So I cracked open Dalton’s memoir expecting a gentle stroll through the countryside, meadows, morning dew, maybe a cute little hare hopping around like something out of a children’s book. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a raw, beautiful storm, responsibility… and fur.

This wasn’t just a story about a hare. It was a story about what happens when you say yes to something wild and wholly unknown and how that one yes can reorder the emotional feng shui of your inner world.

Dalton doesn’t just raise a leveret; she raises the bar for animal memoirs. She invites us into the chaos, confusion, and “I have no idea what I’m doing” moments we all have but rarely admit, the sleepless nights, the soul-level panic, and the quiet joys of figuring it out one heartbeat at a time.

She refuses to call the hare a pet. Refuses to tame it, claim it, own it. And in that refusal, she unlocks a kind of love that doesn’t cling. The kind that lets a wild thing go, even when it means lying awake wondering if it’s curled up safely in a thicket… or already meal for a passing eagle.

And the research? There’s so much of it hidden in old poems, obscure leaflets, and pages that feel like they’ve been time-traveled from another century. She cycles through it all, hoping for a sliver of guidance. And yet, what does she find? Page after page of recipes. Yes, recipes. As in: “The best way to cook a hare.” Because nothing screams maternal instinct quite like scrolling past marinade suggestions for the very creature you’re desperately trying to keep alive.

But what truly makes this memoir shimmer is Dalton’s unapologetic honesty. She doesn’t tie her narrative up with a neat little bow. There are no Pinterest-perfect conclusions. Just the messy, unfiltered beauty of figuring things out as you go. Like many of us, she didn’t plan for this life. But once it was hers, she gave it everything.

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