June meeting: When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

June's meeting was held in the library at the Victoria and was fairly thin on the ground in terms of members. This is not too surprising as it's the beginning of holiday season and we often see depleted numbers in the summer months. Undeterred, we discussed this month's choice: When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman.

The novel was enjoyed by most of the group, with Sue particularly passionate about many of the descriptions. "My mother lay down with me on my bed, her perfume tumbling over my face like breath, her words smelling of Dubonnet and lemonade," was among her favourites. Jeanette also liked the observations, describing them as "beautiful".

We all decided that the contrasting voices of Elly as a child and again as an adult worked well, although some felt that it was almost like two different books. Having said that, the novel does begin: "I divide my life into two parts", so perhaps this is to be expected.

Most of the references to moments in social history worked well, although perhaps the use of the 9/11 attack was slightly heavy handed. Emma felt that (spoiler alert!) Joe having survived - although with memory loss - was somewhat far fetched when so many people died. Jeanette thought the same exploration of themes could have been achieved with a different catalyst to trigger them. Perhaps being knocked off his bike instead?

Winman draws her characters beautifully and fleshes out some real off-beat people who enter the tale. These include Nancy, Arthur and Ginger. They all add to the dry humour that pervades the pages. Jeanette described them as bringing "real colour to the book".

Joan and Katherine (the latter couldn't make the meeting) both listened to the book on Audible and didn't rate it particularly highly. We found this quite interesting since everyone who had read it themselves enjoyed it. General consensus was that this could be down to the way that it was read.

We missed Abbie at the meeting, as she had only just returned from a work trip in London and was justifiably tired. She did share her thoughts with us on Facebook however. She said: "I really enjoyed this month’s book (although I am still about 80 pages from the end!). I thought it was quirky and funny and I liked the narrator. Though at times I’ve found all the characters' names hard to follow - maybe my own fault for leaving big gaps between reading."

Debbie was away at the grand final of the BBC 500 Words competition with her daughter. Seeing as it was a book-related excuse that was allowed! We hope she and Violet had a lovely time at Hampton Court.

It was also especially good to see Vikki and Chris, who dropped by with their two dogs to say hello. We're really pleased you popped in, especially at this difficult time.

We gave When God Was a Rabbit a whopping 4.5 stars.