The rabbit hole that Theodora "Teddy" Angstrom finds herself burrowing deeper and deeper into becomes myriad warrens filled with family issues, conspiracy theories, and true-crime buffs in Kate Brody's invigorating debut novel.
Rabbit Hole's Teddy was 16 when Angie, her 18-year-old sister, vanished, widening the crack in her already fractured family. Now, on the 10th anniversary of Angie's disappearance, Teddy's father appears to have died by suicide, having driven off a bridge. Teddy, trying to offer support, finds her mother has become overly needy and uninterested in everything; she spends most of the time on the floor, petting Angie's aged wolfhound, who is dying of cancer, and avoiding bill collectors' barrage of calls. Teddy goes through the bills and learns her father also cast aside daily life, becoming obsessed with Reddit true-crime postings about Angie's unsolved disappearance. Like her father, Teddy becomes caught up in the Reddit conspiracies, which lead to her involvement with Mickey, an amateur sleuth overly interested in Teddy's family, and a half brother, Henry, whom Teddy knows about but hasn't ever met. Teddy neglects her career as an English teacher at an exclusive Maine prep school and ignores her personal habits as she begins to lose her grasp on reality.
Brody infuses the character-driven Rabbit Hole with a precise look at social media addiction, the debilitating effects of grief, and the inaccuracy of memory as she keeps the pages turning in this solidly suspenseful plot. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer