Bunny
by Mona Awad
Genres Horror, Magic, Contemporary
5/10
Samantha is a student at the prestigious Warren University working towards a degree in fiction writing. As Samantha hates the other members of her class, a group of girls calling each other “Bunny”, she spends most of her time alone or with Ava, her only other friend at the university. One day however, the bunnies invite Samantha to one of their private “Smut Salon” events. Samantha decides to attend, leaving Ava behind and as she becomes more and more engulfed into the bunnies’ world things start to become more and more bizarre.
Highlights
- It’s a weird one and I don’t know if that’s good or bad
- Difficult to review without spoilers as this weirdness needs to be explained
- The writing style is really good
- Worth a try regardless of score if the pitch interests you
As outlined on the rating system page I usually give a 5/10 to the plain, unexciting books, the ones that are safe to pass on without missing anything whilst also being completely unoffensive to read if you’ve got nothing better around. Bunny is not one of those. If you like the idea of an unhinged story and a reading experience that will make you question what you are reading and what is actually happening in what you are reading, this is something worth trying.
I cannot decide whether I have enjoyed my time with Bunny, hence this seemingly lukewarm rating. The writing style is beautiful, sentences flow one into the other in such a smooth way, it felt like riding a wave, but after finishing a chapter I wasn’t entirely sure what had happened either. The characters are all slightly off and their interactions often feel unnatural whilst the world is unsettling and yet is based in a completely real and believable setting. The magical aspect is core to the story’s progression and yet outside of Sam and the bunnies’ story, it is completely ignored by the other characters.
It’s a difficult book to rate particularly without going into spoilers, and even mild spoilers could significantly alter the way you approach and think about it as you read the book. It’s a weird story with weird characters in a weird world; If this and the idea of trying to figure out for yourself what is really happening appeals to you, give it a try. If not, then this is really more of a brain puzzle book than a fulfilling story in its own right and you can safely pass on it.
If you’re still unsure and need to know a bit more about the story, here is my best attempt at writing up a face value summary of it with as little interpretation bias as possible to hopefully help you decide whether you want to give the book a chance and try to solve the puzzle:
Spoiler
Samantha is a literary student at an art school, the only other people in her class are a group of girls calling each other “bunny” and behaving like a cliché of basic girl group. Sam has only one true friend, Ava, and they spend time together hating on the “bunnies”. The bunny group ends up inviting Sam to one of their “Smut Salon” writing workshops during which they sacrifice rabbits to summon men of their fantasies. Sam is taken into the group and drugged joining the bunny hive mind. She is eventually rescued by Ava but still joins the Bunny workshops as she is finally allowed to create her own rabbit sacrifice man. She seemingly fails but an attractive man starts appearing into her life. Over Christmas, Sam is left alone in her apartment complex surrounded by odd people and tries to find Ava again. She goes to Ava’s home and finds that Ava and the mysterious attractive man are in a relationship. The man seems to be setting the bunnies up for Sam to get revenge on them. One evening Sam comes back to Ava’s place and finds that she got killed and her body turned into a swan. She goes to confront and kill the bunnies she suspects are responsible. However she thinks otherwise and kills her own creation, the mysterious man who turns into a stag. Sam graduates and starts a new friendship with another student.