Rabbit Heart

by Alyssa Wong, Ramón de Ocampo (Narrator)

Grieving families looking to replace their lost loved ones come to one person, no matter the cost.

Time: 7 minutes

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Audiobook, Fiction, Science Fiction

1 pages, Audiobook

First published October 1, 2016

About the author

Alyssa Wong studies fiction in Raleigh, NC, and really, really likes crows. She was a finalist for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and her story, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story and the 2016 World Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. Her fiction has been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her work has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Tor.com, among others.

Reviews

[karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

at only 7 minutes, this is a really short audio short. i'm a terrible listener—not so much in my personal life, where i can be a VERY GOOD FRIEND, but in my entertainment-life i struggle with processing aural narrative. i am a big fan of hitting the old 'subtitle' button when i'm watching teevee, even though it sometimes spoils things when i can read faster than the teevee person can speak, taking some of the suspense out of the great british baking show.

but i'm giving it a shot, since audio is all the rage these days, and i have been SEDUCED by all the free horror shorts by authors i love that nightfire has so generously made available here.

because of my ear-brain shortcomings, and because this one is so short, i listened to it twice, and i'm not sure if it is down to my own inadequacies as a listener, or if i just wasn't into the story, but i don't have much to offer as far as a reaction or review for this one.

i read Bunny this past year, which has a similar conceit, and the best i can come up with in terms of elevator-pitching it to you is that it's the bunny part of Bunny wearing Pet Sematary as a blanket.

i've read four other stories by this author (all free tor shorts: God Product, Scarecrow, The Auntie, and A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers), and my feelings toward them were all over the place; ranging from three to four to five stars, so it might just be me and this story not clicking, while another one would have been more swoony to my heart.

in any event, YOU can form your OWN opinion of it FREE of charge here.

come to my blog!

[mark monday · Rating 3 out of 5]

a sweet, mournful, and wise sliver of a story. the life of a resurrectionist is hard. the life of a mourning parent is hard. the life of a child who disappoints their parent is hard, and sometime brief. life is hard, and sometimes brief.

read this brief story for free:
https://firesidefiction.com/issue37/c...

[Marc D. ✨ · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5 estrellas.

Woa, It made me thought a lot at the end.

[Liz (Quirky Cat) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rabbit Heart is an interesting short story, not just for the writing or the plot, but for the way it will make readers think, once they've reached the end of the tale. I sort of loved that about this book, even while it addressed some very dark themes.

[Michelle Kobus · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, but it borrows heavily from the anime Pet Shop of Horrors and doesn't have enough time to flesh itself out as a unique spin on the same premise.

[Nai | Libros con(té) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se me hizo muy cortito, sdkjgdf. Necesito más, el comienzo fue muuy bueno.

3,5/5

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

How terribly sad.

[Madhurabharatula Pranav Rohit Kasinath · Rating 2 out of 5]

An extremely short story, almost a vignette that had me feeling...nothing. My feelings for this short story could be summed up in the vagueness of a raised eyebrow and a desultory turn of the page (it was an audiobook, so the metaphor doesn't quite work, but - I hope you get the picture). The protagonist grows replacement people out of rabbits and has done the same for his wife/partner. IT seems to riff on the themes of Frankenstein a little but it only imitates and doesnt edify the content of the classic while losing out on an opportunity to define the themes of love, loss and grief through the lens of this man's macabre work.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A not-without-reproach narrator relates on what people want and what they're willing to pay, without realizing what the long-term costs are - and they're not always monetary. The slow reveal was well-done, and I enjoyed the intellectual commentary going on.
Reminded me quite a bit of the rabbit-daughter in Matsuri Akino's Pet Shop of Horrors, Vol. 1, less the deadly end.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the Alyssa Wong I've read, this is my least favorite, simply because there is less of it. Not to say that shorter short stories can't be amazing, and its being my least favorite doesn't by any means mean I dislike it, but I have less to say about it, and less reaction, than the others I've read.

Still great, though.

[David Blaylock · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too short to grab my attention.

[K Morlando · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked it.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you could would you get someone cloned? What if they grew from a rabbit heart and wouldn’t live long?

[Hart_D (ajibooks)]

This is an interesting concept and I might enjoy a longer work from this author, but I feel this story was too short to explore the ideas it presented.

[cheryl]

3/10. Meh. Idea was better than execution.

[Josh Hedgepeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

not my fav Alyssa Wong short story but an intriguing and disturbing one.

[⋆˚୨୧⊹♡Rissa♡ (sparklylibros) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok just gonna need this to be like 12 hours longer lol such a cool premise but for sure need more. This felt like just a blurb of a story.

[Plus Size Bibliophile · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

The protagonist reminded me of the guy from Tender Is the Flesh. The Ending left me with the SAME uneasy feeling.

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was an interesting one to listen to as an audiobook. I totally was taken down the rabbit hole of what the narrator was saying about the family with the boy. Not getting it makes the mind freak out when parts are revealed.

[Camille · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sinister and captivating, as all of Alyssa Wong's short stories tend to be.

After losing their loved ones twice, many people learn to leave well enough alone. But there are always the families who keep coming back, in hopes of achieving their perfect child. To mold them in their own image and reshape them to their liking.

With a haunting insight into the dark aspects of the human psyche, the author manages to introduce a fresh supernatural element and characters while also being introspective about reality as it is.

I will take their money again and again, until they realize that they do not own the people they love, that they cannot buy another person’s destiny.

[connorishere · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Another dull one for me. An interesting idea, but I guess it's unsuitable for the (very) short story format. A longer piece could work.