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dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This book feels like a satire that spirals out of control in the third act.
Samantha is a very refreshing character to read a satire from, as it feels like people who read regularly have met as many Samanthas as they have Bunnys. She's unapologetically an awful person who insists upon herself, insists that her trauma and grating personality make her more intriguing, her writing untouchable and deep. She goes as far as to romanticize and embellish elements of her past to fit this narrative.
The plot was really where this fell apart for me. I tend to dislike books that rely so much on an unreliable narrator that you genuinely can't tell what the hell is going on at any moment, and this devolved into that very quickly. It felt a little cautious to make Samantha so clearly mentally unstable and also on drugs a lot, rather than commit to the suspension of disbelief that turning bunnies into men would have to elicit. While it may have lost some of the "dark academia" vibe, I personally think it would have made the points it made more strongly with a fully lucid description.
To me, Bunny is about caricature, and the delicious, seductive rewards of conformity to it. Samantha commits to her caricature of a brooding, deep, isolated loser girl, and is rewarded with this by interest from "deep" men, like the Lion and Jonah. Her stories are better, according to her. The Bunnies commit to their caricature as well, and they are rewarded with each other, and also the respect that adhering to femininity, even avante garde liberal femininity, gives you. Samantha climbs out of one of these and then falls in the other one like a spike trap, over and over again, never realizing that neither will make her happy, neither will give her autonomy.
Autonomy is an amazing theme throughout this novel. Only possible through exerting what always feels a little bit like sexual power over their bunny-turned-man-things, it serves as yet another example of the way these characters pretend to subvert expectations and become creatively autonomous, but are fundamentally unable to do so because they're trapped by keep falling into the seduction of caricature.
Also, I don't know if all that was intentional, but that's what I got from this novel. Again, it was too surrealist to really glean much of a plot.
All together, Bunny was an interesting read, but the lack of lucidity and the unlikeable characters didn't necessarily make it an altogether enjoyable one. I'm glad it's the length that it is.
Samantha is a very refreshing character to read a satire from, as it feels like people who read regularly have met as many Samanthas as they have Bunnys. She's unapologetically an awful person who insists upon herself, insists that her trauma and grating personality make her more intriguing, her writing untouchable and deep. She goes as far as to romanticize and embellish elements of her past to fit this narrative.
The plot was really where this fell apart for me. I tend to dislike books that rely so much on an unreliable narrator that you genuinely can't tell what the hell is going on at any moment, and this devolved into that very quickly. It felt a little cautious to make Samantha so clearly mentally unstable and also on drugs a lot, rather than commit to the suspension of disbelief that turning bunnies into men would have to elicit. While it may have lost some of the "dark academia" vibe, I personally think it would have made the points it made more strongly with a fully lucid description.
To me, Bunny is about caricature, and the delicious, seductive rewards of conformity to it. Samantha commits to her caricature of a brooding, deep, isolated loser girl, and is rewarded with this by interest from "deep" men, like the Lion and Jonah. Her stories are better, according to her. The Bunnies commit to their caricature as well, and they are rewarded with each other, and also the respect that adhering to femininity, even avante garde liberal femininity, gives you. Samantha climbs out of one of these and then falls in the other one like a spike trap, over and over again, never realizing that neither will make her happy, neither will give her autonomy.
Autonomy is an amazing theme throughout this novel. Only possible through exerting what always feels a little bit like sexual power over their bunny-turned-man-things, it serves as yet another example of the way these characters pretend to subvert expectations and become creatively autonomous, but are fundamentally unable to do so because they're trapped by keep falling into the seduction of caricature.
Also, I don't know if all that was intentional, but that's what I got from this novel. Again, it was too surrealist to really glean much of a plot.
All together, Bunny was an interesting read, but the lack of lucidity and the unlikeable characters didn't necessarily make it an altogether enjoyable one. I'm glad it's the length that it is.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Toxic friendship