Book Review: Rabbit Ears addresses the life of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

Reviewed By Christine Smith (McFarlane)

Sometimes one picks up a book that has a great impact. Rabbit Ears, written by Maggie DeVries, is one of those books. It is inspired by the author’s own missing sister Sarah DeVries from the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver.

As a First Nations woman, it incenses me to know that every day an Indigenous sister is going missing or being murdered, and Rabbit Ears really calls attention to the fact that it could be you that goes missing or someone close to you.

Maggie DeVries does an excellent job of chronicling the journey of two sisters Beth and Kaya. Kaya is the 13-year-old girl in the story who carries the painful secret of abuse within and feels so out of place at home and school that she runs away to the Downtown Eastside. Her life while on the Downtown Eastside is anything but pleasant. She turns to shoplifting, is sent to juvenile detention, and becomes involved in drugs and prostitution. It is while spending time on the Downtown Eastside that she is made to witness things no 13 year-old should encounter – her best friend being injected with drugs, encounters with older men who don’t care how old you are as long as you make them money.

Typical of a teenager, Kaya doesn’t understand the impact she is making on her family by the decisions she is making and the reader feels the pain of her decisions on the rest of her family.

DeVries brings in the name of her own sister as a character and that makes the story all that more realistic. Sarah is the sex worker, addicted to heroin who tries to save Kaya from herself and keep her safe from a terrifying new threat to the women on the streets.

You can’t help but feel empathy for these two girls as you follow their distinctively different paths in how they deal with the things that come their way. Beth goes back in time to when her grade four teacher taught her magic card tricks and tries to master the tricks he has taught her a few years later, and turns to food for comfort.

Though there is a happy ending in Rabbit Ears, you can’t help but wish that there were happy endings for all the families who are dealing with a Missing and Murdered Sister.

Rabbit Ears, written by Maggie DeVries is published by Harper Trophy Canada, 222 Pages. ISBN: 978-1-44341-662-7, $14.99.