Bunny

This review will contain minor spoilers of the story. Read at your own risk!

Fever-dream. Intense. Strange. Dark. Hallucinatory—I can go on and on. Mona Awad’s Bunny was one of the most unique fiction novels I’ve read in 2023. Is it a mystery? Horror? Thriller? Does it fall under magic-realism, dark academia, or both? Besides the masterful genre hopping, this book also makes you question the MC’s (and your own) sanity with every new chapter.

It took me longer than usual to formulate my thoughts and review because that’s what this story does. It leaves you speechless and honestly a little (or a lot) confused.

“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.

Not only does the climax reveal a seismic plot twist that leaves you with trust issues, the language throughout the book starts warp and change as Samantha falls deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole (pun intended). It wasn’t until her best friend, Ava practically kidnaps her to try to shake her from her Bunny-induced psychosis before I realized just how messed up the language had become.

“But Bunny says we aren’t going deep enough. We need to go deeper. We need to be rougher rawer, and richer, like the night.”

When she’s in the thick of it, Samantha’s thoughts start to blend with the Bunnies, taking on one unified brain where each could read the other’s thoughts and communicate wordlessly amongst the whole group. The characters also lose their individual identities and you can only tell who’s speaking by remembering the minute descriptions of the characters’ appearance, writing style, and personalities at the start of the book. Samantha even forgets who Ava is and it takes her some time to recall how she fits into her life. All of these elements create a visceral feeling for readers as you follow Samantha’s journey.

My mind raced at a million miles a minute once I finished the book as I contemplated hidden themes like mental health and schizophrenia. But taking a step back, I can see a simpler, clearer theme that still feels satisfying: Sometimes you have to “kill your darlings” to move forward whether in writing or life. For Samantha, this meant getting out of her own head, leaving her imaginary life behind, and finally removing herself from Warren.