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Rabbit Heart

Emily Deibler (Goodreads Author)

4.05 · Rating details · 20 ratings · 9 reviews

Rachel’s parents, Linda and Marcus, have their hobbies: reading Shakespeare, crocheting blankets, and killing people who trespass near their cabin in the North Georgia woods.

Being adopted by killers with a taste for cannibalism shouldn’t be the highlight of Rachel’s life, but for her, it’s a chance to heal and find the love she’s desperately craved. No one has empathized w ...more

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Hardcover, 270 pages

Published October 14th 2019 by Wilde Nightingale Publishing

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Average rating 4.05 ·

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· 20 ratings · 9 reviews

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Oct 23, 2019 Emily rated it really liked it

"It was like asking her to decide between staying in a blood-filled house or running into a tornado. It hurt, that teetering edge between survival and oblivion. It hurt to be this alone."

3.5⭐, rounded up to 4 for GoodReads

Rabbit Heart is my introduction to Emily Deibler's work, and this was a really interesting story. It's well-written, and it goes pretty deep into how people aren't just "good" or "bad", but have a wide array of human emotions and actions.

The book begins and ends with horror v ...more

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Nov 15, 2019 Jay Williams rated it really liked it

I found this to be an interesting story, and it certainly had all the elements of a thriller. Yet, the style of writing was often a steam of consciousness rant, and the narrative shifted time often, without warning. Rachel, the main character, was difficult to relate to. She entered the story as a victim, and the entire book covered her journey to becoming a proud survivor. The book is not so much to be read, as to be experienced. It certainly is a very different take on the cannibal family livi ...more

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Apr 06, 2020 Jessie (Zombie_likes_cake) rated it did not like it

Shelves: horror-challenge-20, pure-horror, read-in-2020

I picked this up because I was hoping for something along the lines of Ania Ahlborn's amazing "Brother", I was hoping to discover a lesser known gem, but no, this is a very different kind of bunny.

First disclaimer, I did not know this was YA until I requested it from the library and it came home with a YA sticker. YA is not my favorite thing to read, of the about 100 books I chow down every year only about 2 are YA, I am very cautious going down that road because it is often not a road for me. I picked this up because I was hoping for something along the lines of Ania Ahlborn's amazing "Brother", I was hoping to discover a lesser known gem, but no, this is a very different kind of bunny.

First disclaimer, I did not know this was YA until I requested it from the library and it came home with a YA sticker. YA is not my favorite thing to read, of the about 100 books I chow down every year only about 2 are YA, I am very cautious going down that road because it is often not a road for me. So being accidentally thrown into YA waters was not the best start. And yes, some things I will count against this novel are YA typical, so take that how you want.

I did not like the writing, it reads very juvenile not just in style but also in how it approaches its themes and plot elements. The dialogue is often stilted, agenda driven and not very life like. The Horror elements are toned down or glossed over, and frankly for the majority of this book it isn't even a Horror novel but a drama dealing with an abundance of heavy topics such as sexual assualt, neglect, trauma, abortion, loss of family, racism, and a few other things that are less on center stage. There is a lot going (I would say too much, it is only 261 pages after all) that Deibler tries to juxtapose with a serial killer/ cannibal story line, and it did not work for me. Don't get me wrong, I love and often recommend Horror that deals with real subject matters, I praise Horror for being a perfect sand box to explore dark topics in. But not like this, you cannot just pour cannibalism over things and say "Well, our main character was healing from trauma, so...", dang girl, that needs to be explored, that should be its own trauma. The ending was nothing but ridiculous and shows how little effort and logic was put into the cannibal story line in "Rabbit Heart", and if you build your novel's hook around cannibalism it shouldn't be the afterthought you as a writer appear almost annoyed with that you have to deal with it. And if you cannot go into details (I don't just mean the gore, but the dynamics and ripple effects) about cannibalism in a YA novel, well, maybe it shouldn't be a YA novel? Also, a discussion on how being a brown skin colored cannibal somehow condemns all brown people to being cannibals and how racist that makes white people is really missing the point, don't care how white that makes me sound....

What gets most of the attention are the different kind of traumas the characters, specifically the main girl Rachel, are dealing with. Boy, does that get attention and detail, text book detail. This did not read life like to me but what the text books say how victims of assault, of neglect, of racism feel and think like. Some sentences get word for word repetitions during the novel to hammer the points home. I'm not saying all the expressed sentiments are wrong but that they are presented stereotypically and without the personal nuance that these matters deserve, among other things that is how to create the emotion behind the text book case and I did not feel anything but frustration reading this. Again, the conversations (and there are a lot) and thought processes read as if taken straight out of a psychology journal. Even if you are fine with this kind of presentation, to me Deibler fails in creating a believable bond between Rachel and her cannibal foster parents. There is only one single scene between her and her "Dad" that lets them just talk (about Shakespeare), every other interaction is dominated by trauma and healing conversations: that is therapy not the creation of a family. With the "family" not being believable to me, I couldn't get behind Rachel's consecutive actions and the dilemma she is supposedly in. No.

This is what happens when books have the heart in the right spot and want to spread certain messages but fail to create life on the page. This story was devoid of realistic moments for me, message driven and wrapped in simplified writing and dialogue. I know Deibler had good intentions and an interesting hook to build it around but I think she failed on making a good or even a realistic story out of it. ...more

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Mar 10, 2020 Jay rated it really liked it

his book was a good read. I liked the story and the characters. I was able to get invested in what was happening, and mostly, I was able to understand the motives of the characters. The book was suspenseful and deep. My one critique is this particular writing style wasn't for me. The changes between past and present and reality vs. perception were a little too abrupt at times. There were sections where the world was described as Rachel saw it, instead of reality, that seemed to come out of nowhe ...more

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Dec 01, 2019 Taunya Miller rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 15, 2019 Kimberly rated it liked it

Thank you to Hidden Gems for providing a free digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I seem to be in the minority on my rating. Rabbit Heart was not a bad book by any means. I really wanted to love the book. It had a great premise, but for me, fell through. I was hoping for more horror and got a girl trying to heal. I also could not connect with any of the characters. I felt Rachel was a brat, and at points had to stop reading because it was annoying me. Yes, yes, ...more

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Nov 08, 2019 Emily Deibler rated it it was amazing · (Review from the author)

Shelves: i-wrote-this, horror, lgbt

I mean, don't get me wrong: I love cannibals, and I love families, so this book is right up my alley. Which is a big deal, since I wrote it.

But why aren't there that many rabbits? It's called RABBIT Heart, and did a rabbit heart, in fact, play a big role in the plot? I don't think so!

On a serious note, please be sure to read the content warning for this book here: https://www.emilydeibler.com/books-an... ...more

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Nov 16, 2019 Reading Reindeer 2021 On Proxima Centauri rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2019_a-z_ha-challenge, 2019_hohoho, 2019_horror, 2019_reads_, a1-by-author-request-reviewed, november_2019_reads, a1-i-own-books, 2019_author_november

A surreal grotesquerie of horror, set in the otherwise beautifully scenic North Georgia mountains, RABBIT HEART is also an emotionally visceral examination of a survivor of sexual abuse plus brutal tragedy. It is also on the surface the story of a backwoods cannibal couple and their adopted daughter.

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About Emily Deibler

Emily Deibler

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Horror and fantasy writer. As a grad student, my work revolves around editing, designing, and publishing. My distant relatives were executioners; I just execute my characters.