by Tess Gunty
First published 2022
Blandine lives in the Rabbit Hutch, a deteriorating apartment building in Vacca Vale, Indiana. The eighteen-year-old former foster child shares this crumbling space with an eclectic mix of neighbors who have washed up in this post-industrial town. Each resident carries their own damage and dreams within the building's failing walls. As their lives intersect and collide, Blandine navigates her place among these displaced souls while the town itself struggles with economic collapse and lost purpose. The building becomes a microcosm of forgotten America, where people search for connection and meaning amid decay. Gunty weaves together the stories of these unlikely companions as they confront what it means to belong somewhere when that somewhere has been abandoned by progress.
Genres: american-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: Rabbit Hutch, Vacca Vale, Indiana
Period: 21st-century
352 pages · ebook · Knopf