's one of my favorite authors. And I will always always pick up anything he writes. . The Constant Rabbit just came out in the UK, but folks in the US have to wait until September to get their hands on a copy, which I highly recommend they do.

If you are a fan of Jasper Fforde, you will enjoy his latest, The Constant Rabbit. This book takes place in a universe where rabbits have been anthropomorphized. Sadly, they are not accepted by all humans as equals, or even as lesser beings to be tolerated. They are discriminated against, they are victims of hate crimes and they are ultimately targeted for removal from society. This satire was cleverly done, and frankly quite difficult to read during the current period of racial unrest in the United States. Regardless, the book was quite entertaining, full of humor and enough plot twists to keep the reader engaged.

I was hoping Mr. Fforde would give some new insight into how we might resolve our current problems of prejudice and discrimination against minority populations. Other than reiterating the tried and true method of getting to know people (or species) who are different from oneself, he offered no cure-all for us. However, the book's ending was very satisfying because rabbits aren't humans and the world Mr. Fforde imagines is quite different from the one in which we reside.

A hilarious commentary on politics and social issues involving anthropomorphic rabbits and a quaint, but small-minded English village. Guaranteed to make you laugh out loud. The Constant Rabbit is a silly book about serious issues.

The Constant Rabbit is in many ways more serious than Fforde’s usual. Yes, it’s light and quirky with its satire, but the topic is particularly close to home in the Trump era. In his world, after a singular event, a few rabbits became human-sized and sentient. In the present, humans like the TwoLegs Good campaign fiercely against the species, insisting (against all evidence) that they’re overrunning Britain, taking all the jobs, breeding humanity into obsolescence and forcing everyone to turn vegan. There are the sympathizers, those who spread rude nicknames, and those who wholly buy in to the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, all in quite direct parallels to our world. Magazines like Fox and Friends make it even more blatant.
The government plans a Rehoming project, forcibly settling them all in a single massive warren, while the rabbits peacefully demonstrate against this. As it happens, the Venerable Bunny, their spiritual leader, has a plan to save them. With the rabbits passive environmentalists who only hope to be left alone, there are parallels to many disturbing moments of history.
Meanwhile, a species of foxes have been legally allowed to kill the rabbits (after legal rulings that this is their nature). They dominate the rabbits, enforcing dictates than one fox death will result in that of at least a hundred rabbits. As the sadistic Mr Ffoxe insists:
“They want to make Britain into a rabbit nation, with their laws, their heathen god, their aggressive veganism and quasi-rodent way of doing things. This sceptr’d isle, this green and pleasant land, is reserved for humans and a few foxes, not for a plague of vermin. And they can do that, they can make that happen, just by doing what they like to do best. They’re planning on outnumbering us. The LitterBomb. It’s on the cards, I know.’ It was all UKARP conspiracy-theory nonsense. Nigel Smethwick had been spouting similar stuff for years , and none of it remotely proven.
The protagonist, a generally decent human caught between the sides, protests, “They’re just rabbits, sir. Herbivores. Compliant, trusting, hardworking. I’ve spoken to them, I think I kind of know them. I don’t believe they have any agenda at all. They simply want … to be.” In the end, the rabbits and the humans who care for them are pushed to the very brink in a quest for survival that all-too-pointedly mirrors our own lives.

If you're at all familiar with Jasper Fforde then you'll know to throw all of your expectations out the window before starting one of his books. "The Constant Rabbit" is a standalone satire and pointed commentary on current issues involving politics, immigration, and bigotry. In this alternate universe there was an "event" in the 1960s that caused a number of animals to spontaneously anthropomorphize, becoming human-like. In the years since, the "rabbit issue" has become a contentious political and social point in Britain, as the ruling party seeks to defend the British way of life from the rabbit encroachers (who they fear will overpopulate, spread their own religion and vegan beliefs, and just generally disturb the good old ways of humanity).

Peter Knox works as a rabbit spotter, someone who helps to identify rabbits for the taskforce that polices rabbit issues. He doesn't consider himself anti-rabbit. After all, this is just a job and he has to support his family somehow. However, things become much more complicated when a rabbit family moves in next door in his quiet village and he is increasingly forced to take a stand.

"The Constant Rabbit" takes awhile to really get going. Like many of Jasper Fforde's books, the world and setting is unfamiliar enough that it takes time to figure out what is going on and what rules this world follows. Jasper Fforde excels at taking a completely ridiculous concept and treating it with 100% seriousness, and this is another great example. Once I got into this book I really enjoyed it. It is not subtle, but it uses its outlandish premise to point out how ridiculous some of our real world conflicts actually are. Peter is well drawn as an example of someone who is "just following orders" and slowly grows to see that that is not a particularly good defense for allowing bigotry to continue unchecked.

If you've read previous Jasper Fforde books then you'll understand a bit what sort of tone to expect here. If not, then give it a try anyways, and try to go in without expectations. This is a very weird book, but in the end I very much enjoyed it.

This is absolute Jasper Fforde, so probably not for every single reader. I really enjoyed it!

Fforde fans will probably notice that it felt a lot like Shades of Grey: early foreshadowing about possibly-deadly confrontation to come, a not-bad main character who has to choose between becoming good or embracing bad status quo, and blatant social commentary that obviously isn't about us-- it's about rabbits! Also very similarly, the characters themselves don't understand the event that caused the current state of affairs.

(It's possible that this book takes place in the same universe as Shades of Grey-- there were no excluding events. And the bureaucracy outlined in Speed Librarianing, combined with the significance of rabbits, make it certainly plausible.)

Recommended for fans of the author, and readers who don't mind a little bit of absurdity as long as the characters are good.

If Douglas Adams and Richard Adams wrote a book together, it would probably be something like this. A quirky read that that is a good first purchase for larger fiction collections or a very solid secondary purchase for smaller libraries where offbeat titles are popular.