Reviews tagging 'Misogyny'

Bunny, by Mona Awad

13 reviews

lokes's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Drug use, Self harm, Toxic friendship, Gaslighting, Adult/minor relationship, Misogyny, Alcohol, Body horror, Bullying, Murder, Drug abuse, Gore, Physical abuse, Sexism, Blood, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual violence, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Violence, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Car accident, Medical trauma, Self harm, Alcohol, Animal death, Blood, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Mental illness, Rape, Stalking, Bullying, and Kidnapping

lovegriefandgender's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A gorgeous, fresh and truly unsettling horror story about what it means to be a woman and the hatred we harbour for other women. I've never really read anything like it before. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Gore

Moderate: Sexism, Rape, and Misogyny

lynshelf's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Sexual harassment, Mental illness, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Drug use, Violence, Toxic friendship, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Misogyny, and Gore

aliyachaudhry's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Classism, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Grief, Animal death, Blood, Bullying, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/injury detail, Misogyny, Violence, Sexism, Sexual content, and Torture

Moderate: Car accident

henrygravesprince's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious 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? Yes

2.5

first, the positives:

• some of the surrealist passages are fantastic, and the author is very good at writing things in a surreal way, especially portraying normal things as such
• the dynamic between Ava and Samantha is very interesting in contrast to Samantha, the Bunnies, and men

now, the negatives:

• some of the stylistic grammar-breaking choices work, but a lot of them don’t; particularly the recurring all-caps and multi-exclamation point moments irked me
• the “gore” moments were honestly more silly than anything, particularly when half of the time it’s just “and then [xyz] literally exploded”
• there are a lot of really out of place, pointless moments of bigotry that would not alter the story or tone at all if they were removed, particularly the weird references to lizard people conspiracies, the R slur & derogatory comparisons to disabled people, and the usage of the G slur to describe a Romani woman; it comes across very much as the author just not giving a shit about it

I think there could be a good book chipped out of Bunny with more editing, but it just fell flat to me. People also misrepresent what this book actually is a lot when recommending it; I wish I had actually known what sort of book this was when going into it rather than what it gets portrayed as.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Violence, Animal death, Bullying, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual harassment, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Stalking, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Gore, Injury/injury detail, and Kidnapping

Minor: Ableism, Alcohol, Gore, Death of parent, Drug use, Racial slurs, and Xenophobia

gwrhyr's review against another edition

dark slow-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

1.0

Every single character sucks in a 2D, plucked-from-Tumbr sort of way. The main character is so insufferable that the first hundred pages of the book are almost impossible to get through. Samantha spends half of the book feeling sorry for herself and seems to base her entire personality on internalised misogyny, embodying the trope of 'not like other girls'. Although all of the characters are 'quirky', none of them are memorable, so that 150 pages in you still have to go back to remember who Victoria was.

Bunny invokes a sense of performative ‘wokeness’ in that it seems to comment on the elitist settings of Ivy league colleges, yet the author makes use of slurs. On top of that, the novel, especially its writing style, is needlessly vulgar and misogynistic, and seems to be written largely for shock-value.

At least the third part was somewhat interesting, but even with suspension of disbelief some events were simply illogical and did not seem to line up with the narrative. Other parts were so confusingly written that it became hard to understand what was going on. The ending was a desperate attempt at a plottwist. All in all, Bunny reads like bad fanfiction. 

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Misogyny, Racial slurs, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

autumngk's review against another edition

1.0

i got to chapter 15? and i don't like to not finish books but samantha is fucking unbearable for a protagonist/narrator. this is the worst book i've ever read lmfao.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Misogyny, Eating disorder, and Toxic friendship

i don't wanna know what else happens it feels like it's trying to be queer commentary but it's very straight and too many men and nothing makes sense

honey_buns's review against another edition

dark funny fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated

4.25

Bizarre and somehow compelling; this was a fast-paced read that I couldn’t put down (finished it in less than 2 days)! The writing is outstanding. For example, the detail given to the Bunnies from Samantha’s perspective.

Spoiler

how initially she doesn’t quite view them as real people, going so far as to only call them by nicknames like Cupcake and Creepy Doll, which you may notice are objects not people, but even the “Creepy Doll” she equates that character too is beautiful and desirable; because though she claims to hate them she has also placed them on a pedestal. But as we progress through the story her opinion changes and as does her descriptions, I won’t ruin it by saying more

I’ve seen this compared to Heathers and while that is what made me interested initially, I have to say that it’s not a great comparison. Definitely in the individual and group dynamics between Samantha and the Bunnies, but I think the parallels start and stop there. And in that sense you could also easily compare this to Mean Girls. 

I did find Samantha to be an honest character, as in she seems like a real, complex person; not in the sense that she tells the truth cause she be lyin’ quite a bit. However, I didn’t find her likable. I don’t want to spoil it so I’ll just say it is easier to sympathize with her than it is to like her.

I don’t like how this has been touted as a groundbreaking feminist piece, I’ll explain why in the spoiler below if you’re curious. It is still enjoyable to read as long as you don’t believe it’s going to be feminist in nature.

Spoiler

1.) the implications from the jump that the Bunnies are vapid-airheads and Samantha’s justification for this boiling down to the fact that they indulge in femininity. 2.) the “monstrous experiments” that the Bunnies are creating are just men. Literally their idealized fantasy version of men, but they don’t call them “men”, no no no they’re above “men”, they’re making “drafts/hybrids/darlings” the last one I’m sure is meant to be a play on the literary expression to “kill your darlings” but give me a break, please. Having the characters claim that they’re being strong feminists because the way make men, but don’t call them men is just doing nothing. And if the author was just trying to poke fun at women like that, then it’s still misogynistic. Either way, don’t like that… 3.) Max. seriously a man that Samantha created is what finally undoes the Bunnies. You’ll notice when/if you read it that Max is basically a male version of Samantha and he does all the things that she is too afraid to do. (Like dating Ava or destroying the Bunnies) Way to blatantly say woman weak and incompetent, need big strong man to fix her problems. The only small consolation is that Sam finally gets a backbone I guess, but she exclusively uses it to put the Bunnies down one more time so it kinda feels like she didn’t grow just stopped lying

Something I adored is the foreshadowing, I am a sucker for getting to a big plot point and realizing all the foreshadowing that came before it. It makes reading it a second time fun for me. I do highly recommend it, but I don’t think it’ll be everyone’s cup of tea as it can be confusing and a bit pretentious at times.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, Blood, Animal death, Violence, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Self harm

Minor: Misogyny and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

the drug use is someone being drugged, they willingly take something, but they are kinda pressured to and they are told it’s medicine

Spoiler

the Bunnies drug Sam, it is unclear what drug (some type of pill) it seems to be some form of sedative that makes her relaxed and more receptive to them)

the self harm is described and speculated about after the fact, but we do not get a description of how it’s done

Spoiler

near the end one of the Bunnies (Caroline) comes to workshop with words cut into her chest and arms with a razor. Samantha states that “the scars look fresh”. Caroline states that it’s a performance piece she’s working on which led me to believe it was self-inflicted

the misogyny and psychosis are more like underlying themes than something that is explicitly talked about in the book. You won’t be able to read it without noticing, but again the characters don’t talk about it really.

kathleencoughlin's review against another edition

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.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Gore, Bullying, Toxic friendship, and Animal death

Moderate: Torture, Self harm, Murder, Misogyny, Gaslighting, and Body horror

Minor: Classism, Homophobia, Addiction, Abandonment, Alcoholism, and Grief

paperbackparker's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

4.0

This was a wild ride. I don’t think my lil brain fully understood the story, but I definitely enjoyed it.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Classism, Gore, Death of parent, Blood, Body horror, Toxic friendship, and Misogyny