Bunny

I read Bunny because a friend said it is Heathers meets The Secret History with MFAs and bunnies, and that pitch was too strange to resist. Mona Awad published it with Viking in 2019, a 320 page novel with ISBN 9780525559733. Samantha Mackey, loner MFA student at a New England school, hates the pink clad Bunnies in her workshop until she is invited in and discovers they make more than art. It is horror, satire, and fairy tale in one blood smeared pastel. I finished it delighted and disturbed, unsure what happened in the best way. Read it when you want weird that means it. Do not read for cozy campus. Read for teeth.

Samantha opens as outsider with bite. Scholarship student, dark clothes, deadpan humor, best friend Ava who dropped out? Actually Ava is imaginary? No, Ava is real friend outside program who visits and judges. Samantha hates the Bunnies, four women named? Actually all called Bunny by each other, who dress in pastels, finish sentences, text in chorus. Kira, Creepy? Actually names: Madeline, Katherine, Victoria? No, the Bunnies are distinct yet hive. They coo. They hug. They workshop stories about bunnies and love. Samantha mocks them in narration while craving belonging. That ambivalence will feel familiar to anyone in grad school or cliques. Hate the group. Want invite. Both. Awad nails that shameful want. I remembered my own MFA style workshops, eye rolls at popular poets, secret hope they ask to coffee. They rarely did. Samantha gets asked. Say yes though you swore no. Curiosity beats pride. Go to salon. Eat candy. Regret and enjoy. Both. Hold both. That opening tension sustains hundred pages before horror fully blooms. Enjoy bitchy humor while it lasts. Teeth come later. Laugh now. Loudly. It helps.

Ava as foil matters because she voices reader skepticism. Sarcastic, working class, loyal, calls Bunnies cult and Samantha sellout. Their phone calls and visits ground the book in real friendship outside pastel. When Ava goes missing? Actually Ava drifts as Samantha joins Bunnies, and guilt threads. Did Samantha abandon real for fake. That question hurts more than any monster because it is ordinary. Grad school changes friendships. New groups demand time. Old friends feel left. No magic needed. Awad lets that ordinary loss sit beside extraordinary horror. Both true. Check your own Avas while reading. Text them. Do not wait until they vanish into plot. I texted mine mid book. She replied with eye roll and love. Good. Keep Avas. Even when Bunnies offer cupcakes. Especially then. Cupcakes cost. Friendship pays. Choose wisely, or rather, choose both until forced. Forced comes. Choose kindly when it does. Hard. Necessary. Book shows failure as well as try. Learn from failure. Call back. Apologize. Bring snacks, not excuses. Snacks help. Excuses do not. Bring both if must, lead with snacks.

Workshop as horror

The MFA workshop setting is perfect satire that becomes real horror without changing much. Polite cruelty. I love your use of breath. I felt the bunny as mother. Grades as lifelines. Awad, who teaches, writes it with affection and fangs. Professors absent or lecherous. Students perform vulnerability for approval. Samantha's stories, dark and strange, get dismissed as unlikable while Bunnies coo over each other's pastel gore. That dynamic will resonate with anyone workshopped. Taste as power. Who decides good. The Bunnies decide together, which is strength and menace. Collective praise can lift or smother. Here it does both. Enjoy satire first hundred pages. Laugh at lines like we loved the arch of the bunny's neck. I did. Then notice laughter curdling as Bunnies invite Samantha to collaborate on making boys. Making as in creating. Oh. Horror arrives as extension of workshop. Critique into creation into monsters. Follow that slide. It is short. From let's make this story better to let's make a boyfriend better. Small step. Huge teeth. Do not follow in life. Revise pages, not people. Important boundary. Bunnies cross. Watch. Learn. Do not copy. Revise drafts. Love people as is, even creepy workshop boys. Especially them. They are human before material. Remember. Bunnies forget. You should not. Hold line. Write, do not make. Good rule for art and life. Post above desk. Read when tempted to fix friends. Fix sentences instead. Kinder. Safer. Better stories too. Trust.

The Bunnies themselves, individually named but collectively called, fascinate because they are both stereotype and subversion. Pastel dresses. Cupcakes. Bunny nicknames. They seem vapid. Then they discuss theory sharply, write disturbing work, and conduct rituals with axes and sugar. That turn from ditzy to dangerous could feel cheap. Awad prevents by giving each Bunny flashes of interior sadness. Eating disorders. Mothers. Money fears. Their sweetness is armor and weapon. They learned to survive male workshop by forming pack. Pack protects and devours. Understand before judging. I did after initial eye roll. Oh, they are strategic, not silly. That realization implicates reader snobbery like Samantha's. We mocked pink. Pink mocked back with fangs. Fair. Check bias about feminine performance. Liking cupcakes does not preclude making monsters. Both can coexist. Respect complexity. Fear it a little too. Healthy fear. Keep distance while admiring nails. Nails sharp. Compliments sharper. Accept. Do not join ritual without reading fine print. Fine print says blood. Read. Always read. Even when lonely. Especially then. Loneliness signs fast. Slow down. Call Ava. Eat real food. Sleep. Then decide. Good.

Jonah and other workshop boys as creations, or as real boys turned creations, drive body horror that is gross, funny, and sad. The Bunnies make men from bunnies? Actually from rabbits plus desire, crafting ideal boyfriends who melt, smell, and need care. Those boy monsters, sweet and rotting, embody what happens when fantasies made flesh meet reality. They leak. They stink. They love too much. Samantha helps make one and feels maternal horror. Did I birth this needy thing. That maternal disgust will hit readers who ever idealized partners into projects. Projects leak. People rot when shaped. Lesson lands with gore to ensure memory. Do not sculpt lovers. Date humans with flaws. Feed bunnies as pets, not husbands. Keep species boundaries. Wise advice generally. Apply beyond book. Love people, not potential. Potential melts. People remain, messy. Choose messy human over melting ideal. Every time. Book proves with slime. Believe slime. Learn. Laugh while learning. Slime helps memory. You will not forget melting boyfriend. Good. Remember when tempted to fix partner. Stop. Buy rabbit as pet. Cuddle. Do not kiss into prince. Princes disappoint. Rabbits comfort. Choose rabbits. Real ones. Not made ones. Important distinction. Mind.

What melts

What melts is reality itself in the last third, which divides readers most. Parties where bunnies become rabbits become girls. Time loops. Samantha may be unreliable due to pills, grief, or magic. Awad refuses to clarify. Did rituals work or did Samantha break. Both readings supported. Fans of clear horror may frustrate. Embrace ambiguity as theme. Art school blurs real and made. Drugs blur more. Grief blurs most. Samantha grieves father? Actually mother? No, father? She carries loss that surfaces late. That grief explains need to belong and to make. Making fills hole. Hole remains. Accept hole. Do not fill with bunnies. Fill with talk. Ava offers talk. Bunnies offer sugar and axes. Choose talk, though sugar tempts. I chose sugar too often in twenties. Understand. Forgive self while choosing better now. Call friend. Eat protein. Sleep. Write weird story about urge rather than acting. Art as container, not spell. Book models both uses. Use as container. Do not cast. Easier said. Try anyway. With support. Get support if blurring. Book is funhouse, not guide. Exit to daylight after. Daylight helps. Walk outside. Touch real bunny at shelter. Volunteer. Ground. Good.

Prose style is lush and funny, first person present with similes that pile. Bunnies like pastel cupcakes left in rain. Boys like wet bread. Workshop like dentist office with perfume. At 320 pages in the Viking edition, the voice sustains, but middle ritual repetitions tire. Another salon. Another cupcake. Another chant. Around page 200 I skimmed a making scene that echoed earlier. Trimming twenty pages would help. Still, voice carries. Samantha's bitchy warmth, observant and self loathing, charms even when plot loops. She notices socks, smells, texts. Those details ground surreal. Hold details when lost. Sock color. Tea type. Return to concrete when bunnies chant. Concrete saves. Practice in life when overwhelmed. Name five things you see. Ground. Book teaches inadvertently. Use. Name. Breathe. Then face hive. Hive less scary when socks noted. Try. Works. My therapist endorses. Yours might. Ask. Bring book to session if brave. Discuss belonging versus self. Good session fuel. Many therapists assign. Mine did not, but would approve. Maybe. Ask yours. No shame. Books as prompts. Use.

Who it is for

Read it if you like campus satire with gore, feminist horror with humor, unreliable narrators with heart. It is standalone, though Awad wrote Rouge as spiritual sibling. Content includes body horror, gore, death, drug use, sexual situations, language. Bunny making scenes ooze and melt with smell. Suitable for adults and older teens comfortable with weird and gross, with breaks for slime fatigue.

Facts to cite are clean. First published June 11, 2019 by Viking. Hardcover runs 320 pages with ISBN 9780525559733. Author Mona Awad wrote it after Bunny short story. No series. Tags that fit are horror, satire, feminist, campus, weird.

I closed it checking my own workshop stories for bunnies, which is a strange urge that feels right after. Am I making characters or using people. Write to find out, not to fix. The 320 page Viking book with ISBN above will not teach plotting. It will teach tone, how to be funny and frightening in one sentence. Practice that sentence. Bunnies like knives in pastel sheaths. Write your own. Sharpen. Sheathe in pink if you like. Wield kindly in workshop. Critique pages, not persons. Make snacks, not boyfriends. Keep Ava close. Text now. I did. She replied with bunny emoji and knife emoji. Perfect. Both. Always both. Good. Bye for now. Going to pet real rabbit. Recommend. Soft. No chanting. Just thump. Listen. Calm. Good.

Workshopping kindly

What the book finally taught me, past slime, was how to workshop without becoming Bunny or Samantha at her worst. Critique pages with specificity and kindness. Name what moved. Ask what confused. Offer options, not orders. The Bunnies praise each other into sameness, which feels good and weakens work. Samantha dismisses to feel superior, which feels strong and isolates. Both fail. Better path is Ava like honesty from outside. Say what you felt as reader. I laughed here. I skimmed here. I worried here. Those I statements help writers without claiming authority. Practice in your own groups. Ban phrases like unlikeable or problematic without examples. Require page numbers. Require quotes. That discipline turns taste into craft. The 320 page Viking edition with ISBN 9780525559733 satirizes workshops that lack it. Learn by negative example. Do opposite. Praise specifically. Question gently. Suggest sparingly. Leave room for author intent. Ask what story wants to be before saying what you want. That question respects autonomy the Bunnies violate when making boys. Do not make people. Help pages become themselves. Good workshop maxim. Post it. Follow. Apologize when you slip into fixing persons. All slip. Repair fast. Bring snacks to next session as peace. Snacks help. Humility helps more. Bring both. Lead with humility. Follow with cookies. Better meetings follow. Try. Note change. Keep.

Ava as keeper deserves a last paragraph because she models friendship under art stress. She visits, teases, tells truth about cult vibes, leaves when needed, returns when called. She does not compete for program approval. That outside stance saves Samantha at key moment, which I will not detail to preserve late turn. Suffice to say real friend beats hive when hive demands blood. Keep one Ava if you enter competitive programs. Nurture with time and honesty. Call weekly. Share non school news. Cook together. Do not only vent about workshop. Venting bonds but narrows. Share joy too. Walk without talking craft. That breadth keeps friendship from becoming auxiliary seminar. My Ava and I now walk without books sometimes. Talk dogs. Weather. Soup. Those walks sustain more than critique swaps. Do same. Schedule non art time with art friends. Protect it. Bunnies intrude otherwise, cooing about projects at dinner. Set boundary. No shop talk after dessert. Enforce kindly. Laugh. Redirect. Good boundaries keep friends when programs end, as programs always end. What remains are Avas who text back with emojis. Keep them. Be one. Text now before forgetting. Do. Good. Soft rabbit awaits after. Pet. Breathe. Write tomorrow kinder. Yes. Go.