For this month’s 2022 Adult Reading challenge, I chose Rabbit Cake by Annie Hartnett. In this humor-filled novel, the protagonist’s sister enters a competition and tries to “Go the Distance.” She attempts to break the world record for baking the greatest number of frosted rabbit cakes.
Why rabbit cakes? Eva Babbitt who is Lizzie’s mother, always celebrated new beginnings by baking rabbit cakes.
Eva’s charisma is the glue that holds the Babbitt family together. After Eva “accidently” drowns in the Chattahoochee river, her family unravels. Mr. Babbitt begins cross dressing, Lizzie’s sleepwalking becomes markedly worst, and Elvis begins investigating her Mom’s suspicious demise.
Elvis, so named because she has Elvis Presley’s hand-me-down spirit, cannot believe her Mom died doing something she did regularly. Along the way, Elvis interviews the town’s eccentrics and learns a few secrets her Mom had been keeping.
Like her mother, Elvis is an animal lover and thus she often recites a number of odd facts about wildlife.
If you enjoy an outlandish cast with an eccentric cast of characters, this novel is for you.
by Chantal W.