Bunny

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 ⭐️

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

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

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).