Reviews - Watership Down | The StoryGraph

4.67k reviews for:

Watership Down

Richard Adams

4.04 AVERAGE

kiers_'s review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

One of my favorites.

confused_reader_'s review against another edition

4.5

adventurous hopeful sad medium-paced

nenekiribookwyrm's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous dark emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Watership Down is a book that I had always wanted to read, but just never got around to for one reason or another. I think a lot of it was this expectation that was built up in my mind over the years for it to deliver on all the praise it received. I was worried that I would read what is very often considered the seminal text for talking animal stories and come out the other side not liking it. That and the warnings about how heavy it could get with death kept me from it for quite some time. I finally picked up a copy and dove in to find out for myself what the buzz was about.

Watership Down is primarily about the journey of Hazel and his brother Fiver as they leave their warren with a group of other boy rabbits, referred to in the story as bucks, to find a safe place that Fiver foresaw in a vision. The resulting journey and all of the struggles inherent in it are what comprises the majority of the book. Just when you think Hazel and his band of plucky rabbits is getting the upper hand, something comes along to knock them back down. The push and pull of this tension and the feeling that danger could really be around every corner for them kept me engaged the whole way through. The rabbits have their own language and culture and the book does a good job of giving this to the reader piecemeal over the course of the book. It’s a bit front-loaded for some of the common terms, but with context clues and the help of the glossary in the back I was able to keep up with the conversations. I think it also helped to give a bit of extra spice to common words that may have gotten repetitive to read over the course of the book, just from their necessary frequency in the daily lives of the rabbits.

The real highlight of the book for me were the folk stories of El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle. They were the perfect break from the main action of the book and really fleshed out the rabbits’ culture and what they valued. That first moment when they told a folk story was the moment I felt truly connected to these rabbits. What could be more human than telling each other stories?

Perhaps it’s a side effect of it being spread out throughout the course of a book, but I did not think it was as full of death as was warned to me. There is death in it, for sure, but it’s not as frequent as you might be imagining. Just wanted to mention that in case it was a concern for folks looking to check this book out.

Overall, I’m glad the book was a narn experience. I’d even go so far as to describe it as flayrah, for all the enjoyment it gave me. What a wonderful circumstance that everyone else who had been singing the praises for years on end were not full of hraka after all. Now I must away, for I fear The Thousand are sending their elil, and I do not wish to go tharn in their presence. There are a hrair of books left on my shelf I want to read yet, and only so many cycles of Frith and Inlé I have left.

shafia42's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

This book follows a group of rabbits as they try to find a new home, and create a new society while under turmoil. Seemingly too sweet to function, this book is more like liquorice; the idea of it is sweet, but leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. Do remember, I love liquorice.

This book includes themes of war, genocide, oppression, body horror, blood and gore. This book was hauntingly beautiful, its prose so eloquent, and the characters really became your family by the end. Adams is an expert at what he does, he made rabbits human but also exemplified the difference between man and rabbit. The rich world of the rabbits was exemplified through the use of rabbit vocabulary, and I really enjoyed how the words weren’t explained, and that throughout our time with this book we were able to become rabbits, and understand the way the rabbit world works through context clues.

I, like many others loved the rabbit lore and the adventures of the black rabbit; this really made the world seem so tangible. Overall, this book wasn’t a page turner but I loved it anyway. It was a book that sat with you, and required focus to really enjoy. This book was full of heart. 8/10

still_rivers's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring sad slow-paced

witzelsucht's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Still one of the greatest books to ever do it. The against-all-odds ensemble odyssey of The Lord of the Rings meets the constant peril and terror of being a small prey animal in the English countryside.

As a child, Watership Down led me to believe that every book worth its salt should have its own in-world folktales, characters named after herbs and flowers, heroes and villains of equal bravery and intelligence, close observations of plants and landscapes, unpatronising and unapologetically detailed prose, grandiose literary epigraphs, a sprinkling of conlang, bloody violence and destruction, and talking animals.

Growing up has been a bitter process of finding that most books lack all those things, and that very few have come close to what Adams achieved, and that this kind of xenofiction will never be back in vogue, if it ever was. It’s a little dated and dry in places, but its singular nature is part of what makes Watership Down so enduringly special. In my heart of hearts, it’s still the book I look for in every book. It’s knitted so deep into my being that I want to flip out when people skip it for being a children’s book about rabbits. It’s a low-fantasy war epic that transcends age, sharing more DNA with classical mythology than with Peter Rabbit. It’s “about rabbits” in ways beyond your wildest imaginings.