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A review by amyvl93
Bunny by Mona Awad
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Putting down Bunny felt like coming out of a fever dream, where I had no clue what anything I just read actually meant.
Bunny follows Samantha Mackey, who is doing her postgrad at a super elite arts college where she feels like a total outsider, especially compared to the 'Bunnies' who are her classmates in her class, who behave like an apparently doll-like cloyingly sweet mass, and so spends her time exchanging barbs with her one friend Ava. When the Bunnies invite her to hang out, Samantha is thrown into something truly strange.
Mona Award's writing style is often excellent - there are sharp barbs about liberal arts colleges, and about what privilege looks like even when you refuse to accept it, and she really amps up the fever-y writing as Samantha falls in with the Bunnies, including the narrative voice becoming more of a collective. I would have probably given up on this much earlier had the writing not been as good.
My main issue with the novel is that the narrative just gets a bit lost - the first darker instances are really evocatively written, and I actually enjoyed the darkness that Bunny embraces. However, it feels like it doesn't seem to know whether it is fully embracing the fantasy/horror of it all. To me, if a book leaves you feeling like you need to research the points it was making, it probably didn't make them well enough.
Bunny follows Samantha Mackey, who is doing her postgrad at a super elite arts college where she feels like a total outsider, especially compared to the 'Bunnies' who are her classmates in her class, who behave like an apparently doll-like cloyingly sweet mass, and so spends her time exchanging barbs with her one friend Ava. When the Bunnies invite her to hang out, Samantha is thrown into something truly strange.
Mona Award's writing style is often excellent - there are sharp barbs about liberal arts colleges, and about what privilege looks like even when you refuse to accept it, and she really amps up the fever-y writing as Samantha falls in with the Bunnies, including the narrative voice becoming more of a collective. I would have probably given up on this much earlier had the writing not been as good.
My main issue with the novel is that the narrative just gets a bit lost - the first darker instances are really evocatively written, and I actually enjoyed the darkness that Bunny embraces. However, it feels like it doesn't seem to know whether it is fully embracing the fantasy/horror of it all. To me, if a book leaves you feeling like you need to research the points it was making, it probably didn't make them well enough.