Bunny

I found this novel pretty difficult to review. I found it interesting that I found it in different sections in various bookshops. I bought it from the fiction section, but have since found it in the “BookTok” section as well as the horror section. I think “horror” would be the best place for it, or perhaps, “satire-horror” (may I never open a bookshop. The sections would be named things like “books with cats in them”).

Bunny details the experiences of main character Samantha Heather Mackey as a Masters’ student in the selective MFA programme at Warren University. She finds the rest of her writing cohort repellent. They are a group of unnaturally close mean girls who call each other “bunny”. They are wealthy and unbearably, sickly sweet. And yet, as repulsed as she is by them, she also finds them compelling and is drawn to them. She is flattered when they eventually invite her to what they call their “smut salon”. And let me tell you, some weird shit goes down when she attends this salon. This informs the rest of the novel and it’s mad.

I honestly can’t say if I liked this novel or not, but it is certainly worth a read purely because of Mona Awad’s imagery and writing. I found myself reading certain phrases over and over again because of the sumptuous, off-the-wall phrasing such as “I quietly prayed for the hug implosion all year last year. That their ardent squeezing might cause flesh to ooze from the sleeves, neckholes, and A-line hems of their cupcake dresses like so much inane frosting”.

This novel is macabre and explores the power of imagination, loneliness and depression. I loved that Samantha deals with writer’s block throughout the novel, and yet, her imagination and writing is woven in the narrative and it’s cleverly done. The story is dark and pink and oppressive and feathery and syrupy and horrible. Read it. Actually, I think I did like it.