Book Review: The Rabbit Factor by Antti Tuomainen

Let’s move away from spooky book reviews today with a little bit of black comedy.

Blurb

What makes life perfect? Insurance mathematician Henri Koskinen knows the answer because he calculates everything down to the very last decimal.

And then, for the first time, Henri is faced with the incalculable. After suddenly losing his job, Henri inherits an adventure park from his brother – its peculiar employees and troubling financial problems included. The worst of the financial issues appear to originate from big loans taken from criminal quarters … and some dangerous men are very keen to get their money back.

But what Henri really can’t compute is love. In the adventure park, Henri crosses paths with Laura, an artist with a chequered past, and a joie de vivre and erratic lifestyle that bewilders him. As the criminals go to extreme lengths to collect their debts and as Henri’s relationship with Laura deepens, he finds himself faced with situations and emotions that simply cannot be pinned down on his spreadsheets…

Warmly funny, rich with quirky characters and absurd situations, The Rabbit Factor is a triumph of a dark thriller, its tension matched only by its ability to make us rejoice in the beauty and random nature of life.

Review

The Rabbit Factor was very different from the last book I read by Antti Tuomainen. If I’m to be perfectly honest, I’m still trying to decide how I feel about this book. By far the best part of the book for me was Henri. There was something endearing about him and I felt sad that he was fired from a job he was excellent at because he refused to change who he was. I wanted him to succeed in his new venture – and I really wanted nothing bad to happen to him. I think the thing that stopped me from loving him as a character is that he was a character I’ve already seen many times before, albeit in a different setting. I would have liked something a bit more special about him.

The plot line of The Rabbit Factor was certainly unique and made me smile quite a few times. I wouldn’t say that it completely won me over but it was refreshing to read something different. It would have been nice to listen to this book actually, as I’m sure some of the dead pan comments would sound amazing in an audiobook. I also think the author did a great job developing Henri and his story from a place of full organization to utter chaos.

If you would like to read The Rabbit Factor, you can pick up a copy of the book here.

I was sent a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.