Fiction Addiction: Introducing When God Was A Rabbit

The cover of When God Was A Rabbit, and, right, author Sarah Winman.

I dithered for weeks before picking my feature book for this month. It was just so important to get it right, this being the inaugural Fiction Addiction book club.

I looked at dozens of new release novels, from New Zealand and overseas. I talked to half a dozen book publicists and checked out their recommendations. I clicked and scrolled all over the internet, through online bookshops, critics' and publishers' sites and newspaper reviews. I had ping-ponging email conversations with Christine, co-blogger of Fiction Addiction, as we batted suggestions to and fro. (She bagsed Téa Obreht's novel The Tiger's Wife early on, and will start blogging about it later this week.)

I wangled a copy of the proofs of one promising novel but I got a third of the way through and it hadn't grabbed me. If a book hasn't grabbed you by then, will it ever?

After reading several glowing reviews, I had almost decided on a new American release but I read a few pages and it didn't immediately seem as magical as I'd hoped. And this first book has to be magic.
Then, after sneaking away from the family while on holiday in Sydney, I walked into an oasis of a bookshop and picked up When God Was A Rabbit, a debut from English author Sarah Winman that has attracted a lot of attention overseas.

I read the first few pages and grinned. The writing was snappy and sucked me in on the spot. And it probably helped that it begins with a witty observation of the narrator's birth, which reminded me in tone and subject of the start of Kate Atkinson's delicious 1995 novel Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

It's about the childhood and coming of age of an English girl whose family seems to attract calamity, from cancer to kidnapping, from bombs on the Tube to 9/11. The title comes from a pet rabbit she christens God. The Guardian called it "sharply funny, whimsical and innovative". Wide praise has been tempered with warnings that it gets a bit contrived and cloying, but the opening is so sharp that I'm prepared to take that risk.

If you've already read it since it was released in New Zealand about six weeks ago, please tell me that my angst was worth it!

As I write this, I haven't read more than a few pages but my fingers are fizzing with the anticipation of racing on through.

So May is the Month of the Rabbit. Feel free to pick up a copy and join me on this journey of discovery. I'll be blogging about it throughout the month.

It's also the Month of the Tiger. Look out for Christine's first blog about The Tiger's Wife, our other May feature book, later this week.

* Be in to win a copy of When God Was A Rabbit, by Sarah Winman. To enter, email win@apn.co.nz by Monday, May 9 with "Rabbit" in the subject line and tell us what book you're itching to read next (and it doesn't have to be one of ours!)