The only thing I knew about this book was that it was “weird.” I vaguely remember BooksandLala raving about this book, but other than that, I hadn’t really seen any detailed reviews. However, “weird” was all I needed to become interested in this book, so on one of my rare trips to Barnes and Noble, I picked up a copy.
Bunny is available for purchase at any major book retailers.
GENERAL INFO
Bunny by Mona Awad
Published on June 11, 2019
Genres: Adult, Horror, Magical Realism
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
Goodreads
"We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?"
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.
But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.
The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.
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While I write this, it has been almost one month since I finished Bunny, and honestly, I’m still not even sure what really happened. The more I think about this book, the more I want to reread it.
Side note: I saw a Goodreads review of this book that read “I think I just had a fever dream where I was transported into a Melanie Martinez music video while tripping out on acid,” and I have never related more to a review.
I have some theories bouncing around in my head (I’ll talk about the one I’m probably most convinced of below in a spoilers section), but Bunny was a chaotic, wacky, bizarre ride. There seems to be themes of loss, loneliness, and trauma sprinkled throughout the craziness.
“We never joke about bunnies, Bunny.”
I was obsessed with the writing style. Bunny is a book that on the surface seems like it is trying to be edgy and abstract, but the narrator’s (Samantha’s) thoughts and reactions really play into the idea that there is some trauma happening. A book like this really allows the reader to draw from their own beliefs and experiences, so they can unscramble what was actually happening.
The only reason the book was four stars instead of five was because it did get a little repetitive towards the end. The story started to drag a little around the 50-70% mark before it started to pick up again.
Now, this is about all I can say without getting into some of the things that happened, but if you are thinking about reading this book, I highly recommend this one. Just be aware that there is no clear ending, and it does have a little bit of a slow middle.
My TAKE (SPOILERS)
After finishing Bunny, I took a deep dive into discussion boards that analyzed the book. I read quite a few theories, and I have decided on what I believe happened (Note: I will not take complete credit for my theory, as parts of this are taken from other theories/posts).
The story comes from the perspective of Samantha, someone who has fully admitted to lying about basic things to make a “better story.” From the beginning, you are prepared to not believe a single thing that happened. When I was reading, I found myself trying to strip away all of the “extravagance” of the story to determine the underlying story.
To me, the story is an overdramatized story of Samantha’s college experience. She is dealing with the “mean girls” of her class, girls who are always getting praised for their work, while also experiencing writer’s block of her own. Samantha uses these challenges to create a story in her mind of the “evil” at play. It almost feels like she is envisioning these insane events to justify the fact that she is struggling in her life.
“Why do you lie so much? And about the weirdest little things?” my mother always asked me. “I don’t know,” I always said. But I did know. It was very simple. Because it was a better story.”
Rather than accepting that her best friend left her and moved away, she creates the tale that she was murdered. Instead of accepting that the “mean girls” are simply favored at school, she turns them into a cult that creates men by killing bunnies. She even joins this group, creating the most-complex man, because she wants to believe that she is better than her peers. It feels as though Samantha needs to create a more complex version of events in order to cope with all of the things she is feeling.
Overall Thoughts
This book is definitely not for everyone. I loved the fact that the ending is so ambiguous in what was real and not real (reading the blurb, it really feels like that was the point), and I actually love when readers can take a story like this and develop their own theories about the story. It feels like every reader can have a different experience, but also the right experience (am I making sense? Probably not).
I’d love to know your thoughts on the book if you read it. I love reading other interpretations of the story!
Final Rating: 4/5 stars
Those are all of my thoughts on Bunny by Mona Awad. I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by this author!
Be sure to also answer the question of the day! I love seeing what you guys are loving in the book world!
Question of the Day:
What is the weirdest book you’ve ever read? Let me know in the comments!