It’s ‘Mean Girls’ meets ‘Heathers’ meets ‘The Craft’
This review contains certain spoilers.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Suffice it to say, Mona Awad's sophomore Bunny is a handful. We start with a cattier, dark academia version of Regina George and the Plastics and the seeming cliché of the new, unassuming "outsider" who miraculously gets inducted into said group. But the cliché pretty much ends right there with the performative friendship between grown women in pastel cupcake dresses and the meek, relatable protagonist who hates everything they represent and is still, predictably, trying too hard to fit in—because the rest of the book, I must tell you, is a trip and a half. However, I was surprised to find that the grand consensus on that is pretty divisive. There were some people who loved the book while some didn't even bother finishing it. Me? I perhaps belong in that third group, where I did have my moments of snapping the book shut mid chapter and wanting to forget about it, only to realise that I, in fact, was not capable of doing that. Once the basics were established every line felt like a page turner; Bunny even had me routinely check the page numbers to make sure I hadn't accidentally flipped to the wrong chapter and skipped entire conversations.
A part of me wishes I could end the review right here, because going into the completely blind is perhaps the best guaranteed reading experience. You will never see the twists coming, the plot is so… weird. There I was—with all due respect—growing a little exhausted with the overdone metaphors and the plot still teetering around your run-of-the-mill coming of age story of the capital 'G' Girl-in-College trying to get around campus drama, when all of a sudden—spoiler alert—our narrator is watching her high school crush's head explode in front of her face. And no, it's not a metaphor; his ear literally drops at her feet, followed by his headless suited body.
Moving onto the story: Bunny follows our narrator Samantha Mackey, an MFA graduate at the revered Warren University, as she enters her last semester, and accompanying Samantha in her creative writing course is the cult, pardon me, the close-knit, insular group of four girls who love to call each other Bunnies. It is established from the very first few lines that Samantha is not too fond of them and she even prefers dismissive nicknames to their real ones: Duchess is the queen bee; Cupcake dresses like a cupcake, to the point where Samantha wants to take a bite out of her shoulder; Creepy Doll is obsessed with fairy tales; and Vignette is the punk one that seems "perpetually enveloped in opium smoke". And at times, Samantha does not even bother with the nicknames, only addressing them as Bunny—as a collective hive-mind, cult of communal consciousness that has resulted in this homogenised, dehumanised lump of self. They all operate as one, and Samantha will soon be a part of that.
Things start fairly innocently. A disgruntled Samantha judging the Bunnies at the annual homecoming party of The Narrative Arts' Department that insists on the word "demitasse" instead of party because, "this school is too Ivy and New England to call a party a party". She is fortunately accompanied by Ava, the only friend she has, who also happens to happily share the same opinions as Samantha. Ava is cooler and better than the Bunnies because she doesn't care, she works in the basement of the nature lab, shelving dead bugs into little glass drawers and occasionally gets drunk to raid the student campus tours to make a scene, and Samantha loves her for it.
Their friendship drives the principal conflict of the book. When Samantha receives a surprising invite to the Bunnies' "Smut Salon", an invite-only exclusive get-together at Cupcake's apartment and is forced to choose between Ava and the Bunnies, Samantha chooses the Bunnies and the bile-green, acidic concoction they craft especially for her and its unrelenting bitter aftertaste is an eerie premonition of what's to come.
Samantha is instantly overwhelmed by the Bunnies and their newfound affection for her: they call out her name whenever they see her on campus, they attempt small talk, Vignette's half smile, Samantha describes, "waxes to three quarters". And despite her primary indignation, their affirming nods and smiles deeply affects Samantha. As it slowly weaves her into an intricate friendship with them, it's too late before she notices the tables have turned. Samantha starts to grow increasingly dependent on the Bunnies while Ava continues to disappear out of her life. Completely.
And it only gets stranger from here. I would never forgive myself if I proceeded to spoil more of the book and so I must stop here. However, one very important requirement for the reader is to have your suspension of disbelief properly suspended. Because the best part of this book is perhaps the fact that all the weird, bonkers cultish stuff just happens with no rhyme or reason to it. But that's not to mean that it is presented as pointless or idiotic. Mona Awad masterfully crafts a narrative around the darker side of female friendships—the strange clique-y, cult-y mentality that exists around us whether we acknowledge it or not.
Bunny is also a clever satire around the culture of mean girls and social class. I love how Samantha, despite being presented as an outsider and the main character, is still not exempt from the criticism or satire because everything she tirelessly complains about is a direct critique of herself as well. Despite being a self-proclaimed outlier, she fails to notice her own privilege in being able to afford an MFA degree in 'Narrative Arts' of all things. She does not have the foresight to realise how self critical she's being everytime she complains about the Bunnies. It is beautifully ironic with an ending that will have you seething and reeling and confused all at the same time.
Bunny is one wonderful, annoying, extremely weird rollercoaster. Margaret Atwood possibly puts it best: "Oh Bunny, you are sooooo genius." Because she truly is.
Arshi Ibsan Radifah is a Literature major who loves unreliable narrators and Wes Anderson movie sets. If she had it her way she would have liked to play bass for a girl band in the 90s, but for now she'll suffice by rewatching Empire Records.
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