#2011-45

Rasanya memang nggak biasa kalau kamu punya kelinci yang dikasih nama ‘god’. Atau ‘tuhan’. Atau mungkin kita saja yang nggak terbiasa untuk mengerti sekeluarga yang tidak percaya Tuhan. Mungkin kita bisa bilang aneh. Mungkin juga tidak. Keluarga dengan ayah dan ibu atheis, anak lelaki gay, tante lesbi, anak perempuan dengan rahasianya, sahabat perempuan yang masuk penjara, dan hadiah undian yang amat besar.

Dari awal ceritanya memang agak aneh dan penuh teka-teki. Banyak rahasia-rahasia y More...

Сара Уинман разказва много увлекателно, без да изпада в многословие, с изключително образен и точен език, кратки изречения и чудесни словесни попадения. Интимните сцени и тези с насилие са само загатнати, но въпреки това оставят тягостно усещане. Разсъжденията през очите на децата са по-малко наивни и повече - затрогващи, мили и мъдри.

Въпреки чудатостите в нея, това е една много топла, човешка и истинска книга, забавна и весела, тъжна и жестока. Книга, в която няма нито една излишна дума, която More...

Тази книга ме измори емоционално, но ме измори без да ме отегчава, което е много важно. Приех историята повече от присърце и няма как да е по различен начин, защото през поне половината страници, това беше и моята история. В друго време. На друго място. Заобиколена от други хора, но моята история.
Чела съм по-хубави книги. Романи, които са ме карали щастливо да се усмихвам при мисълта, че някой пише точно толкова иронично, колкото на мен ми се ще да чета. Разгръщала съм глави трескаво, с почти ст More...

When God Was a Rabbit memiliki magnet tersendiri buat saya, dari judulnya yang 'nakal', cover hangat ditambah dengan latar pasangan siluet laki-laki dan perempuan. Awalnya saya pikir WGWaR adalah buku drama yang manis. Salah besar ternyata :p

When God Was a Rabbit adalah buku drama komedi satir yang kompleks. Pahit sekaligus juga manis. Terbagi menjadi 2 bagian, yang pertama memoar Elly saat ia kecil dan bagian kedua ketika Elly menginjak usia yang ke 27. Tulisan Sarah Winman langsung terasa 'meg More...

An amazing book - if it doesn't win a prize I'll be VERY surprised!
Even though Elly is older than me, much of her childhood resonates with familiarity - watching the Generation Game and shouting out the prizes in excitement, the magic of polaroid cameras, chocolate teacakes and doing the pools! Elly shares not just a deep and binding bond with her brother Joe, but also a sensitivity and awareness of the world that seems to separate them from the world of their peers. They are, in everything, a More...

I found this book when I was browsing in Kindle store. The title got me. It's a nice title. So I downloaded the sample and found it quite interesting but with a hint of "the style of writing I'm not sure I'd enjoy".
I do like the main story; it's about the love and bond between a brother and sister, a family, friendships and love in all forms. It's a beautiful concept, really. But I'm afraid I cannot say I enjoyed the book as much, let alone reread it.
To me it's like a big jigsaw puzzle and the a More...

this book is so awesome. Loving it.

I have just started this book and am absolutely loving it. It is a hilarious book, with Ellie being just too sharp and dry with her little asides. I honestly love a book that sucks me in - especially after that nonsense Fifty shades of Grey rubbish. This is one that I will lend, but will always demand to be returned.

Just finished it today. I absolutely LOVED this book. There are some conversations in there that I have marked, as I think they speak such truth. One in particular about the last par More...

Part One
the story of Elly as a little girl is magical, heart breaking, sweet, sad, funny, and in a few words: literary perfection

Part Two
I feel like, had this part of the novel been removed completely, this book would have been perfect. I think the most fascinating part about stories is not knowing the TRUE ending. About being left at one part of someone's life and imagining just what happened afterwards. By showing Elly as an adult, the mystery was lost and expectations were not met. The wonder More...

Firstly, this is a fiction book of two halves. First half I was loving the book and would have given it five stars. Second half – I loved it less so three stars. Rather than go for the average I’ll keep the overall review at three stars. Good book, unusual but messy – I will explain further.
The fictional character of Elly is a real British girl. Born in 1968, she charts her life around popular culture and world events as she becomes self-aware and of what it means to be British, female and part More...

3/5

I mostly enjoyed this book, but I had some major issues with it, reason why at first I thought I wasn't going to like it but it progressively grew on me as I continued reading.

The book is divided into two main parts which Elly, the protagonist and narrator, depicts in the preface as the two main periods in her life; the first one being her childhood, and the second her late twenties, early thirties. I thought the second part was considerably better; I found most of the events in the first par More...

I can imagine that as a writer it is tempting to do too much in one's first novel and I think this is what's wrong with this particular debut. As many have commented, the first section is far better than the second. It is in the first section, however, that we get a taste for the unnecessary and somewhat sloppy storytelling that's to come. It annoys me greatly when an author glosses over the realities of life by making characters incredibly rich. I saw no need for the sudden, imprecise wealth th More...

OH MY GOD WHY DO I DO THIS TO MYSELF WHYYYYYYY??!?!?!?!?

I read these book descriptions. They sound on the far side of boring. They almost scream: "I am literature. LIT-er-a-ture. Pronounced the douchey way, dear. I only bore you because you are dumb. If you were actually an intellectual, you would bow before my literary prowess. Read the New Yorker more, darling."

Whyyyyyyy?!?!? Why do people publish these books? Why do critics RECOMMEND them?!? Why do I read them?!?!? I know the answer to the More...

Essentially, this is a wannabee To Kill a Mockingbird. It has that mature narrative present, but all in all in was lacking in all aspects and didn't affect me as emotionally as TKAM did.

I feel as if I read this book as a pleasure read (though pigs would fly before I found this enjoyable) I wouldn't detest it as much as I do now.
For a school assignment I was forced to read this (well actually my friend picked this...). Every single day for the last 5 weeks I've spent 2 hours a day dissecting an More...

I gave up, wondering why I continued how much ever I read, which was like about 3/4th of the book. It felt like in the attempt to include too much just at once, Winman had lost track of the story. Half way down the book, you still dont have any clue what is happening. I picked up that book because of all the hype, but it was just a dead waste of my time!

I really loved the dark underbelly of this book. It had SO many layers and so many analogies for life within it. I loved the depth of the brother sister relationship and I could identify with SO many characters in the book. I felt the tragedy and happiness as they did. I connected because I have been and lived or visited so many I those places and a natural empathy between me the reader, and their feelings about life emerged.
The descriptions of nature with its the beginnings and endings were so More...

There are books which make you smile , books that make you cry and then there are books which bring out all possible emotions in you !! and if you aren't prepared to react in all possible ways ,aren't prepared to delve deep into yourself ,this certainly is'nt the book for you !! but if you wan't to relive all your childhood memories , all those workings-out and crossings-out to find an answer,an answer to who you are... this is the kind of experience you deserve !! An awesome read <3

I have just finished reviewing this for a major UK retailer. What a fabulous book! I havent read anything in a long time which has made me smile as much as this book, and draw on every other emotion I possess to supplement this.

This story begins in the past, looking at the early lives of the main protagonists, and it is this section of the novel which sets the tone for the remainder of the story and lures you into the lives of the characters within. It is this section of the story which really r More...

I agree with the other reviewers who say that the second half of this book is nowhere near as good as the first half.

The first half, with its expanding cast of eccentric characters, is gripping and endearing, even though the poor rabbit gets quite a raw deal. The second half, I felt, was rather strange, and it was difficult for me to feel much empathy with the characters whom I had liked in the first half. I don’t feel we really get to know the first-person narrator as an adult, or even whether More...

When God was a rabbit adalah buku tentang sebuah keluarga biasa; sepasang orang tua atheis, anak lelaki yang homoseksual, tante selebritas yang lesbian, anak perempuan yang gemar menyimpan rahasia, dan sahabat perempuan yang membunuh suaminya. Ellie, anak perempuan dengan banyak rahasia itu, memelihara seekor kelinci bernama God, yang kemudian membuat gurunya mengatainya melakukan penghujatan. Ellie berpendapat Yesus lahir karena 'kecelakaan', karenanya ia pernah dikatai Anak Sesat oleh guru di More...

I had never heard of this book until I spotted it in two different charity shops, on the same afternoon. The title caught my attention but I wasn't going to buy it, except it happened to be in a box of 'Buy four books for £1.00' in the second shop and after picking three other books, I ended up choosing this as my fourth.

Even though it was my last out of the four that I picked, it ended up being the first that I read. I checked out a few reviews online and realised it had quite a lot of good com More...

Every once in a while you read a book that passes straight into your bloodstream, and you are hardly aware of how it happened.

When God was a Rabbit describes itself as the story of a brother and sister, "about childhood and growing up, friendships and families, triumph and tragedy and everything in between...about love in all its forms". That is a perfectly fair description as far as it goes. What it doesn't say is anything of the quiet and kindly magic with which Sarah Winman defines her charac More...

What I will remember from When God Was a Rabbit are the characters. All of them. They were all deeply flawed, wonderful, real people. People I came to love nearly as much as my own family. People I was sad to say goodbye to.

Having said that, I'd be hard-pressed to tell you exactly what this book was about. For the most part, it follows the first half of the life of Elly, a young British girl who came of age after the Vietnam war. The story is bookended by the meeting (and meeting again, years la More...

F Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote "character is plot, plot is character". Sarah Winman in When God Was a Rabbit, however, has decided to forego both. The characters, who could have been so interesting if fully formed, are half-baked, badly drawn, sketch outlines of characters, insipid and vapid, nothing substantial in them at all. The plot just isn't there. Where, I asked myself after nearly 200 pages of reading, is this story going? The answer - I didn't know - and worse - I didn't care. It was More...

For the complete review , visit http://colouredbydreamz.blogspot.in/2...

The title and the synopsis of the content is what made me grab this book in the first place . A story which is woven around the lives of a brother and a sister is almost unavoidable and alluring enough for someone who is a sister herself, I assume . The cover is mesmerizing to say the least , but the blurb throws off a wrong signal that the content might be childish , the title being one with the essence of fantasy oozing More...

This book was enjoyable in many ways yet when you stop and think, you realise that there is absolutely no plot and it has no purpose. It's more of a book about growing up, the difficulties we face and the types of things children think about whilst seeing certain events unfolding in front of them.

I absolutely loved Eleanor Maud the little girl because she was hilarious and always had this funny way of thinking. She observed everything around her and always remembered to apply information she lea More...

Secrets, smiles & sadness - Ms Winman’s debut novel When GOD Was A Rabbit has it all!

PART I

Meet little Elly: Within quirky anecdotes that adds a smirk on anyone’s face. Elly happily sketches scenes from her childhood. There are her loving parents, a Shirley Bassey impersonator and, of course, a rabbit named God. And not to forget Jenny Penny, Elly’s best friend and partner in crime, a fantastic character that smells of chips and knows exotic words like ‘slag’. In a childhood peppered with mo More...

A quiet girl leads an ordinary life in a small town in Essex, and is quietly lured astray by a neighboring “stranger.” In this place where everyone knows everyone else, nobody sees what’s going on except Elly’s brother, who saves her and swears her to secrecy. Elly needs a confidante of course, and her best friend's either the girl with untameable hair or the pet rabbit she names, rebelliously, “god." The rabbit's name causes some trouble in Sunday school of course and provides an intriguing sen More...

La historia está divida en dos partes, por un lado tenemos la infancia de Elly, su profunda relación con su hermano Joe, su mejor y peculiar amiga Jenny Penny, la tia Nancy, que es actriz un tanto excéntrica y sus liberales, cariños pero sumamente despistados padres. Por otro lado, podremos ver a Elly adulta, que igualmente nos cuenta hechos que le resultan importantes.

No puedo decir más porque revelaría demasiado. A pesar de lo frustrante que fue el proceso de leerlo, me ha gustado, aunque la h More...

I found this book to be really uneven. I LOVED the first hundred pages, cared less about the second hundred pages and found my interest totally waning by the final 100 pages. The first hundred is great - it creates a sense of nostalgia for childhood and produces some scenes so unexpectedly funny that I found myself laughing out loud over and over again. Honestly - the nativity play is one of the funniest things I've ever read. Things in the second third of the book takes a more serious turn and More...