Bunny by Mona Awad
“Why do you lie so much? And about the weirdest little things?", my mother always asked me. "I don’t know", I always said. But I did know. It was very simple. Because it was a better story.”
!Please be aware that this review contains spoilers!
How do I describe this book without sounding absolutely insane? I cannot and that's the beauty of Bunny by Mona Awad.
The official description of the book tells us the following:
We follow our main character, Samantha (Smackey) through her last year in the MFA program. The university is located in New England, in an area that's infamous for assaults and bizarre deaths. During her time at this university, named Warren (it was pointed out to me by YouTuber Jack Edwards through his video "i read the biggest books on tiktok to see if booktok can be trusted (part 2)" that the word "warren" means "a network of wild rodent or lagomorph, typically rabbit burrows." and I find it so clever to relate even the name of the university to the plot.), Samantha has fiction writing workshops which are attended by 5 people including her. The other four women who are in that workshop call each other "Bunny", dress, speak and act as if they are one entity.
Despite Samantha's hatred for them, when the opportunity arises to join this clique at their own "workshop" they named "Smut Salon", Samantha feels inclined to go. As much as Samantha is established as a loner who would rather spend time with her imagination and writing, to go to this function, she has to ditch her only friend - Ava. A mysterious and dark Ava, the only friend Samantha has.
Now, this "Smut Salon" opens doors for Samantha into the inner world of the "Bunnies" and we get to see WHY they call each other that. What is going on behind closed doors is for "Bunnies" only, Bunny. Don't you know that?
The "Smut Salon" ends up being a place where the clique sacrifices a real bunny to make a "Darling" - not a boy, but a hybrid, a man of their dreams. It never goes as they wish so they keep these boys as servants or drive out with them so far away, these creatures can never return.
In a turn of events, we find out that Samantha was able to create a creature but not from a bunny, she was capable of creating a hybrid from a stag. His name is Max and he is everything those other "boys" aren't. And sometime later, after Sam manages to get out of this "cult" and ends up on Ava's doorstep - it appears that Ava and Max are hooking up.
These creatures, hybrids, created from the imagination, know your desires and thoughts and feel your anger. So when Sam is angry at the Bunnies, Max is angry. And does everything in his power to pin them against each other.
In the end, we find out that Ava is yet another darling, created by Samantha from a swan, unbeknownst to her. Max ends up killing her and then gets killed in one last showdown between the clique (who wanted him) and Samantha.
This book read to me like this is a world where magic is possible (Like Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern). Elusive, weird magic that leaves you wondering if you hallucinated it or if it's real. The magic that runs through your fingers like sand. You can't quite place what exactly magic did but you know in your heart this cannot happen without it.
But Reddit has pushed me in another direction - that this book deals with mental illness, specifically schizophrenia. And it makes so much sense to me, taking into account some of the moments from the book. For example, this quote could allude to the things that happened as something that only happened in Samantha's head:
“But I wasn't listening. I wasn't stopping. Because we were already running away again, me and my imagination.”
I am in no place to speak on schizophrenia as I have no experience with it. But from what I've researched about it, this story could very well be Samantha dealing with schizophrenia and writing her novel. This can be a mix of her hallucinations and characters.
But this book is also a narrative in which the main character is lonely and wants to feel loved. She is a woman and has to fight for her place in the University, this world. She wants so badly to belong somewhere, and find love and friends who won't leave her which is a universal desire.
This felt weird to read but after diving deeper into Reddit threads, YouTube videos, and GoodReads reviews, I have come to realize the depth of this story and its beauty of it.
4/5 bunnies
