Quite frankly, I bought this book because it had a rabbit on the front, and I'm an avid rabbit lover. But I ended up loving this book, mainly because I could relate to her grief (I'm a widow, too). And the quirky ending, that makes you wonder, did she and Kitty ever really get together..., was great. I thought all the characters were very human and likable, and you felt compassion for the position that all of them found themselves in, due to what happened so many years ago. Not to mention, as a rabbit lover, the random notations about the rabbit were charming, i.e., on Page 182, when Sabine calls home to her dad in LA, and he says, "Guess who's sitting here in my lap, helping me read the newspaper?" And Sabine says, "You'll spoil him." And her dad's response is, "No such thing as a spoiled bunny. This is an animal who possesses an infinite capacity for affection." Loved it!

Parsifal the Magician is dead, and you're kind of glad anyway because really, who goes by the name Parsifal anyway? Parsifal is just one of many uninteresting characters in a novel that dares you to slap yourself awake to get through uninspiring dream sequence after another. And boy do those dream sequences keep coming. To say this book was unaffecting is to minimize how greatly this novel disappoints.

The book starts off with the loss of Parsifal, the great love of Sabine's life. But you never really get a true feel of the loss of this man's life, he, much like the book's plot, is merely an apparition. He is a ghost on every page of this book and yet again he never truly is there. Sure he's talked about a lot but he never really seems real, and quite frankly you never seem to care that he is gone. He's lived his life, had his fun, and the poor hapless soul that is his assistant is all that's left behind.
Sabine was just a character to me. She never really felt real and it didn't help that the author had her spouting nonsense like "In California every girl you meet you want to kiss" I mean every description of LA was so waxingly poetic it felt like she was reciting lines from a postcard.

Well if you can't tell by now I hated this book. I'm an avid reader and I must say this book was dull, boring, and an utter chore to read through. All I felt was relief when I got to the last page.

I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book -- but in the end it definitely grew on me and ultimately touched me.
It's definitely written in a muted tone. The protagonist, the assistant of the title, is sunk in depression after the death of her two gay friends, one of whom was her husband. She sleeps a lot -- but she has sleepwalked through most of her life, settling for the illusion of love instead of the real thing. Her role as the assistant has been to stand there and smile sweetly while he does all the real living and loving.
Surprisingly, only when she travels to snow-bound Nebraska to bond with her dead husband's famly does the book come truly to life. It becomes clear this is a book about family and about the possibility of love -- the love that holds families together and the love that binds two people together, true love, the real thing, not the illusion.
Worth persisting with.

I have really become an admirer of Patchett's writing, and this book was a close second to Bel Canto, which I adored. The Magician's Assistant is Sabine, and she is mourning the sudden loss of her husband, Parsifal. But the story goes deeper than that. Parsifal is gay, and shortly after the death of his lover, Phan, he marries Sabine to ensure her security in the event of his death. Sabine had been Parsifal's long-time assistant in his magic act, but more importantly, they shared a bond of friendship that was unbreakable. When Parsifal's lawyer notifies Sabine that he had a family (who he claimed were dead) and that his name is really Guy Fetters, Sabine's world gets turned on its head. Suddenly, the man she though she knew most in the world is a stranger to her, and she wants to learn everything about his past that he has kept from her. So the Fetter family enters Sabine's life, and the book follows the development of these new relationships seamlessly.

There is a hint of magic in Patchett's writing, and not just the tricks and illusions she recalls in The Magician's Assistant. She writes relationships and dialogue in a manner that seems effortless. Her characters are entirely human - flawed and lovable. This was a great read and a touch of magic amongst the ordinary.

There are such a lot of excellent reviews of this excellent book here that I feel intimidated and will concentrate on the minor characters. There are sharp observations about neuroradiologists and rabbits. It's unusual to see much of the psychology of the domestic rabbit in fiction. The ones in "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" are living a domestic life in a way but Peter's behavior in Mr. McGregor's garden is that of a typical wild rabbit. The rabbits in "Watership Down" only encounter humans as remote and threatening. The White Rabbit in "Alice in Wonderland" never seems to me to behave in an authentically rabbit-like way. Parsifal's rabbit is a Flemish Giant, which must be a handful for a magician. Dutch Dwarfs are more common in that context, although they have a reputation for being bad-tempered. I'd never heard of a white Flemish Giant. They're not popular as pets because of their size and (stop if this will upset you) were bred for meat. Neuroradiologists can also be house-trained.