Reviews with content warning for Ableism - Bunny

I did have a lot of fun reading this book. I love horror, I liked the way the narrator would slip in and out of thoughts & conversations.

It was a little milquetoast in its character representation & ending. Like yeah of course they’re all white and of course they’re all thin and of course the outcast is a little alternative. Really disappointed with the use of the R word & ableism & fatphobia throughout the book.

The ending was also lazy. Ha-ha the villains are broken and that’s their comeuppance? Broken limbs? There could have been so many more twists and turns but it was really like the one graphic thing that happened and everything else was the come down. I didn’t need all that info on how she was just laying in bed and the different ways in which she was laying in bed lmao.

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carabunkle's review against another edition

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dark funny 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? It's complicated

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museofbookmares's review against another edition

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dark funny 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

4.5

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lynxpardinus's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense

4.0

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coldcrumble's review against another edition

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dark funny tense

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Genuinely not a clue what to rank this. Not a clue what I just read either. I have so many questions and I’m not entirely sure whether I got the answers or not. My head sort of hurts. I don’t know if this counts as magical realism or if everyone was just super high? I’m also not sure whether it was actually skilful, or just gripping because of how insanely bonkers it was. I feel it was a bit too in your face with the satire, but I didn’t mind too much because everything else almost balanced it out.

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angryoppossum's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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henrygravesprince's review against another edition

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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

2.25

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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otherworlds's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

well, it had its redeeming qualities, but ultimately this book came across to me as confused, especially in terms of the themes it put forward. when there is so much surrealism in the plot that you're relying so heavily on themes, those themes could have been delivered more effectively imo!

and idk if the bitter feelings re: her own pretentiousness among other pretentious art students was a feature of the character or the author, but either way it really grated on my nerves. no, more than that, the narration was SO self-deprecating that it made me outright uncomfortable. i can see how it aids the theme insofar as talking about the empty performative nature of the professional art scene, but it still wasn't my cup of tea.

the reason i'm taking a good half-star off this review, though, is that the author uses slurs in her prose to make it sound more edgy. saying someone looked like "a r*tarded baby", or referring to romani people by the g slur in fetishistic imagery, or using 'schizophrenic' as an insult... idk what she was going for with this but whatever it was, it fell flat for me.

that being said the plot was very interesting and original, the prose was engaging, the relationship between the main character and her best friend really tugged a chord with me, and i liked the ending. just, not enough to overlook the issues i had with this book.

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