Watership Down

Rating:
Summary: Without question: one of the best books ever written
Review: Watership down tells the tale of a journey of rabbits. Just rabbits you say, just a book about bunnies? Pah, who wants to read that? But it is so much more than "a book about bunnies" as many of my friends refer to it as. It is a tale of adventure, danger, bravery, quick thinking, diplomacy, and an intricate society of almost real characters. The adverture will keep you from being able to stop reading, and in the depth you will sink , and never be able to escape. Real emotion, real feelings you will find in this book. A tale of tragedy, comedy, despair, and happiness. If you had a list of things to do before you die, make reading this one of them. With intricacies comparable to those of The Lord of the Rings, and the adventure too, this is easily one of the best works of literature ever written. So read, I say, READ THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: The best book I ever read (and that's a lot)
Review: Watership Down is one of the most engaging books I've ever read. It's a classic, uplifting book and I recommend it to readers of all ages. The character development was wonderful. There are some tense moments to be sure. I came to care deeply for the rabbits and was moved each time they pulled together to get through their challenges as they continued to move toward Fiver's vision of their future. I cried at the end, not because it was sad, but because the book was over.
It was all about survival, leadership, striking out on your own, operating as a member of a group to ensure success, overcoming difficulties through sheer grit and determination, and creative thinking in a crisis.... I could go on.
I have read this book only a year after my first reading, and will read it again. I had no trouble with rabbits as the protagonists.

Rating:
Summary: The absolute best animal fantasy book that I've read!
Review: This is truly amazing.Nobody who writes animal fantasy has ever equaled this .It is amazingly in depth,it includes detail on the language of the rabbits,the culture ,and the tails.The characters are well done (not at all flat)and it is very exciting.It's partly that I'm a Rabbit -Attic that I loved this so much,but than it would have been just as good if it were a different animal that he'd done it on.
Hazel and his brother Fiver gather a hardy band of rabbits to leave the warren ,for Fiver senses trouble.Fiver predicted a flood that happened,so Hazel trusts him.Then it takes off from there.Eventually ,it turns into a (sort of)war between there new warren ,Watership Down,and a mysterious warren nearby called Efrafa.
Now you must be warned that this book is extremely disturbing at some parts.It was so disturbing at one part that I had to put down the book and recover for a couple minutes.Be warned.

Rating:
Summary: I still think about these characters
Review: I had never read WD because it seemed to be something I "should read," and that guarantees I won't do it. A friend who has a house rabbit gave this book to me for my birthday because she thought I was ready to fully enter their world.

If you have a house rabbit or are remotely contemplating getting a house rabbit, read this book. (Plus, don't get a rabbit without contacting your local House Rabbit Resource Network!) These are deceptively clever creatures with a strangely simple yet complex way of viewing life. I had no experience with rabbits before I met my friend with the bunnies and have come to understand and honor the lapine world. I helped her care for her ailing Rex until his final days, and I saw every kind of rabbit behavior you could think of. I was even honored by her female rabbit (Hazel!) by being allowed to see the "happy dance," which defies description, but is an expression of rabbit joy that looks like ariel ballet.

The passages where the rabbits forget what has happened in the past five minutes, even though it was harrowing or extremely unusual, is dead on. They are not stupid creatures by any means, but they do not hold memory like cats and dogs. I have seen this very thing and many others, and no one nails it like Richard Adams.

Also a gorgeous tale of leadership, loyalty, and trust. The last two pages are simple and beautiful. Hail, Hazel-rah!

Rating:
Summary: This Ship goes Down like the Titanic...
Review: Having heard many opinions that this is a "great story," a "classic epic," and a "thrilling adventure," I had to read it for myself--and boy, was I let down. Here's why.

1. The book is contrived--not a seamless integration of parts and whole, but a series of raw, abortive events hammered into the mould of an epic.

2. The book is predictable. If you were an alien from another planet, who had never read a human-authored story before, you might approve. But, being someone who has actually lived on the planet for a little while, I can confidently say that there is almost no originality here.

3. The rabbit gimmick falls flat. The idea of substituting rabbits for humans seems to have exhausted the author, and he seems to think his gimmick of dressing up a bad story in rabbit fur is enough originality for one book. It's not.

4. I don't care about the characters. The rabbits' characters are never developed enough to make me want to care. They're two-dimensional, simple, predictable, cookie-cutter, and, like a coloring book, the author always stays within the lines (yaaaaawn).

5. This book is too long. Cheers to the author's work-ethic for dragging this out to fit the "epic" genre. Jeers to the author's aesthetic sense for not recognizing that his rabbit tale is not strong enough to be an epic.

On the plus side: having read the book, everytime I see a rabbit, I get an uncanny sense that I've visited their world. Adams does have a way of emulating the tiny minds of rabbits. But then, why would you want to cram your human intelligence into the mind of a rabbit, anyway? It's like trying to force yourself inside a mailbox--it may be exciting at first, but then it just gets silly and painful.

Rating:
Summary: journey to watership down
Review: To be strictly honest, I must say that when I first started reading Watership Down, I braced myself for a boring, dragging story about some rabbits. However, 2 chapters into the book and I was hooked. For the two and a half hours it took to read straight through it, I forgot food, sleep, and my own humanity. I became engrossed with the lives Richard Adams created for these rabbits: their culture, their deities, and most of all, their struggle for life and survival. This book contains all a fantasy could ask for: a mystic that sees the future, a strong capable leader with the brains, and a strong capable leader with the brawn. It also has a fast-paced, action filled plot; keeping the reader constantly wondering what will happen next. The book opens in a large thriving community of rabbits, called the Sandleford warren. Fiver, the mystic, has a terrible vision of destruction heading for their home. Being undersized and thought insignificant, his brother, Hazel goes to speak for him. Naturally, they are not believed and are almost arrested. To escape the impending doom, a small group of rabbits leave the warren and embark on a journey to find a new home. On the way they meet friends, enemies, havens and hell. Who knew the lives of animals could be so interesting? Meet the strange rabbits whose nature has been twisted and deformed, a sadistic dictator who knows no reason, and hold your breath as the rabbits brush with death several times. See the human world through the eyes of animals; discover what our cars, actions, and even our cigarettes mean to them! I admit you might feel at first, disinclined to pick this book up, but once you're done, you will reap its rewards.

Rating:
Summary: Watership Down review
Review: Watership Down is a "cutesy" type of story. Fairytale rabbits are for little children, not true readers. If you are a parent or babysitter that is searching for a wonderful child's story, then Watership Down is definitely the book you should be looking for. Children will love the talking rabbits and all the other animals. Although, young children may not be able to understand some of the ideas presented in this book. For example, the rabbits leave their warren in the beginning because of cruel humans. But how could humans be so cruel? The happy ending is always appreciated and should put your little children to bed easily after the scary, horrifying images presented through General Woundwort. Again, this really is a children's story, so please don't try finding a way to enjoy it as an adult.

Rating:
Summary: Watership Down
Review: In Richard Adam's fantastic book, Watership Down, he shows the true life of rabbits with lots of great detail. After reading this book, we no longer think of rabbits as cute fluffy bunnies, but aggressive, wild animals, as Woundwort expresses, when he says "I told you once, that I would kill you myself."
Watership Down takes place in a field in England where a warren, or where a group of rabbits live. Hazel and his brother Fiver stumble across a sign in the field that says that the rabbits' home is going to be industrialized. To escape the danger of the land development, Hazel, Fiver, and a few other rabbits flee the field, trying to find a new place to live. Along the way, they meet a variety of friends and enemies, as they struggle to survive. Mixed in with the adventures of Hazel and his friends, are the tales of El-ahrairah, the infamous rabbit trickster.
There are a lot of other interesting details in this book. The rabbits have their own language, for example, "silflay" means to feed outside, a "hrududu" is a car, "pfeffa" is a cat, and "elil" is enemies. The rabbit language makes it a little hard to understand the book, but there is a glossary in the back of the book. Another one of the interesting details in this book is all the animals that the rabbits meet. For example, the rabbits befriend mice and a gull that saves their lives more than once. The rabbits also encounter many vicious animals, such as a fox, cats, and a badger, all of which try to kill our brave rabbit heroes.
We enjoy this book, although it's hard to figure out what the actual plot is because the rabbits seem to overcome what looks like the main problems quickly and easily, and there never seems to be a long-lasting main problem. This is a good book for animal lovers because there were at least fifteen different types of animals. Each different animal is captured with superb detail by Richard Adams. We like the book because it was very well written, and we would recommend the book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: My childhood revisited
Review: I remember, as a kid, watching the animated movie on tv. Years later, I noticed the book on the family bookshelf. I pulled it down and started reading. I was lost in this makebelieve world with its own rules and language that Adams had created for me. Later, I joined the military and decided to put together my own bookshelf. I bought and read Watership Down again. Now the political messages started getting through, as well as the theological ones. This book is great but overlooked because people see a book about rabbits and move on by. Don't be this person. Escape to Watership Down.

Rating:
Summary: ahh... I'm tempted to wax poetic
Review: How do you review a book this excellent? Of course, no one needs another review on Hazel and Fiver and the bunch, but ... how can I resist?

When you're thinking of reading this book, please don't think it is some thick, depressing and/or literary take on children's rabbit stories. That's what I was afraid it was going to be, but I started reading it anyway...

Then, the first page was full of plant descriptions and stuff... and I was ready to close the book, thinking ::I bet this is going to be boring AND depressing!::. Thoroughly, not-quite-fairly fed up (I hadn't even given it a decent chance), I flipped to the back page before I gave up and closed the book.

You're not supposed to do that. But it saved the book for me.

I was immediately struck by the parallel between the first and last lines of the book. The first line is: "The primroses were over."

The last line of the book ended with "... where the first primroses were beginning to bloom."

Silly thing to be impressed by, huh? But it did -- impress me, that is. It meant: this author is going to play fair. He wants to come full circle.

He means to give me a feel-good ending that is both literarily and emotionally impressive.

And he did. He did.

Five stars is far too few.