I had heard alot of great things about this book with high hopes of a great read. Unfortunatlely I was dissappointed and just can't recomoend. Good luck with the book

The characters are vivid, fully realized — sympathetic in some respects, repugnant in others. In other words, human. The ways in which they think of each other and themselves feel real and just as complicated and messy as life. The story honestly engages both heart and mind.

Thank you net galley for the arc!
3.5 stars!

Four years after Claire and Aaron's divorce they get a call that their daughter, Lindsey, has been injured in a hit-and-run. Lindsey was currently living in China teaching English and estranged from her parents. As Claire and Aaron rush to Shanghai, we uncover the events of what ended their marriage, what turned Lindsey against them, the bond between Lindsey and her younger sister Grace, who was adopted as an infant from China, and what Lindsey was up to during her time in China.

I really enjoyed the different perspectives, the family dynamics, and the different relationships. I did like reading Lindsey's story and I am heartbroken for what she went through. I wish we got to hear more from other characters though, specifically Johnny and Grace. Ultimately, the book fell a bit short for me because I felt somewhat disconnected from the characters. I’m not sure if this was due to the frequent shifts between viewpoints or something else.

Family dynamics are a source of endless fascination for me, hence my draw toward Rabbit Moon, the story of a dysfunctional, broken family searching for love and acceptance. Here’s the premise: Claire and Aaron Litvak are divorced, and their daughters, Lindsay and Grace, deal with that fracture differently. Lindsay moves to China to teach English, and Grace, adopted from China as a baby, is the only family member she stays connected to.

Haigh is a nuanced and intimate writer who knows how to build tension and explore subtle themes. This literary novel moves between Lindsay’s life in Shanghai, the deterioration of Claire and Aaron’s marriage, and the minor characters. You get to know the city of Shanghai, too. I’ve never been there, but Haigh masterfully describes the setting, creating a realistic, haunting atmosphere.

The relationships between each family member volleyed between sweet and tender to angsty and frustrating. Claire’s attitude toward each of her daughters is particularly interesting. Haigh’s psychological exploration of the mother-daughter, sister-sister, and father-mother relationships seems spot on (granted, I’m no psychologist), and her insights on the specialness of rearing a Chinese girl in a white American family are thoughtful.

Thanks to Little, Brown, & Co. and NetGalley for my advance reader copy.

This was an incredible book, in my opinion. The writing was well done and the story did not have the outcome one would expect. It touched on real life topics and tough conversations/harsh realities. I loved this book!

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group
Rabbit Moon is the story of an wealthy suburban family of four from Newton MA. The younger sister, Grace, was adopted from China as a baby, and is spending the summer at a Quaker camp in New Hampshire. Older sister Lindsey dropped out of college, and for the last couple of years has been living in China. Although the two sisters are amazingly close, Lindsey is estranged from both parents. Lindsey initially taught English in Beijing, but then she moved to Shanghai. The plot revolves around the Lindsey's catastrophic decisions and the parent's train wreck of a marriage, all explained through an abundance of introspection, plot points, and backstory. The result is a slow plot until the second half of the book. Important themes of independence, self-discovery, identity, communication, and sisterhood are strong, but my favorite inclusion was the Chinese myth of the Red Thread, which says we are all born with an invisible unbreakable red thread which connects us to those we are destined to meet.
#RabbitMoon

I'm a big fan of Jennifer Haigh's writing and I thought this book was especially good. The book told the complicated story of a family, and though there were a number of time jumps and perspective shifts, I never lost sight of the characters, relationships, and emotions that were the heart of the story. This is one of those books in which the setting (Shanghai, China) plays an integral role in the book, and Haigh does a great job of portraying the sense details that make a particular place unique. This is not a book of necessarily "likable" characters (not something I ever need in a book) but it is the story of very relatable people making decisions that are understandable in context and often regrettable when looked back on. This is a book I'll highly recommend to readers who are interested in thoughtful stories of complicated family relationships and what happens when those relationships are tested.

The only thing I love more than a story about a complicated family is a story about a complicated family with deep secrets, sisterhood, and international adoption. The whole thing is a bit heartbreaking throughout, but ultimately well done. I'll be looking out for more from Jennifer Haigh.

I loved this! Haigh can write a story that's not my typical topic and have me enraptured by its characters.

Lindsey Litvak is living in Shanghai and making her own way in the world, sure, her parents think she’s teaching English in Beijing, but at twenty-two, it is easy to keep them in the dark. The only people she really cares for are her Chinese best friend, Johnny, and her sister, Grace, who was adopted from China as an infant. When a car swerves off the road and puts Lindsey in a coma, her divorced parents are forced to reunite in Shanghai and puzzle out the secrets of their daughter’s life and examine what drove them apart in the first place.

Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh is a masterpiece in writing settings. The city of Shanghai comes alive in impactful and vivid prose.

A relatively short novel, with a tragic secret that rips a young woman’s life apart, and the ramifications of not dealing with it as a family make for a compelling read, even though I struggled to connect with the characters and would have enjoyed a deeper and more transformative exploration into their lives.

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advanced copy for review consideration; all opinions are my own.

I really enjoyed this one and I was very invested in the characters. It didn't quite hit me emotionally as much as I was expecting it to. This was my first book from this author but definitely won't be my last!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance reader's copy of this book. Unfortunately at this time I will be unable to give it my full attention, so I will provide a starred rating and return when I can give it a proper review.

This story, partially set in my hometown of Newton, MA, along with the streets of Shanghai, in part brings powerfully alive the consequences of well-to-do American families adopting unwanted Chinese girls during the era of Chinese one-child policy and the preference for male heirs. It’s also in part about a family’s estrangement from their oldest (white) daughter, Lindsey Litzvak, who has moved to live in Shanghai as a call girl.

The novel opens with a hit-and-run in the early morning hours of downtown Shanghai that leaves Lindsey hospitallzed in a coma. Just 22 years old, Lindsey had come to China to teach English with her boyfriend, but when her boyfriend heads back home Lindsey heads to Shanghai based on an employment offer to become a high-end call girl. Lindsey divorced parents, Claire and Aaron, who have been completely in the dark rush to her side in a Shanghai hospital, where they struggle based on the language barrier to figure put what’s going on medically with their daughter. Their younger 11-year-old Chinese-adopted daughter Grace in the meantime languishes in an extended session of summer camp, also in the dark about her much beloved, close sister.

Most touching in the story is Grace, who has to come to terms with her Chinese heritage along with her resentment of her adopted parents’ trying to constantly connect her to the Chinese culture. She’s forged a super close relationship with her sister and resents her parents’ seeming trying to alienate her from her American self. Slowly, Grace has to reconcile her emerging competing inner versions of self.

Meanwhile, Lindsey’s decision to move from an upper middle-class family to call girl seems superficial and not quite believable. Lindsey justifies sticking at it to afford living there as a American college drop-out, but that strains credibility for a highly risky and self-denigrating choice.

Shanghai itself becomes its own powerful character in the novel, gleamingly modern, increasingly unaffordable to most, clogged with pollution, and ultimately heartless.
All that being said, the novel kept me glued reading with its taut storyline and ambiguities around the choices of Lindsey and her parents.

Thanks to Little, Brown and Company as well as NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

This book was a sad story but so well written it keeps the reader constantly engaged. The characters are all developed with great care. The storyline was truly unique. I would recommend anyone to read this book. It deals with family, emotions, and how to deal with sadness.

Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh is a complex backdrop of Shanghai. Haigh’s prose shines most when describing the city itself—its atmosphere, tension, and daily rhythms are all rendered in elegant detail.

While I understood the character of Lindsey, I found myself wanting a deeper connection to both Grace and Johnny. Their backstories felt thin and somewhat rushed, and by the end, I didn’t feel like I truly knew them. Grace, in particular, seemed like a character with more to tell, but her development was left on the surface.

The writing is strong, but the pacing felt uneven at times. There was some beautiful, deep moments but there were parts of the story that didn’t feel fully fleshed out.

Deeply personal and emotional writing, typical of Jennifer Haigh.

I'll be recommending this one quite a bit. It's a middle of the road, family drama with a bit of international complexity.

The updated cover (blue with flowered branches) fits thematically with her previous cover designs but the original loose brushwork portrait was much more compelling. I typically associate that art style with modern literary fiction and gave this story a try thinking it might be a divergence from her others works. But it's still faithful to her voice and if the formula still works why scare away the usual readers with an overly hip cover.

I have a feeling this one will be popular, will probably be a big book club pick this year.

A broken family. An unbreakable bond of sisterhood...

Claire and Aaron Litvak are divorced parents of two daughters - Lindsey, 22, their natural daughter, and Grace, 11, adopted as an infant from China. Despite their age gap, the sisters are loving and devoted to each other. The parents are divided, angry, and bitter towards one another. This family is fractured.

Claire and Aaron are notified that Lindsey is in critical condition at a Shanghai hospital from a hit-and-run accident. They arrive separately and wait contentiously by Lindsey's bedside with questions...

"Rabbit Moon" is memorable, with much to digest for a relatively short novel. It feels heavy, dark, and sad; it has the heaviness of the unknown, the darkness of secrets and lies, and the sadness of unspoken regrets.

Haigh's writing is beautiful, evocative, and addictive, and I didn't want to put this book down or for it to end. I instinctively knew I would love this even before I started reading. I do have one teeny niggle: I wish it were a little longer to accommodate more of Grace's voice and her innate joy. Sharing this could have lightened the heftiness of this heartbreaking story.

This was an immersion read; the audiobook is narrated by Katharine Chin (Lindsey) and Yu-Li Alice Shen (Grace), who recounts the story flawlessly and delivers the perfect first-person voice for Lindsey and Grace. The result is an enjoyable listening experience.

"Rabbit Moon" is the first book I've read by Jennifer Haigh, and it will be one of my favorite reads for 2025!

4.75⭐

Thank you to Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Audio, and Jennifer Haigh for the gifted DRC and ALC through NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.

To be perfectly honest, I knew very little about 𝗥𝗔𝗕𝗕𝗜𝗧 𝗠𝗢𝗢𝗡 by Jennifer Haigh before I picked it up and I’m glad of that. I liked the way the layers of this strained family story unfolded with a lot of love that didn’t quite know where to go, and some mystery thrown in as well. For a relatively short book (288 pages) Haigh managed to cover a lot of ground.⁣
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In broad strokes 𝘙𝘢𝘣𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯 is the story of a family recently shattered by divorce. They have two daughters. The younger, Grace, was adopted from China. The older, Lindsey, has had a rough go of it and left college to teach English in China. When parents Claire and Aaron get a call that Lindsey has been hit by a car in Shanghai, they journey there to be by her side and to uncover the truth of what her life was really like in China.⁣
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I loved the way Haigh built her characters and the tender, but tense relationships between them. There were deep insights and contours that made this fractured family very believable. Other, less prominent characters, equally well-done, added even more depth. I also was fascinated by the Shanghai setting where much of the story took place. ⁣
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I’ve never read Jennifer Haigh before, but after reading 𝘙𝘢𝘣𝘣𝘪𝘵 𝘔𝘰𝘰𝘯 I think I need to rectify that situation. She has a deep backlist, so any suggestions as to which of her books I should try? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Jennifer Haigh's Rabbit Moon is a masterful exploration of family, identity, and cultural intersections, set against the vibrant backdrop of Shanghai. The novel begins with a tragic hit-and-run accident that leaves Lindsey Litvak, a young American woman teaching English in China, in a coma. As her divorced parents rush to her side, they confront not only the mysteries of Lindsey's life abroad but also the unresolved fractures within their own family. Haigh's storytelling moves seamlessly between past and present, weaving together Lindsey’s fragmented narrative with the perspectives of her parents and younger sister Grace. The richly drawn characters grapple with themes of love, betrayal, and the consequences of choices—both personal and societal. Shanghai itself emerges as a dynamic character, its bustling streets and cultural contrasts mirroring the complexities of the Litvak family's journey. With lyrical prose and poignant insights into human frailty, Rabbit Moon is a deeply affecting novel that lingers long after its final page. Haigh’s ability to delve into profound issues like adoption ethics and familial alienation while maintaining an engaging narrative cements her as one of contemporary literature’s finest voices.

A quiet and restrained novel that explores the ways both chance and action can influence our lives. Considering this book was relatively short, it had a very well developed cast of characters radiating outward from Lindsey, our protagonist who is injured in a hit-and-run accident in Shanghai at the start of the story. The reader learns about why she is in Shanghai, her damaged relationship with her parents, her love for her adopted younger sister Grace, and the choices she makes which lead her to the moment when she is struck down by a careless driver in a city far from home. This had the feel of an epic family saga that dips backward in time and explores the lives of each character but again over the course of a much shorter novel than you’d expect from such a wide scope.
I appreciate that while there was drama and tension to the story, it was not over-the top and felt very realistic. A less talented writer might have chosen to manufacture coincidental connections between characters but this was kept to a minimum despite the “red thread” theory that was explored with Grace’s section at the end. Overall I found this story to be quite moving and satisfying and the characters will stick with me. Thank you to NetGalley as well as Little, Brown, and Company for providing me with an e-galley of this title in exchange for my honest thoughts.