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Staff Pick
Getting into the MFA program at Warren University was supposed to transform her life, but Samantha hates it there. She hates the sinister slant of the golden afternoon light, she hates her dingy apartment and the flasher who hangs around outside, she hates the rumors of random beheadings in the downtown area. But she hates the Bunnies most of all. Privileged, vapid, and unbearably perky, the only other members of her fiction writing class have formed a parasitic girl gang. Their ostentatious, performative joy is the bane of Samantha’s existence... until they invite her to join and dabble in the dark arts. What follows is one of the strangest stories I have ever encountered, one that is equal parts campy, snarky, and terrifying. It’s an incredibly unique way to explore the creative process, female friendships, and the universal journey towards establishing selfhood, and Mona Awad pulls it off with biting humor. Endlessly dark and toxically sweet, Bunny is a burnt sugar horror show of violent delights and violent ends. Recommended By Lauren P., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
"A wild, audacious and ultimately unforgettable novel." Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times
"Every time I open it up, I stumble upon a crackling sentence." Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Awad is a stone-cold genius." Ann Bauer, The Washington Post
The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel from the acclaimed author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
"We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?"
Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort — a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight they become one.
But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door — ditching her only friend, Ava, a caustic art school dropout, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the sinister yet saccharine world of the Bunny cult and starts to take part in their ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they magically conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision.
Review
"Outstanding ...highly addictive, darkly comedic...Awad will have readers racing to find out how it all ends — and they won’t be disappointed. This is an enchanting and stunningly bizarre novel." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Hilarious and subversive, magical and knife-sharp. This novel — a send-up of academia, an astute exploration of class in creative circles, and an ode to the uncanny power of art — confirms Mona Awad as one of our great chroniclers of what it means to be alive right now. Bunny is a stunner." Laura van den Berg, author of The Third Hotel
Review
"A spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from an author whose work has been described as "honest, searing and necessary." Elle
About the Author
Mona Awad is the author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize that won the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the Colorado Book Award, and an Honorable Mention from the Arab American Book Awards. It was also longlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award and the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. The recipient of an MFA in Fiction from Brown University and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Denver, she has published work in Time, VICE, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.