Mona Awad’s “Bunny” is a fever dream disguised as a campus novel—a mesmerizing, hallucinatory journey through the looking glass of elite academia that leaves readers questioning the boundaries between reality and fantasy. Published in 2019, this sophomore effort from the author of “13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl” is equal parts savage social satire, psychological horror, and heartbreaking exploration of loneliness and belonging.
As I turned the final page, I found myself in that rare, stunned silence that only truly disorienting literature can produce—unsure if I’d just witnessed a masterpiece or a beautiful catastrophe. Perhaps it’s both, and therein lies its brilliance.
The Warren University Nightmare
The novel follows Samantha Heather Mackey, our sardonic, isolated narrator who finds herself adrift in the painfully pretentious world of Warren University’s MFA program. As an outsider—a scholarship student with dark sensibilities—Samantha is repelled by her fiction cohort: four wealthy, saccharine girls who call each other “Bunny” and seem to move, speak, and think as one hyper-feminine hive mind.
Awad masterfully establishes this dynamic in the novel’s opening lines: “We call them Bunnies because that is what they call each other. Seriously. Bunny.” From here, we’re immediately immersed in Samantha’s caustic perspective as she observes their “boa-constricting embraces” and listens to their empty literary platitudes (“Can I have five thousand more pages of this, please?”).
The only person who shares Samantha’s disdain is her friend Ava—a tall, feathery-haired, mesh-gloved art school dropout who smokes constantly and despises everything Warren represents. Their friendship forms the emotional core of the novel’s first section, until Samantha receives a mysterious invitation to the Bunnies’ “Smut Salon” and, inexplicably drawn to their world, abandons Ava to enter their orbit.
The Workshop from Hell
What follows is a descent into a surreal, increasingly unsettling version of academia. The Bunnies’ off-campus “Workshop” turns out to be actual witchcraft—a bizarre ritual where they literally create men from rabbits, transforming the animals into their ideal romantic partners with horrifying results. These “Drafts” or “Hybrids” are malformed creatures with speech impediments and physical deformities, which the Bunnies dispatch with axes when they fail to satisfy.
This central metaphor—of literary creation as a kind of monstrous conjuring—is where Awad’s genius truly shines. What student writer hasn’t felt the frustration of bringing something deformed and inadequate into the world? What workshop participant hasn’t witnessed the casual cruelty with which peers and professors dismember someone’s vulnerable creation?
Style and Substance: The Method in Awad’s Madness
Awad’s prose is a character unto itself—dense, lyrical, and often breathlessly unhinged. Sentences twist and wrap around themselves like the Bunnies’ arms around each other’s necks. The narrative voice shifts between first-person singular and plural as Samantha’s identity becomes increasingly entangled with the Bunny collective. Reality warps and bends until readers are unsure what’s actually happening and what exists only in Samantha’s feverish imagination.
Consider this passage where Samantha observes the Bunnies’ workshop ritual:
“They begin to chant some indiscernible words. It makes the pony in me clap its hooves and dance… They stare at the bunny twitching his ears in the middle of the room. One of them coughs from behind her cheap bunny mask with its plump pink cheeks like the bunny is wearing blush. Another one sighs.”
The surrealism builds so gradually that when the truly bizarre elements arrive—a blood-soaked axing ritual, exploding rabbits—they feel like a natural extension of the poisonous atmosphere rather than a sharp departure from reality.
Themes That Haunt
Behind the novel’s bizarre exterior beats a heart exploring resonant themes:
- The outsider’s desperation to belong: Samantha’s gradual seduction by the Bunny collective speaks to the powerful human need for acceptance, even when it means betraying oneself.
- The pretentiousness of elite academic spaces: Warren University is portrayed as a toxic bubble where students speak in incomprehensible jargon about “the Body” and “gesturing toward spaces.”
- The creative process as both salvation and destruction: The act of creation is portrayed as simultaneously life-giving and monstrously destructive.
- The nature of female friendship: From the saccharine toxicity of the Bunnies to Samantha’s intense bond with Ava, the novel explores the various ways women connect and harm each other.
- The blurry line between reality and imagination: As the novel progresses, distinctions between what’s actually happening and what exists in Samantha’s mind become increasingly unstable.
Strengths and Weaknesses: A Critical Assessment
What Works Beautifully
- The atmosphere: Awad creates a dreamlike, unsettling mood that perfectly captures the disorientation of graduate school and creative writing workshops.
- The satire: Her skewering of MFA program pretentiousness is both hilarious and painfully accurate.
- The horror elements: The novel seamlessly blends psychological and body horror with dark fairy tale elements.
- The voice: Samantha’s narrative voice is distinctive and compelling, even as it fragments and transforms.
What Could Be Stronger
- Plot coherence: The novel’s second half becomes increasingly difficult to follow as reality fragments, which will frustrate readers who prefer narrative clarity.
- Character development: Some characters, particularly the individual Bunnies, remain somewhat one-dimensional despite attempts to differentiate them.
- The ending: The conclusion, while emotionally resonant, leaves many questions unanswered and may feel unsatisfying to readers seeking resolution.
- Pacing: The middle section, where Samantha becomes immersed in Bunny culture, occasionally drags before the truly bizarre elements kick in.
In Literary Context: “Bunny” Among Its Peers
“Bunny” by Mona Awad exists in a fascinating literary lineage. It shares DNA with campus novels like Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” and Elif Batuman’s “The Idiot,” but pushes further into surrealism. Its blend of horror and fairy tale elements recalls Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties) and Kelly Link, while its satirical take on academia evokes Francine Prose’s “Blue Angel.”
The novel also continues themes from Awad’s critically acclaimed debut, “13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl”—particularly female relationships, body image, and outsider status—but with a more experimental approach.
Fans of “Bunny” by Mona Awad might also enjoy Samantha Hunt’s “Mr. Splitfoot,” Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas, or Ottessa Moshfegh’s “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”—all works that blend literary fiction with elements of the strange and uncanny.
Final Verdict: A Polarizing Masterpiece
“Bunny” by Mona Awad is not for everyone. Readers seeking a straightforward narrative will find themselves frustrated by its dreamlike logic and ambiguous resolution. But for those willing to surrender to its peculiar rhythms, it offers a uniquely disturbing and thought-provoking experience.
Like the strange creations the Bunnies conjure, “Bunny” by Mona Awad is sometimes beautiful, sometimes monstrous, and always compelling. It asks difficult questions about creativity, belonging, and identity without offering easy answers.
What makes the novel truly special is how it embodies the very thing it critiques: like the Bunnies’ Workshop, it’s a wild, sometimes failed experiment in literary creation—a conjuring that doesn’t always succeed but is fascinating in both its ambitions and its deformities.
In a literary landscape filled with safe, conventional fiction, Awad’s willingness to take risks and push boundaries is refreshing. “Bunny” may leave you bewildered, disturbed, or enchanted—likely all three—but it will certainly leave an impression.
