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Book Review: Bunny by Mona Awad | SPOILER REVIEW

This entire book reads like a weird fever dream.

About the Book

Title: Bunny

Author: Mona Awad

Published: 2019

Series: (standalone)

Genre: magical realism, fantasy, horror

My Rating: 2 stars

The Premise

Synopsis (from Goodreads) (truncated) :

“Samantha Heather Mackey couldn’t be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England’s Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort–a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other “Bunny,” and seem to move and speak as one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies’ fabled “Smut Salon,” and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door–ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies’ sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus “Workshop” where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.”

My Thoughts

I read this book out of pure curiosity. All I ever heard about it was that it was weird, and, well, on that promise it delivered. At first I was drawn in by the premise: an elite, ivory-tower MFA program where the protagonist is the lone sensible girl sharing a sparsely-populated class with a clique from the depths of repressed-high-school-memories hell.

As others have said, it did seem inspired in some ways by Heathers (and there was even a reference to that movie, this uber quirky metaphor about something or other being a bomb in Christian Slater’s trenchcoat, leading me to think Awad did draw inspo from there)

First it was a bit pleasantly creepy, then it got strange, then it got just plain weirdly sexual and disturbing. After a point I couldn’t tell what was going on anymore, really. It just seemed like something out of a weird nightmare, and uh… I’m not really sure what even happened to be honest.

My theory is this: Samantha is lonely and sexually repressed, and she has trauma reaching back to high school mean girls and perhaps a pet rabbit, and the stress of trying to finish her thesis caused her to have a psychotic break and imagine this entire acid trip of a story, and that’s why there’s a clique of girls who call each other bunny and leave her out of stuff, and her dream boyfriend who’s actually evil, and exploding bunnies, and at the end when she is talking to Jonah and then it ends with her apparently talking to mud, that’s because Jonah was only in her head too because she’s so lonely or maybe she’s actually dead this entire time because she committed suicide in her apartment like it hinted in that one part.

But I don’t know, guys. That’s why I’m rating this book low, because it was so abstract that it seemed like Awad just trying to be all artsy and avant garde and edgy and creepy but the narrative thread was not worked in well enough, and it you want that kind of thing to work it at least has to be conveyed properly to the reader. Overall I just wasn’t sure what the story was meaning to get across.

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5 comments on “book review: bunny by mona awad | spoiler review”.

When a book is too abstract, I find it hard to enjoy as well.

Like Liked by 1 person

i find it was relatively straightforward. i’d recommend giving it another, closer read. or maybe read a plot synopsis somewhere.

i’d recommend giving it another, closer read. or maybe read a plot summary somewhere. it’s a relatively abstract book but certainly not unintelligible.

I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed this or not. I really didn’t understand how all the bunnies were hurt at the end if everything was in her imagination. I found it difficult because so much of it was just impenetrable to me.

I’m about to can this book ( like in trash can). My personalty is too sunny to digest a book like this.

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Samantha Kilford

Corporate PR & Bookworm

Book Review: Bunny by Mona Awad

December 3, 2023 · In: Book Review , Books

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn’t be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England’s Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort–a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other Bunny, and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies’ fabled Smut Salon, and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door–ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies’ sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus Workshop where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn’t we?

Oh, Bunny! I have fallen in love. Bunny has officially cemented Mona Awad as my new favourite author. While nothing beats the sheer perfection of Rouge , Bunny has broken my brain and my heart.

I saw someone describe it as Means Girls meet Suspiria which is so true. It’s cynical and razor-sharp in tone. On the surface, Bunny is an excellent satirical dark academia horror novel that examines the lives and friendships of college girls. Yet, it’s so much more than that and I fear that no words can describe the insanity and addictiveness of Bunny and, well, Awad’s writing in general. I thought Rouge was intoxicating and Bunny even more so.

Awad really takes the reader on a grotesque trip into the uncanny that will have you shouting WTF out loud. I still can’t fully comprehend what the hell happened or why it happened but it’s just so compelling. Much like my namesake, Samantha, I fell down the rabbit hole into the disorientating, heady, super feminine and sickly sweet universe that Awad created. It’s pure mindfuck and sensory overload but it’s so, so gorgeously written.

Bunny is rainbow sprinkles, iced cupcakes and a whole lot of blood and guts. It’s claustrophobic, riveting, sardonic and all-consuming. I was both repelled and charmed by the Bunnies and I related to the loneliness and desperation for belonging of our narrator, Samantha. Bunny  is both dreamy and full of anarchy, and I am heartbroken that it had to end. I wanted to stay wrapped up in this world forever. Mona Awad, keep the craziness coming!

Bunny, I love you.

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