Bunny
A Novel
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3.7 • 576 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Enter the Bunnyverse with the “wild, audacious . . . unforgettable” (Los Angeles Times) #DarkAcademia novel that started it all – the precursor to We Love You, Bunny
“[A] cult classic.” —People
“[A] viral sensation.” —USA Today
“O Bunny you are sooo genius!” —Margaret Atwood
“We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?”
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.
But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.
The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.
Named a Best Book of the year by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Call your besties: You’ll want to read this novel together and discuss. Mona Awad’s dark, twisted, and funny book revolves around a terrifying clique of hyperintelligent graduate students known as the Bunnies who take flattery and codependence to the next level. The story is told through the eyes of Samantha, a recent inductee to the group who has given the other members nicknames like Cupcake and Creepy Doll. Samantha’s initial wariness makes her growing yearning for approval from the Bunnies that much more unnerving. Bunny invokes the best movies about messy friendships (think Heathers), with a dash of Alice in Wonderland and horror thrown in. It’s cryptically feminist and just plain brilliant.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Awad's outstanding novel follows the highly addictive, darkly comedic tale of sardonic Samantha Mackey, a fiction MFA student at a top-tier New England school. There, four of her fellow writers are a ghoulish clique of women who cryptically refer to each other as "Bunny." To outsiders, the Bunnies come across as insipid with their colorful, patterned dresses and perfect hair. Samantha feels more grounded after her first year and after meeting Ava, who becomes her only friend, over the summer break. Samantha dreads the Bunnies' return upon learning the four of them are the only other participants in her writing workshop; once in class, they dismiss her work while praising their own. The trajectory of Samantha's life alters after she receives an unexpected invitation from the Bunnies to join them. Samantha's desire for acceptance leads her down a dangerous path into the Bunnies' rabbit hole, which begins with them drinking weird concoctions and reading erotic poetry together in sessions they call the "Smut Salon." Soon, though, Samantha begins to believe in the Bunnies' views, becomes unreliable as a narrator, and willingly participates in their increasingly twisted games. Awad (13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl) will have readers racing to find out how it all ends and they won't be disappointed once the story reaches its wild finale. This is an enchanting and stunningly bizarre novel.
Customer Reviews
Enjoyable
A unique read. Nice to break up books that are more of the same
Sick
Horrible and deranged… I finished it and I’ll never trust the person who suggested we read it as the next book club selection. Don’t waste your time.
Like a young Leonora Carrington.
This book reveals the author is the real deal. Witty, sharp, fluid storyteller. The first book of her’s I’ve read, and now I must read them all.