A review by angel_kiiss
Bunny by Mona Awad

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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? Yes

3.5

2022:
Second time round it still feels like a I’m not like other girls, anti-woman/high femininity, I’m better than then story where the Bunnies are condemned, not because they’re rich or come from wealthy families, but because they reach for and achieve some of the highest forms of femininity and that is bad. 

It follows in step with her other books which also felt too mean spirited and anti-women from the perspective of woman. Because you can be a woman but god forbid you practice too much femininity. 

It follows the same moral story line as The Craft, but doesn’t have the excuse of being made in the 90s. Comes off as the same cautionary tale for women and the dangers of female power. 

An interesting concept but the focus wasn’t on the most interesting part. Women creating people out of bunnies is a best seller, but the focus shifts away and goes on about unimportant things

It’s like a more renowned version of The Elementals by Francesca Lia Block

The Lena Dunham quote on the front of this book still waves the red flag. 

2021:
If this is supposed to be some great feminist novel, it really is a deterrent to put a quote by Lena Dunham on the cover. 

So, I guess this is supposed to be some kind of horror story, but the initial introduction to the Bunnies plays out as some “I’m not like other girls,” “these girls like pink and girly things so they are lesser,” fourteen year old who hates the popular girls kind of bullshit. We’re supposed to hate them for such superficial reasons yet then they sound kind of cool once our main girl actually describes them and their interests. 
What’s supposed to make them sound sketchy or “creepy” or any other horror red flags simply comes off as one woman (and woman is key since they’re all in graduate school) hating on a group of other women. I’d by the old patriarcal feminist ideals if it was set in a high school, but setting grown women in graduate school makes it come off as misogynistic and immature. 

I honestly found it more pretentious than provocative. And the, not-so-subtle, subtext of the protagonists writings felt as if Awad was preemptively addressing critiques of her in-real-life work. 
I’ve read surreal literature, so it’s not like it’s something I can’t get my head around, but this troubled and confused me more than I feel that it should have. The plot was undefined and the writing unclear and at times clunky. Horror mysteries are one thing, but writing so that nothing at all makes sense is another. At no point did things feel connected until the very end when it’s revealed to be a The Craft plot twist. But, just like in The Craft, it leaves us to question the message. We’re told that the witches in The Craft “go to far” with their use of magic, and that their marginalized lives don’t excuse the harmful things they do with magic. Bunny plays out the same way with the main girl being the most powerful and the most “right” and the deliverer of the other girls “just do’s.”

Why do the Bunnies get what they deserve? What - other than ritual sacrifice, I guess - makes them bad people? The only thing presented to us is their high-femininity and close female-relationships. Are we supposed to believe that this makes them evil? Is Awad villainizing femininity?

Also, what the fuck is Dunham feeling so connected to exactly? What part of the “female-experience” is identifiable in this book?
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