Reviews with content warning for Homophobia - Bunny

[no spoiler review!]

wow. WHAT a book. A wild ride for the weirdo kids— I screamed, I laughed, I cried. Still reeling after finishing this page turner 3 days after I got it lol. Bunny is equal parts about the horror of being in college with a bunch of assholes, writers fighting to live in a world killing creativity, the genetic itch to belong combating one’s individuality, and of course a fun helping of what the fuck is happening to reality kind of eerie horror, too.

Bunny is that type of thing where if you want this book to freak you out and make you jump, it’ll do so quite well, but if you prefer coming up with a billion theories after a read, there’s a whole lot to go on! The tastefully placed gaps for readers to make their own interpretations by Mona Awad are really well done, if a little disappointing if not warned beforehand about the ending not wrapping them all up. But Mona Awad’s dialogue, sentence structure, killer subtle parallels… when it slaps it slaps hard.

It feels worth noting to potential readers that “horror comedy” doesn’t quite sum Bunny up— a fairly short ride but still a nuanced book. Heathers is an overdone but truly great comparison in terms of getting you to feel all types of feelings about horrible people the way this book does. People with unreality (as well as drugging w/o consent) as a trigger might want to read with caution. It’s genuinely disturbing at getting you in the head scape of someone totally disconnected from the world, whether it’s because they’re lost in their own loneliness or another person. (Some really interesting takes on codependency in friendships here I didn’t expect!)

Got SO attached to the characters (though that might be just be me)— Jonah, Ava, and Max were just amazing. The Bunnies were the candy-coated, poisonous, gaslighting, hatable-but-not-just-hatable characters I wanted them to be. I cared for them all and still hate them dammit. (There was a part of the book where I genuinely empathized with them and I came out of it like EW NO WHAT THE HECK. That’s the mark of good awful characters! Done by a dang good writer!!!!) And of course, Smackie, a wonderfully complex pathetic meow meow of a woman, Kendall Roy style, works as such a fantastic unreliable narrator. I’m going to miss her honestly, wishing her all the best forever <3

So if that sounds intriguing, grab your plastic pinkie pies or a rabbit mask and strap in for a horror show like nothing else you’ve ever seen! Join me in the rabbit hole, if it ever ends and doesn’t just keep going down, down, down…

(Oh also it’s GAY. I don’t care that it’s not completely explicit, Sam is head over heels for a girl the whole book and I adored it. If you disagree you’re wrong. Thanks for reading my whole TED Talk lmao <3)

Content Warnings

kathleencoughlin's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No

4.5

Bunny is spooky, culty horror novel reminiscent of Jennifer's Body, Heathers, or Scream Queens. Samantha starts as an outsider and who often exudes "not like other girls" vibes; one of the Bunnies said something to the effect of her liking to wallow in her own grittiness and that's a fairy apt description. She seems to be staunchly anti-Bunny, not just for their cliquishness but also for their overt femininity. But like many good stories of the genre, I see how someone could be drawn into the fold. Tiny cupcakes, nice clothes, and a seemingly single-minded camaraderie sounds like a good deal, right? We soon learn though that their twee exteriors hide something not just passive aggressive but primal and dark. Overall, I really enjoyed Awad's book and think she did a better job than a lot of similar media at addressing the classism and underlying grief that inform stories like this.

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