Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Bunny by Mona Awad

128 reviews

bronzeageholly's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated

4.0

Creepy, lusty, bunny? 

Vivid characters? Yes!
Unreliable narrator? Yes!
Strange and unholy happenings in a friendship group? Yes! Yes!

The theme of loneliness in this book was heart aching and gripping, and shown in ways I’ve never come across before. It was a struggle to put it down to sleep!

I’m not sure I always understood (or even liked) our protagonist, but her unsettling and unrelenting university experience was now mine too, and I wasn’t going to let her go it alone.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Death, Animal death, Blood, Violence, Toxic friendship, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Self harm, Murder, Classism, and Sexual content

lindasoderlundd's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Blood, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Gore, Animal death, and Death

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Drug use, Death of parent, and Mental illness

Minor: Sexual content and Injury/Injury detail

hobbsl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Very dark interesting story. Very metaphorically written - which can be hard to follow at times. I absolutely did not expect the twist at the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic friendship, Blood, Animal death, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Sexual content, Self harm, Death, Animal cruelty, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Gore, and Emotional abuse

meeklovestoread's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book was "interesting". However, I legit never knew what was going on, and although the events that transpired were psychotic, like a literal fever dream. I kid you not sometimes I thought this book was just a product of Samantha's stories because in the book it mentions how dark and twisted Samantha's stories are (that was not the case). This book was really hyped so I read it, but I can't really say that I enjoyed my experience reading it. This story had no purpose. Like what was the point of anything that happened?!😭😂  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Drug use, and Murder

Moderate: Blood and Sexual content

Minor: Misogyny

fflur's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think this book is quite widely misunderstood (and to be fair, easily so). I have seen a lot of different theories online as to what really happened, and it can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but how I interpreted is detailed in the spoiler below. It can be hard to tell exactly what's going on at certain parts of the story, making it confusing and disorienting to the readers, however I just think that's mona awad trying to 'share' the feelings samantha is experiencing as a result of what i believe her condition to be. 

Spoiler

I think the book details Samantha's experiences with schizophrenia. Throughout the book, we are given hints as to the fact that she is schizophrenic:
- her mother telling her to 'come back to reality'
- the lion not knowing how to deal with her after she 'spilled her words' aka revealed her mental state & leaving him unsure of how to interact with her
- the sudden appearance of a large amount of bunnies & her talking to them
- the old lady on the bus going through the schizophrenic check list while appearing like samantha's grandmother and having spiders crawl over her (samantha's biggest phobia)
- the kidnapping scene where she's discovered by a janitor

It's about her being alone as a result of this, not able to connect to others and others not knowing how to help her - from the bunnies (the distance they kept from her prior to her joining them) to ursula (the christmas dinner scene), with jonah being the only one who seems to want to extend a hand. However, though it's clear jonah isn't hallucinated (he is described being unlike ava, who's described as having eyes that shift colours), at the end of the book when she is talking to jonah and 'the mud' responds to her, it's unclear whether or not she hallucinated his response. 

Ava, from her unexplainable disappearances to her changing appearance to samanatha's obsession with her, is a hallucination - someone who she has made up to find a home in. 

Max/byron/hud/icarus, or whatever you want to call him, is also a hallucination, and as samantha starts to get a firmer grip on reality, her hallucinations - ava and max - both leave her, for different reasons. 

i think the book details a very interesting take on schizophrenia, showing how confusing and disorienting hallucinations can be, and showing how samantha desperately tries to get a grasp on reality.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Sexual content

bold_badger's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Alcohol, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Physical abuse

Minor: Addiction, Death of parent, Car accident, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Kidnapping, and Drug use

bekiethebanished's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Body horror, Death, Animal death, Bullying, Death of parent, Cursing, Murder, Kidnapping, Blood, Gore, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Drug use, and Alcohol

Moderate: Physical abuse, Mental illness, Sexual content, Torture, and Self harm

Minor: Dysphoria, Grief, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

mbayram's review against another edition

challenging dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

İt's confusing as all hell. 

İ know some people really enjoyed that but İ didn't find the characters likeable or interesting enough to enjoy it myself. Awad is an excellent writer and i enjoyed the structure or ~the body~ ;) but the plot was a bit hard to follow. That may be because İ listened to the audiobook though, so İ think I'd rate the book higher for paperback. The ending especially felt out of nowhere even though it did have sufficient lead up? İdk it's worth a try if you're into funky stuff but definitely need to be in the mood for it and i highly suggest a physical copy instead of audiobook. 

İ wouldn't say it's scary but it's got horror elements so if you're sensitive to that beware. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Animal cruelty, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Classism, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, and Mental illness

Moderate: Classism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Animal death, Colonisation, Blood, and Bullying

lifeonasofa's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death, Violence, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship, Addiction, Sexual content, Blood, Confinement, Drug use, Murder, Gaslighting, Mental illness, and Bullying

lexigrce's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

i wish i had physically read this instead of listening to an audiobook bc i found it very hard to follow and idk if that’s bc it is or just bc it was an audiobook. it had a lot of good and intriguing ideas but none of them really got fleshed (lol) out for me

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, Emotional abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Animal death, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Bullying, Gore, Self harm, and Sexual content