The jacket called this title a thriller, but I read it rather as an extended survival story, and not the one I expected, at that. There is much to be said for Finn’s talent for compelling prose, riveting descriptions, and good sense of pacing, but there was also much left to be desired from this work. While I would recommend giving it a read if not solely to explore what many called, “the book to beat” as far as 2021 releases go, I wasn’t in love with this work in the way I expected to be, and I wouldn’t consider approaching it again in the future, either.

Rosie Monroe is an art school student in New York City when she meets Bennett, sophisticated and worldly. Rosie leaves school to live with him on a luxurious estate on Connecticut’s Gold Coast, unaware of his cons or his moral ambivalence. A daughter, Miranda, is born, just as Bennett’s current con falls apart. He drags Rosie and Miranda into the depths of rural Vermont in the middle of the night and abandons them in a secluded cabin with no insulation, no phone, and no protection from the untamed, frigid wilderness.

The Hare is from the beginning very forthcoming with its intentions. Rosie’s life is again and again plagued by the obligations created by a heavily patriarchal society, but my distaste with the narrative comes not from the story or its intentions, but rather the lack of nuance with which these ideas are conveyed.

For example, much of the story felt very liminal despite naming the years, yet there were many instances throughout where I was abruptly snapped back to reality with references to modern political figures: Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Christine Blasey Ford. I could see that these references were well-intentioned, were set to strike a point, and yet there was a disconnect between the subtle themes throughout the story and the sudden blatant references.

On its own, this narrative is riveting, compelling, abstract in the beautifully convoluted tradition of Shirley Jackson or Daphne du Maurier. Many complained that the ending wasn’t conclusive, and though it wasn’t, I would have thought it fitting in a different context. However, the emphasis on driving home the author’s point throughout the story, leaving little in the way of textual interpretation for the reader, took away from the beauty in what might have been a very interesting work of literary fiction. The work felt heavily explained in some aspects, and heavily abstract in others, and this dichotomy did not work to its benefit. I would have loved to see some of these ideas presented in a personal narrative essay, and some of them combined in a sprawling work of speculative fiction.

What I did love of the book was its ability to keep me at the lingering crossroads of emotion — an unsettled threat at every turn emerged poignantly as I read, mirroring what Rosie must have been feeling. The characters were incredibly well-crafted, multi-dimensional, tangible. Bennett’s appearance on the page immediately raised red flags in the part of my brain that, as all women have, sends the alarm bells ringing when something feels not quite right. Finn’s ability to insinuate much while saying little, and to craft beautiful, vivid language around fearful anomalies is unmatched. I worried about the lack of insulation, the mice in the cabin; I shared Rosie’s fears, and I was hardly able to put the book down despite my disagreements with certain aspects of it. It was not a thriller in the conventional sense, and yet the true horror was the fear that many women face, unnamed and unsettling and yet very real and inescapable.

I admire what Finn set out to do with The Hare, and I equally admire the work that Two Dollar Radio does and the books that they’ve published in the past! While I definitely wanted for more consistency in the style of the messages conveyed, whether entirely abstract or entirely a deeply straightforward narrative, I can appreciate Finn’s talent for beautiful language and talent for stirring fear and discomfort in the ordinary, which should not be ordinary, and I would still recommend this book as a one-time read, if not simply to explore the world it skillfully creates. ( )

Dreadful. An art student (Rose) meets an older, seemingly sophisticated, guy in a NY City art museum, and is swept away by his love for her. They live on the coast of Connecticut until they are literally run off in the middle of the night, moving to a cabin in northern Vermont. Bennett is a strange guy, a bon vivant, con man, who abandons Rose and his daughter, Miranda to a life of hardship and abject poverty. Rose is literally saved by Billy, her gruff but soft-hearted neighbor. Despicable characters. My reading experience was further ruined by an e-book copy from the King County Library system that was about a page in about 20 places, leading to discontinuities even beyond the story's senseless plot. ( )

Melanie Finn’s novel, The Hare, chronicles, over several decades, the life, loves and adventures of Rosie Munroe, whom we first meet in 1983 as a naïve 20-year-old art student. Orphaned at a young age, Rosie lived with her dour, humorless grandmother in blue-collar Lowell, Massachusetts where she was raised to accept her lot and expect little from life. Artistic by nature and quietly talented, in her senior year Rosie won a scholarship to attend Parsons School of Design in New York City, and against her grandmother’s wishes headed there after graduating from high school. In New York Rosie feels outclassed by her affluent, privileged peers and one day, wandering alone through the Museum of Modern Art, she finds herself in conversation with a man twice her age who informs her that he is an appraiser of fine art. Dazzled by Barrett Kinney’s worldly wisdom and range of knowledge in all matters, flattered by his attentions, and enticed by his glamorous lifestyle, she allows herself to be seduced. In a short time, she has abandoned her studies and is sharing rooms with Kinney on a posh estate in coastal Connecticut, hobnobbing with his rich and well-connected friends and practicing her art untutored. Life with Barrett is generally good, though his frequent unexplained absences bother her, and some of the things he tells her don’t really add up. Two years later Rosie is pregnant and gives birth to Miranda. Then one day, without explanation, Barrett hustles Rosie and Miranda into the car and drives them to a remote, ramshackle farmhouse in upstate Vermont, close to the Canadian border. His story this time is that he’s been hired to teach at a local college. But Rosie’s mounting suspicions that Barrett Kinney is not the man he’d claimed to be find validation when she uncovers inconsistencies in his story of how he’s earning his money and spending his days. These unpleasant truths are confirmed by subsequent events that expose Rosie and Miranda to very real dangers and land Barrett in prison. Rosie, alone in the farmhouse with Miranda and nothing but her own wits to see her through, forms a bond with her closest neighbour, the reclusive Billy, who teaches her a thing or two about surviving the harsh New England winter in an isolated woodland setting. Then, a few years later, his sentence served, Barrett is released, and Rosie is forced to extremes to ensure her own and her daughter’s safety. The story flashes forward to 2019 where we see middle-aged Rosie facing pressures on all sides and grappling with the consequences of her youthful decisions. The Hare is billed as a thriller, and it certainly is that. But it is also an engrossing and lyrically written morality tale that digs deep into the quandary of human motivation and takes inspiration from the ongoing struggle of women to assert themselves in a world dominated by male egos where they are conditioned to think poorly of themselves. ( )

This powerful novel tells the story of Rose, damaged by abuse in her childhood and a loveless relationship with her grandmother after her parents died. In spite of her artistic talent and a full scholarship to Parsons, she falls under the spell of Bennett, a charismatic older man who takes her under his wing to teach her about living the wealthy life. When his house of con cards collapses, he takes her away to an isolated cabin in Vermont, where she is left to learn rural survival skills and care for their infant daughter. Finn paints an all too realistic picture of the grim realities of backwoods poverty, but the harshness is offset by the friendship Rose develops with her crusty neighbor Billie (Wiliamina). Her tenacity and devotion to her daughter help Rose get by, and the dramatic turns in the story, added to our caring for Rose and Billie, will keep readers turning the pages to find out what happens. ( )