White Rabbit, Red Wolf by Tom Pollock

Challenge #11 ~ “A book related to one of the 12 Zodiac Chinese Animals (title, cover, subject.)”

whiterabbitredwolf

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

My opinion in three sentences:

I didn’t get the hype at first – there seemed to be nothing special to make it stand out from its contemporaries that had a similar plot basis, and in fact I faltered a little getting the multiple timelines straight at the beginning. Once Pollock began twisting the reader, however, it became almost a perfect textbook example of an unreliable narrator, and boy, did that deception mess with your mind! Even after reading I was stuck in a whirlwind of thoughts along the lines of “huh?” “what?” and “so, sorry, who was the bad guy?”

(Without spoiling anything) the best bit:

One of the things I love as a reader is the unknown, the suspense and the drama. Pollock gave these on a plate with that standard plotline of “your-parent-is-actually-a-secret-agent-and-gets-hurt/goes-missing”. Of course, that wasn’t enough for Pollock alone, and all of a sudden everything you’ve known and trusted since the book began gets spun around, and then again, and THEN AGAIN, in a beautiful illustration of unreliable narrators, authors and characters as a whole. A daring deception most beautifully portrayed.

A warning for the book:

You need to be paying attention at first because there are multiple timelines. My main struggle was getting to grips with what was going on at what point in time at the beginning, but I think that was largely attributable to the fact that I was at work at the time and so not fully engaged with what was going on. So, yeah, be fully there at first and things will soon slot into place.

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