not so horrifying, but quietly haunting... sometimes we don't have all the answers. loved the slow burn of this one and the interplay between characters. excited to see more from Jen Julian.

Thank you Orbit Books for this EArc in exchange for a review!

A story soaked in grief, obsession, small town politics where folks keep secrets behind locked doors, and the twisting turns of "is this actually real or am I losing my grip on reality?"

Red Rabbit Ghost is a story that follows Jesse as he returns to his small town with the hopes that he could find out more of his mother who passed under mysterious circumstances 18 years prior. What draws him in are mysterious messages he receives from a stranger who claims to live in the same small town he grew up in. The further down the rabbit hole he goes the more ghosts it dredges up from his past which ripples through the community in ways he didn't expect. Its as if the town itself is alive, strange things have crawled their way out from The Night House bringing him full circle past, present, future.

This book is horror, bad trauma coping, and an unending void in ones chest as you come to realize that sometimes the world is simply strange and we don't always get the answers we want no matter how hard we try and we just learn to live with it even if we do keep on looking back to the past hoping it will catch up with our future.

Overall I found this read gripping as I raced to the end to see what happens. Personally I love this type of ending and overall the book was giving me Donnie Darko vibes.

Jesse goes back to his home town after info about his mothers mysterious death resurface. Jesse is hard to like but this book has lots of mystery and intrigue to keep you turning the pages and all and all was a compelling plot!

Red Rabbit Ghost drew me in with the gorgeous cover, and within the pages I found a really interesting story. This book is described as horror, and while it certainly has creepy elements, I think I would describe it more as southern gothic magical realism.

Jesse has returned to his hometown of Blacknot, hoping to uncover the secrets surrounding the death of his mother. But the deeper he digs, the more mysteries he uncovers; Blacknot isn’t what it seems, and the darkness at the heart of the town gets worse the further down the rabbit hole Jesse goes.

I struggled a little bit with the pacing in this book, but I think the concept is great. This is a book that’s more about the atmosphere than the plot, and it succeeds in creating a deeply atmospheric story. I enjoy books that lean into the vibes over the plot, but I did feel the storylines could have been wrapped up a bit more at the end. That being said, I did enjoy Red Rabbit Ghost, and I think it is a great addition to the supernatural-leaning southern gothic genre.

I would recommend Red Rabbit Ghost to readers who enjoy southern gothic novels, magical realism, and spooky, mysterious small towns.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit books for the arc! All thoughts & opinions in the review are my own

"An impulsive young outcast confronts his small town's dark secrets in this atmospheric and haunting debut horror novel from brilliant new voice Jen Julian.

The town of Blacknot is not what it appears, and a place on its desolate edge known only as The Night House is calling...

What remains of Jesse's mother can fit inside an old jerky tin. Photos, postcards, a single, worn-out bracelet. But nothing that can explain why she was found dead eighteen years earlier on the bank of a river, her infant son left wailing by her side. When Jesse starts to receive anonymous messages promising him answers, he returns home to the regressive town of Blacknot, North Carolina so that his lifelong obsession can finally be laid to rest.

But Jesse's investigation is stirring up trouble with the locals, including his well-armed ex-boyfriend and the mysterious daughter of a local businessman, each with their own inscrutable agendas. They will soon find that this backwater town holds a power more volatile than any of them could have imagined, and that the answers they seek might be better left buried."

Of course it's better to leave things buried. Just ignore me and my shovel.

The writing style wasn’t a good fit for me. Paragraphs are long and meandering, and the plot unfolds with aching slowness because of chapters that are too long for their own good. There were some amazing little moments - Alice describing visiting the pig farms for the first time is a good example - but generally reading it felt like sinking slowly into a bog.

I would probably have enjoyed it on audio (I’m usually a bit more patient in that format) but not enough was happening to really get me hooked.

Enjoyed the first half, but the book became repetitive and just ended. Had hopes for a better story from book cover and description.

solid horror. it starts off with a long chunk of buildup that is okay but not great, but about halfway through some of the pieces fall into place and it kicks into action. 3.5 stars. tysm for the arc.

this was a difficult book to rate because it’s good and, for the first half, really had me hooked. and then it got almost repetitive— no answers is expected in a book like this, but no answers coupled with a constant back and forth of what felt like similar scenes over and over again, all designed to make you want to figure out the final mystery without getting you there until the author wants you to. it wasn’t very effective in this one, but i did enjoy the last half almost as much as the first.

I wanted to like this sooo bad. I stopped reading it, twice. The final time, I forced myself to get through it. Someone else mentioned this book would be great as a short story and I couldn't agree more. I think this has SOOO much potential but it was repetitive and dragged itself out. The cover is GORGEOUS so i think that will help with getting this book out there, however; I don't think the writing style of this book is for me.

A southern queer horror interlaced with murder mystery and a gorgeous book cover drew me to this title immediately. Unfortunately, aside from still loving the cover, I feel as though I was not delivered anything promised.

There was a decent start, mysterious and intriguing, with a cast of characters who clearly had their own secrets to keep. Soon, however, I felt like I was missing something. Almost like there were literal pages missing from my PDF. By about the 60% mark I had to admit to myself that there actually weren't any character secrets. There also wasn't plot, or character motivations, or a congruent story line. I could not tell you anything about the book that wasn't already on the back cover and I was already over half-way through. Most frustrating, I believe, is the main character Jesse, and how none of the decisions he makes ever make sense. He may have said 'I don't know' more times throughout this story than I did to myself.

Formatting wise, I wish there was more of a definite break between character POVs other than first names at the beginning of paragraphs. Perhaps also a bit more visual indicators when things started to get...timey-wimey.

All that aside, there is something to be said about the last 40-or-so pages. Things were happening, and while I didn't understand any of it, I desperately wanted to. There were real stakes and a real sense of urgency, and I started to feel the suspense I was waiting for.

If you don't mind an abstract mystery with an ambiguous ending, this could be a good read for you. Be warned, however: Jesse and Alice are excellent examples of the unreliable narrator.

This would have been better off as a short story.
Around the 200 page mark is when things begin to come together in a way that makes the story completely immersive; this novel is marketed as horror, and the horror moments are where it shines. In other moments, the way journal entries and language are inserted pull away from the quality of the story by highlighting how much is not answered and how jerkily the story as a whole is constructed. There was so much background information on each character, which would have been appreciated had there been anything engaging enough to make the characters worth emotional investment. Were there a core character(s) to invest in, the jarring nature would have played really well to the conclusion of the story. As-is, the primary main character we follow is the one who has the least development, and is a tool for the plot rather than a participant in his own story, a self-described freak who is overly apologetic and doesn’t grow beyond that.
The insertion of real places in North Carolina dragged into grey space (coming from someone in NC) and the mentions of slavery and attention being brought to the lack of Black people in a rural, southern town felt more like an external attempt to be aware rather than true to the story. There were genuine, natural moments of conversation around race, and as a story exploring queerness in a small town the focus would have been better suited to what was true to the characters rather than forcing exchanges that didn’t contribute to the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit Books for an eARC copy of Red Rabbit Ghost by Jen Julian.

Red Rabbit Ghost by Jen Julian is a bone-deep, atmospheric Southern Gothic novel that lingers like smoke long after the last page. With eerie lyricism and unrelenting tension, Set in the claustrophobic, time-struck town of Blacknot, North Carolina, following Jesse, a young man haunted - literally and figuratively - by the mysterious death of his mother eighteen years earlier. The only clues left behind are what fit inside an old jerky tin: a few relics, none of them able to explain why she died beside a riverbank, her infant son crying alone beside her. When Jesse is lured back to his hometown by mysterious messages promising answers, he finds himself returning to the life he thought he had left behind.

Honestly, this book is a diamond in the rough. Red Rabbit Ghost has the elements of a Lovecraftian novel with the backdrop of Southern Gothic decay, using the town of Blacknot as a character alongside of Jesse, holding its own dark secrets, truths, and traditions to shape the growing plot line. But unlike Lovecraft and Southern Gothic, Julian's style of horror is grounded in trauma, grief, and obsession, weaving in elements of queer identity, familial estrangement, and the oppression inertia of small-town life. These make Jesse's reconnection with his aunt, ex-boyfriend, and his wary alliance with a local girl add compelling human texture. The supernatural aspect is really just an added bonus.

I enjoyed the emotional ride, especially since every piece of emotion that is presented throughout the story serves a purpose. It also gives that gratification that you will not always get the closure you want, that some things are not meant to be answered or known. That sometimes, you just have to let things that happened in the past go, in order to move on.

dnf @ 21%


The atmosphere and tension were good, but I just wasn't getting interested in the characters, so I decided not to continue. I will be recommending to patrons interested in horror, particularly with a Southern bent.

A strange and atmospheric horror that leans into the difficult parts of its characters' personalities and avoids cleaning up the messy edges, Red Rabbit Ghost is a more than worthy Southern gothic. It's slippery and atmospheric and deeply unsettling with compelling, nuanced characters. Incidentally, this is one of the better uses of social media in horror that I"ve read recently without it being the focus of the supernatural elements. It was weird and sensitive and I'm excited for what Jen Julian does next!

This book definitely seemed more YA to me, but I which I normally don't read or get into. I am a 50 year old woman though. For the right audience this could be an engaging read. I also didn't really see this as horror, but magical realism/mystery. A good book that was just not quite for me.

" Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear? "

Now if that is not a typical Southern saying then I don't know what is. Red Rabbit Ghost tells the tale of young Jesse, a college freshman, that comes back home for the summer. Home being Blacknot, NC - more specifically to his aunt Nancy's house. As an infant, Jesse was found laying next to his dead mother, by a river bank. There were some rumors, but her death wasn't deemed suspicious - as some accounts suggested she may have had a drug issue.
While in school, Jesse is starting to receive anonymous text messages insinuating that "they" know something about his mothers death. So, as the troublemaker that young Jesse is, he decides to go home for the summer and figure out what really happened to his ma. Well, the way things tend to be handled in the South .... let me tell you this, folks don't care for someone poking around in the past. Besides Jesse, we also get to meet the homeschooled and rather brilliant Alice, with her weird and off putting parents. But I'll digress, that's for you to find out whilst reading...
The story has some magical elements, there are some overlapping timeliness and even some diary entries. Overall a fun and immersive read that will transport you into its imagery. I live in a small southern town and we had a gator recently in the pond behind the house.. so a lot of the atmosphere and depictions were uncanny and very close to home, literally and figuratively speaking. This is a great summer evening read, that will give you the creeps here and there, in a good way!

Thank you to Jen Julian, Orbit Books and Netgalley for making me fear the gator in the pond all over again.. and for the book of course!

A great nighttime read with a few well placed scare moments. I’ve always had a thing about quiet windows when a shadow suddenly appears, it gives me chills and this book really leans into that fear.

I wasn’t expecting the paranormal twist, but it was a welcome surprise that added depth and suspense. What starts out feeling straightforward gradually unearths creepy small town secrets and unsettling discoveries from the past. Creepy, atmospheric, and just the right amount of disturbing

Red Rabbit Ghost- Jesse is called back to his backwoods hometown, Blacknot, NC, when a mysterious person begins messaging him details about his mothers death when he was a toddler. Thrown back into the toxicity of his past, he digs to find answers about himself, his family, and the person who brought him back here.

There is a good amount of mystery and mayhem in this to keep readers engaged. I enjoyed the characters of Jesse and Alice, the two who you jump back and forth between, even though Jesse is a hard to like protagonist at times with his many (and repeated) flaws. I enjoyed how their stories started and later intertwined. It is otherworldly and atmospheric, witchy and time-warpy.

I feel like I would have liked more horror. It is classified as an Adult Horror on Goodreads, General Fiction Adult on NetGalley, but it definitely felt like more of a YA horror to me. While I enjoyed the diary entries, I wish that they actually culminated into something that effected the story more. I felt that way about a lot of elements in the story, including The Night House. I was waiting for it to all come together at then end in a big way, and some small pieces did satisfactorily, but overall I felt like I was left wanting a bit.
I rated it 3.5/5 rounded up to 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the ARC!

3.75 A great night read with some scare jumps, I have a thing for being scared of quiet windows and then seeing a shadow there starting back. That always makes me feel very, and it's super creepy. I wasn't expecting some elements in this novel that take it into the paranormal realm. I thought it wasn't going to be a discovering past kind of novel, but it has some small-town horrors to unveil as well.