Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

Bunny, by Mona Awad

17 reviews

sjxa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious reflective 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

4.75

A beautiful balance of literary and commercial interests and tone, deligtfully mysterious, thrillingly feminine and wild. A monument to and mockery of academic creativity. A feverish kiss, revelling in its own pretention and self-awareness. So perfectly, like, meta, but maybe, like, a little pleased with itself? Pleased with itself in, like, an erotic way though. It’s hot (in the voice of Paris Hilton but also in a deeply natural, sweaty, grimy way).

These are all things its own characters might say about it in one of the many truthy episodes of creative writing workshops at uni, which punctuate the text with “real life”.

Spoiler

I found the turning of animals into people was written with an enjoyable lack of clarity; not so much that any absolutely necissary elements are lost, but enough that we are caught up in the same fog as Samantha to the extent that the plot is believable enough. The moment when Ava is revealed to be a swan is so gorgeously ambiguous, and the killing of Max back to his stag form has a satisfying bite of clarity to it, the two compliment eachother like salty and sweet.

If Bunny falls short anywhere, it’s the plainer, *not like other girls, dead parents* features of Samantha’s [the narrator] character - which are especially noticable in the early portions of the book where the magic of the plot has not yet taken off. It could also have been more explicitly diverse, I imagined certain characters as non-white but I don’t remember any descriptions of skintone besides the pink-white of the Bunnies. If the whiteness of other characters were relevant it might have been hilighted more carefully, so, since it wasn’t, readers may fill in the blanks.

Anyway, it was gross and animal and gorgeous and sparkly and exciting in the best way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Murder, Animal death, Blood, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Self harm

Minor: Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Death of parent, Drug abuse, and Sexual assault

samcanuel's review against another edition

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? It's complicated

3.25

I don’t know if I can explain anything about this book. I’m not really sure I understood it. However! It is very well written and I was fascinated by the premise. I would recommend this book for people who are into darker books or books about being a woman in your 20s.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Violence, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Alcohol, Death of parent, and Vomit

Minor: Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Suicidal thoughts

rozmaran's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense

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

3.0

It was confusing as hell, the ending disappointed me slightly but it kept me invested to the last page. Overall enjoyable read but overhyped. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Toxic friendship, Self harm, Gaslighting, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gore, and Body horror

Moderate: Stalking, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Violence, Sexual assault, Murder, and Rape

refrejarator's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Abandonment, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Murder, Violence, Gore, and Injury/injury detail

Minor: Child abuse, Bullying, Adult/minor relationship, Death of parent, Drug use, Gun violence, Drug abuse, Injury/injury detail, and Sexual assault

mlovesbooks's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

This was so good and unpredictable. I loved it so much more than I thought I would.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Sexual assault and Eating disorder

Minor: Racial slurs

philippmk's review against another edition

challenging dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Wonderfully weird, I loved this. Especially the mean girl snark was enjoyable. So enjoyable.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Murder, Toxic friendship, Violence, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Drug use, Death, Blood, and Cursing

Moderate: Gore

Minor: Sexual assault

ambenicole418's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.0

Well…..that was definitely……a book lol.

I can’t really explain this book or my feelings on it, but I feel like there is definitely some commentary in here on loneliness and isolation, and the lengths our brain will go to help us cope with these feelings, especially when we look at Samantha and Ava’s friendship. Honestly, I think I might have enjoyed forming my own/reading other people’s interpretations of this book more than I enjoyed reading the book itself. 

I do wish we got to spend some more time inside the bunny cult though. Their hive mind dynamic, weird hybrid rituals, and how desensitized they were to all of it were the most interesting parts of the book, and it feels like we spent a criminally short amount of time with them in that space.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Death of parent, Grief, Body horror, Death, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Addiction, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Rape, and Sexual violence

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

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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

dominiquecoral's review against another edition

dark funny medium-paced

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

3.75

I don’t know what just happened. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Sexual assault, Violence, and Mental illness

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.

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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