Review - Fluffy by Simone Lia
In Simone Lia’s “Fluffy,” an ordinary man is apparently burdened with a small, talking bunny who thinks the guy is his father.
Michael Pulcino seems, at first, burdened by Fluffy, the tiny, child-like rabbit who follows him around, continually asking questions, dispensing trivial facts and generally acting as needy as any real child. Fluffy is a child, really, and, in the time honored tradition of such storytelling, the reader at first assumes that this talking bunny is there to disrupt Michael’s life.
It goes along with this understanding, but once you meet Michael’s family and learn a little more about his irritating love life, it becomes obvious that Fluffy is actually a grounding existence in the man’s life. For a man without a kid, Fluffy actually fulfills that need for purpose and functions as a physical anchor into which Michael can put all he has to offer but the rest of the world seems to reject.
Lia’s cartooning is charming and her storytelling is depthful without being needlessly complicated. “Fluffy” unfolds matter-of-factly and the larger themes are not intrusive to a gentle and funny tale. Fluffy himself is a riot, a little lump of perpetual energy that challenges a man whose life might otherwise sink into the mire of casual soap opera, like every one around him, so self-obsessed that the man with the talking bunny is the sane, down to earth one.
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