Reviews with content warning for Toxic relationship - Bunny

I am not even sure how to react to this book. It was wonderfully written and interesting and entertaining, but at the same time I did not feel like I had any idea what was happening during most of it. It was also very off-putting and disturbing, sometimes to the point where I had to stop reading it. But I still enjoyed reading it - the characters (particularly the main character) were unique and well-developed and the story was intriguing. The ending was also completely unexpected, but also tied the preceding events together very well and made me question the reality of the story as well as the reliability of the narrator. Bunny was a very enjoyable read, and Mona Awad is such a good writer - I definitely want to find other books she's written now. While the book was very creepy and at times made me question my own perception of what I was reading, I loved reading it. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes horror fiction or dark academia books, or anyone looking for a scary book to read.

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lindseyhall44's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

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

4.5

I’ve seen many reviews surrounding Bunny which call it weird in a negative connotation. Though I completely understand that the subject matter and execution of the novel may not be for everyone, the so-called “weirdness” is what truly enraptured me.
Bunny follows Samantha, a student at a elusive arts college, as she navigates a relationship with a group of friends/cult-esque members in her writing cohort, who call themselves the bunnies. Through a blurred lense between real and imaginative, repulsed and obsessed, Awad crafts a tale so startling unique against the backdrop of contemporary literature that it can’t help but shine through.
What surprised me the most in this novel was that even throughout the darkness and sinister facets of Samantha’s experiences, for the most part I still found a sense of understanding in her decisions. Stripping down the horror elements and fever dream atmosphere, there is just a sad girl wanting to belong somewhere, and it takes a strong writer to explore such underlying desires.
The prose is another area of expertise for Awad, as it is craftily used in highlighting the perspective shifts of Samantha’s internal monologue.
Overall, I really enjoyed Bunny, and can not wait to check out the author’s latest work!
*as always, don’t forget to check trigger warnings!

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l_arand'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? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

holy fucking shit. that’s the only thing that came to mind after i finished this book. i had to sit in silence because WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK.
anyways, i’ve decided that i love mona awad. here’s the plot of her book bunny: samantha mackey, our complex and struggling protagonist is a part of the first all-female fiction writing cohort at her prestigious graduate school. however, the other students in her group are grossly attached to one another, often described to be partaking in “bone crushing hugs,” and squeal in excitement when they see each other. they call themselves and one another bunny in an affectionate way. samantha is not a bunny, so she’s ostracized from her cohort and professor, who’s enamored with them and their writing ability. this changes when the bunnies start showing interest in her work during class, and invite her to join one of their “smut salons.” she becomes swept up in the bunnies’ world and begins to drift from her only friend, a rebellious and beautiful woman named ava.

this whole world and samantha’s narration pulled me into this book and wouldn’t let me go. towards the end, i was reading it in a frenzy because i just HAD to know what happened. you really feel like you’re in samantha’s position, you can feel her lethargy, fear, and confusion. i’ve seen many people complain about her as a character, which is fair, but she’s not meant to be this perfect, loving graduate student. she’s flawed, she lets herself wallow, and is still processing some family trauma (and i know damn well if a male protagonist had all of these attributes, the readers would be all over him, but that’s a rant for another day). another aspect of this book that i loved was that we got to see how her relationships with the bunnies were changing, seeing as she goes from calling them by the nicknames she assigned to them (cupcake, creepy doll, vingnette, and duchess) to their respective names: caroline, kira, victoria, and eleanor. it was a nice touch on top of already immersive writing.
this book explores themes of creation, loneliness, poor mental health, and the disaster that can come from those combining (and in samantha’s case, in the most horrible way possible).
bunny left me speechless and wanting to know more about samantha, but this is one ambiguous ending that i’ve actually liked. this book is definitely confusing and leaves you wondering “what the hell did i just read” but i would give anything to read it for the first time again.

also, i loved ava and jonah. i know ava was not real and by the ending, i don’t think jonah was either, but i was rooting for both of them. i just want someone to make samantha happy and feel like she belongs, because that’s what she deserves.

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fairygodfish's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny reflective fast-paced

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

4.75

I tell her he loves her because I love her.

On my second reading of Bunny, I felt compelled to write a review. Because I feel as though this book is often misunderstood. Misconstrued as anti-feminist, women-hating-women, overly pretentious. This could not be further from the truth.

Bunny is an exploration of deep unbearable loneliness. It is a study on loving women. It is beautiful and terrifying and masterfully written.

And Samantha hates the Bunnies, yes, but she also loves them. She wants to be them. She loves them so much, because what they have is what she has never had. And they love her, too. Yes, they are twisted, and fucked up, and awful, but they are, like Samantha, just women. When she gives them a chance, takes them up on the smut salon, she gets everything she has ever wanted and it is intoxicating and terrifying and it is awful, because when you’re a college age girl with little to no friends you desperately want the cliquey best friends to be awful, because then you’re not only not missing out, you’re better than them. Bunny is a story about how you’re not.

And Ava. My god, Ava is heartbreaking. This is the part that isn’t a rant about perceptions of the book, but about what I loved about it so much. I loved the weird bunny boys and the gore and the exploding heads and the drugs but I also love how Ava is portrayed.

She is textually in love with Ava, she loves Ava so much and it breaks my HEART how it ends. It is genius that Max is Sam, and Sam is in love with Ava, so Max is in love with Ava. It is such a fantastic portrayal of understanding your feelings for a woman, but being unable to admit them properly to even yourself. That Max destroys the bunnies because she wants to destroy the bunnies. Ugh.

It’s seriously a thrilling, heartbreaking, wonderful read. I truly recommend it.

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rhiannannihr's review against another edition

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dark funny mysterious slow-paced

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

3.5

This is a very polarizing book. If you’ve never read a book with an unstable and unreliable narrator then I can’t guarantee that you’ll like this story. However, if you understand that you’re going to have a front row seat to the MC’s descent into madness, then you’ll probably enjoy the ride. This story is WILD and will have you questioning everything until the very end. I highly recommend listening to it as opposed to reading it.

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