Bunny by Mona Awad

In the rarefied air of an elite MFA program, where artistic pretension coats every surface like a suffocating gauze, Mona Awad’s “Bunny” takes readers down a rabbit hole of psychological horror and surrealist satire. Published in 2019, this novel is a startlingly original exploration of creative loneliness, toxic female friendships, and the monstrous power of imagination. Like a confection laced with poison, “Bunny” is at once sickeningly sweet and deeply disturbing—a combination that lingers long after the final page.

The Warren Otherworld: Setting and Atmosphere

Awad creates in Warren University a perfectly claustrophobic backdrop for her twisted tale. This elite New England institution, with its ivy-choked buildings and insular creative writing program, feels both real and nightmarish. The contrast between the pristine campus and the threatening town surrounding it creates an immediate sense of unease. The novel’s primary setting—a classroom called “the Cave”—is aptly named, as it becomes the womb-like space where the most disturbing aspects of imagination are birthed.

The atmosphere fluctuates masterfully between saccharine sweetness and creeping dread. Awad employs sensory details with precision—the Bunnies’ “grassy perfume,” the scent of “baked lemony sugar,” and later, the smell of “muffin mix on fire.” These olfactory cues signal shifts between reality and fantasy, creating an increasingly disorienting reading experience that mirrors Samantha’s psychological state.

Character Dissection: The Outsider and Her Bunnies

At the center of this surreal narrative is Samantha Heather Mackey, a scholarship student whose dark imagination and profound alienation make her both sympathetic and suspicious as a narrator. Awad has crafted in Samantha a protagonist whose loneliness is so palpable it practically drips from the page. Her caustic observations about the “Bunnies”—a clique of rich girls in her program who call each other “Bunny” and move in saccharine synchronicity—provide the novel’s initial satirical bite.

The Bunnies themselves are a brilliant creation—a collective nightmare of performative femininity and privilege. Individually named Eleanor (the Duchess), Caroline (Cupcake), Kira (Creepy Doll), and Victoria (Vignette), they function as both a Greek chorus and a monstrous hydra. Awad gives each Bunny just enough individual personality to make them recognizable without diminishing their terrifying hive-mind quality.

Ava, Samantha’s only friend, serves as a counterpoint to the Bunnies with her height, her fishnet veil, and her caustic worldview. She represents the authentic alternative to the Bunnies’ manufactured sweetness. However, as the novel progresses, the line between what (and who) is real becomes increasingly blurred.

Plot Unraveling: From Satire to Surrealism

The plot of “Bunny” by Mona Awad follows a trajectory as twisted as the bizarre creatures conjured in the story. What begins as dark academic satire—complete with pretentious workshop sessions and eye-rolling artistic terminology—gradually morphs into something far stranger:

1. The Initial Alienation: Samantha’s outsider status and her friendship with Ava
2. The Unexpected Invitation: The Bunnies mysteriously invite Samantha to their “Smut Salon”
3. The Seduction: Samantha’s gradual acceptance and integration into the Bunny fold
4. The Workshop Revealed: The horrific ritual where bunnies are transformed into male students
5. The Unraveling Reality: Samantha’s grip on what’s real becomes increasingly tenuous
6. The Violent Collision: The fatal confrontation between Samantha’s worlds

This progression allows Awad to start in a recognizable reality before gradually introducing fantastical elements, testing the reader’s willingness to follow along just as Samantha is tested. The pacing is deliberate—slow at first, allowing us to settle into the satirical tone, then increasingly frenetic as reality dissolves.

Thematic Exploration: The Dark Heart of “Bunny”

Beneath its bizarre trappings, “Bunny” by Mona Awad explores several profound themes:

• Loneliness and Belonging: Samantha’s desperate need to connect drives her to betray Ava and join the Bunnies despite her contempt for them
• Creative Authenticity vs. Artifice: The Workshop becomes a metaphor for the tension between genuine artistic expression and manufacturing what others want
• Class Anxiety in Academic Spaces: Samantha’s scholarship status among wealthy peers highlights educational inequality
• The Monstrous Feminine: The Bunnies’ ritualistic creation of men explores female desire and creativity as potentially destructive forces
• Reality vs. Imagination: The increasingly blurred line between what is happening and what Samantha is imagining raises questions about the nature of fiction itself

Awad weaves these themes together with such skill that even as the narrative grows more surreal, the emotional core remains painfully real.

Stylistic Brilliance: Prose that Bites

What elevates “Bunny” above mere satire is Mona Awad’s exceptional prose. Her language shifts between razor-sharp observation and dreamlike lyricism, often within the same paragraph. The repetitive phrases (“I love you, Bunny.” “I love you, Bunny.”) create an incantatory quality that enhances the novel’s hypnotic effect.

Awad shows particular skill in crafting dialogue that reveals character through speech patterns. The Bunnies speak in a distinctive, cloying vernacular filled with exaggerated enthusiasm and empty validation:

“Can I have five thousand more pages of this, please? Can I just say I loved living in your lines and that’s where I want to live now forever?”

Samantha’s interior monologue, by contrast, is caustic and self-aware, providing a necessary counterpoint to the Bunnies’ artificial sweetness. This contrast helps maintain the satirical edge even as the story ventures into increasingly bizarre territory.

Critical Assessment: Strengths and Weaknesses

What Works Magnificently

1. Genre-Bending Originality: Awad fearlessly blends academic satire, psychological horror, and magical realism into something genuinely unique
2. Character Development: Samantha’s gradual transformation from outsider to participant is psychologically convincing despite the surreal context
3. Thematic Depth: The novel’s exploration of female friendship, creative insecurity, and imagination transcends its bizarre premise
4. Linguistic Precision: The prose is both beautiful and purposeful, with each stylistic choice serving the narrative

Where the Rabbit Hole Falters

1. Narrative Coherence: The increasingly fractured reality in the novel’s second half, while thematically appropriate, can occasionally leave readers struggling to track what’s actually happening
2. Character Development Beyond Samantha: Some secondary characters, particularly the faculty members, remain somewhat flat
3. Resolution: The ending, though haunting, leaves some thematic threads unresolved in ways that may frustrate readers seeking clearer closure
4. Tonal Balance: The shift from satire to horror, while generally well-executed, occasionally results in tonal whiplash

Literary Connections: “Bunny” in Context

“Bunny” by Mona Awad sits comfortably alongside other works exploring the dark underbelly of academia and female relationships. It shares DNA with Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” in its exploration of elite educational spaces and ritualistic violence, though Awad pushes further into surrealism. Readers might also find echoes of Carmen Maria Machado’s “Her Body and Other Parties” in its blend of horror and feminist themes.

This novel marks a significant evolution from Awad’s debut, “13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl” (2016), which explored body image and female identity in a more realistic mode. While both books examine female relationships and identity, “Bunny” takes far greater formal and conceptual risks.

Final Verdict: A Mesmerizing Nightmare Worth Experiencing

“Bunny” by Mona Awad is not a comfortable read, nor is it meant to be. It’s a novel that deliberately destabilizes, that makes you question what you’ve read and whether you can trust your own interpretations. That quality—the ability to make readers feel slightly unhinged—is precisely what makes it so powerful.

For readers willing to embrace its weirdness, “Bunny” offers rich rewards: prose that sparkles with dark wit, a plot that refuses predictability, and insights into creativity and connection that feel genuinely earned despite the fantastical framework. Its flaws—the occasional muddiness in the narrative and some underdeveloped supporting characters—are minor compared to the audacity and execution of its vision.

In a literary landscape often criticized for playing it safe, Mona Awad’s bizarre, brilliant novel takes magnificent risks. Like the monstrous creations at its center, “Bunny” is strange, unsettling, and utterly unforgettable—a testament to the power of imagination in all its wonderful, terrible glory.

For fans of “Bunny,” Mona Awad’s newest follow-up “We Love You, Bunny” continues to explore this darkly enchanting world, while readers might also enjoy Melissa Broder’s “The Pisces,” Otessa Moshfegh’s “My Year of Rest and Relaxation,” or Sarah Gailey’s “Magic for Liars” for similarly boundary-pushing explorations of female psychology with elements of the fantastic.