ted's book nook

• author: mona awad
• genre: horror, magical realism, contempory
• pages: 373

“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.”

Samantha Heather Mackey has a dark imagination. She also detests the rest of her writing cohort at school – a collection of girls, all as twee and unreal as each other, all calling each other ‘Bunny’. When they invite Samantha to come over for what they call a ‘Slut Salon’, she finds herself falling down a rabbit hole of fantasy and horror, where reality fades away and monsters are created.

Bunny is one of those books that I first saw because of how polarising it was. I was seeing people either loving or hating it, and I make a habit of picking up those kinds of books to see where I fall. The last time, with Tender is the Flesh, I ended up really loving it. This time? Well, I’m not so sure.

That’s not to say this book was bad, by any means. The writing was entirely unique and the characters stood out to me perfectly. What brought it down, I think, was that I didn’t necessarily find it funny, which when the cover has the word ‘Hilarious’ included in a quote is a bit of a let down. It was also (intentionally) incredibly saccharine and juvenile in places, and the fact that everything in the end came down to a boy of all things was not my vibe.

However. It was weird, bizarre, off the wall, and defiantly satirical, and if you are interested in those things then this may be worth picking up. Bunny is full to the brim with allegory relating to female experience, girlhood, the tribulations of cliques, loneliness, and how we can ultimately become our own worst enemies.