Review: Bunny by Mona Awad

Make no mistake, Bunny is one of the best novels I have read in 2021. A brilliant satire on The Secret History, it tells the story of Samantha Heather Mackey, a lonely and introverted creative writing student who watches her cliquey classmates--a group of four sickeningly twee women who call one another Bunny--with both awe and envy. When Samantha is invited one day to join one of their famous 'Smut Salons' she uncovers far more than she expects ...

Cleverly blurring the lines between what is reality and what is part of a creative writing assignment, Bunny takes numerous twists and turns as it perfectly satirises campus life, and campus cliques. Samantha could be well, any introverted girl, while we've all known and loathed a clique like the Bunnies. The twists are filled with blood and gore and these women truly are the most ghastly things in existence. Or it could all just be a part of Samantha's thesis. Either way, as long as readers don't enter this one expecting a serious horror novel, or for everything to make perfect sense, they're in for a treat. 

I enjoyed reading this one, perhaps even a little more than what I expected to, and ended up reading the second half in a single sitting as I was so keen to know how it all worked out. It was fun to guess at which scenes were real and which were scenes a part of Samantha's assignment. The novel ends with a line that is a bit of a WTF moment, one that perhaps the novel could have done without. Then again, it does offer an additional twist ...

Overall, this is an enjoyable, twisty read with lots of gore that shouldn't be taken too seriously. That said, it's definitely a novel that isn't going to appeal to everyone--skip it for now if what you're after is a light escapist read with loveable characters. For anyone else looking for gore amid absurd situations ...

Highly recommended.

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