Bunny

By Mona Awad

Book Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Enter the Bunnyverse with the "wild, audacious . . . unforgettable" (Los Angeles Times) #DarkAcademia novel that started it all - the precursor to We Love You, Bunny " A] cult... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1788545443
• ISBN13: 9781788545440
• Release Date: January 2020
• Publisher: HEAD OF ZEUS
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.1" x 1.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Satire at its Best

I read this with my book club and it is definitely the kind of book that is perfect for deep examination. I am honestly still not sure WTF I just read! But I did enjoy reading it. There's just a lot to digest. The metafictional elements alone could keep you researching and annotating for hours. I ended up compiling a future reading list and a playlist of just the books, characters, songs, and artists mentioned throughout. I like that kind of stuff. The book is smart, weird, sad, horrifying, funny, and still manages to be compassionate. It has a lot to say about the dark places imagination and toxic female friendships can take a person, as well as poking fun at the innate absurdity that happens when we take higher education too seriously. In an interview in 2019 with The Maris Review podcast, Mona Awad says, "...I think this book is interested in creativity as a way of embracing the uncertain, and the beauty of imagination, its potential to destroy us if we go to a very dark place, or to save us and offer consolation." I very much got that as a key takeaway from reading Bunny. It seems to suggest that to be an effective storyteller, a writer doesn't need to "tap the wound", as the Bunnies' workshop leader Ursula is fond of saying, as much as be a bit delusional! To have sufficient imagination to be able to construct a fake world and have it feel just as real, until the fantasy becomes indistinguishable from reality.

3.5 stars

BUNNY by Mona Awad This book is bizarre as hell. I can only describe it as a wild, disturbing, pastel-colored fever dream with sinister bunnies running amok. Samantha is a grad student at a prestigious university somewhere in New England. In her writing workshop there’s a clique of four rich, pretentious women who call each other Bunny. Samantha is equally repelled and intrigued by them. When Samantha receives an invite to one of Bunnies’ “Smut Salon” parties, she decides to attend despite her better judgment. That’s when the plot (and Samantha’s mental health/stream of consciousness) goes completely off the rails. I had many questions while reading this. Mainly, “WTF?” and lots of “What the hell is happening?”. The scenes of the Bunnies fake-praising each other’s work, while eating mini foods and conjuring hybrid bunny-boys was all sorts of weird and demented. I don't have any personal experience with hard drugs, but I assume this is what an acid trip would feel like. It’s a bit like Alice in Wonderland mashed up with Heathers and Mean Girls. There’s amusing, anti-establishment commentary at the beginning which I enjoyed. A little satire sprinkled with a bit of horror, if you’re into to that sort of thing. Ultimately, you’ll either love or hate this book. As for me, I’m… somewhere in the middle. Rating: 3.5/5 ⭐️

One of my Favorites

I absolutely love Awad's writing style. This book is amazing, I could not put it down. I finished it within 2 days, then I immediely bought her other books

What did I just read!?

Loved it! Our weird relatable heroine really finds an herself in an interesting plot. Definitely recommend and the writing is Amazing!!

More Bizarro than Horror, but still highly enjoyable

I see a lot of people attaching a deep social commentary to this that just was not apparent to me when I picked this up. Are there "mean girls"? Yes. But *is it* Mean Girls? Or Heathers? No. But then again, neither of those movies are the archetypes people make them out to be in terms of nuanced explorations of female relationships either. I guess people want this to be a "girl story" because all of the main characters and antagonists are women, but I feel that's a mislabeling. A female-driven narrative doesn't have to justify its existence by saying something thoughtful about women. It can just be a story with women. It takes place in fine arts program, and the characters reflect actual fine arts students, if a bit exaggerated for maximum "MMMHMM" value. I think the narrative has a lot more to say about personal presentation, social performance, insecurity, and masking in this specific environment than it does anything strictly feminine. Like I said in the title of this review, this is more bizarro than horror. It is an exceptionally strong slap in the face when the final pages sort of unravel the entire story (but in a good way).