A review by spcandybars
Bunny, by Mona Awad
dark
slow-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
2.25
I’ve got strongly negative and strongly positive feelings about this book that place it in a frustrating middle ground.
It's aggressively sexual in like a weird biological way that is definitely intended to make you uncomfortable and succeeds at doing so. The weird aspects of horror aren’t all that weird at all but they’re surrounded by so many unlikeable characters, so much judgement, and so much melodrama, that it makes you uncomfortable anyway. I’m not usually a person that thinks it’s necessary to like characters or like the progression of events to enjoy a book but this was just so SLOW and unpleasant in its entirety that it feels almost unreadable in some places. I honestly continued just because I’d gotten so many recommendations.
I do think it deserves points for the idea itself. It’s interesting and the last few chapters move much quicker so the elevation into the fantastic and confusing is more satisfying than literally any other place in the book.
I honestly believe that if it was in someone else’s hands, they could have made something more successfully subversive, more effectively scary, and something that can be disturbing in visceral ways through its horror rather than disturbing your peace via sheer irritation at every person, place, thing, and line of dialogue.
It's aggressively sexual in like a weird biological way that is definitely intended to make you uncomfortable and succeeds at doing so. The weird aspects of horror aren’t all that weird at all but they’re surrounded by so many unlikeable characters, so much judgement, and so much melodrama, that it makes you uncomfortable anyway. I’m not usually a person that thinks it’s necessary to like characters or like the progression of events to enjoy a book but this was just so SLOW and unpleasant in its entirety that it feels almost unreadable in some places. I honestly continued just because I’d gotten so many recommendations.
I do think it deserves points for the idea itself. It’s interesting and the last few chapters move much quicker so the elevation into the fantastic and confusing is more satisfying than literally any other place in the book.
I honestly believe that if it was in someone else’s hands, they could have made something more successfully subversive, more effectively scary, and something that can be disturbing in visceral ways through its horror rather than disturbing your peace via sheer irritation at every person, place, thing, and line of dialogue.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content and Sexual violence
Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Panic attacks/disorders, and Gaslighting