#mona awad bunny

[hannahlockillustration]

Bunny - Mona Awad

(Let me illustrate some book covers pls)

[pasteld0ll6]

guess what im reading 🤭

[mkultrag1rl]

Oh, Bunny!

our tribute to Creepy Doll, Vignette and the wonderful Darlings in Mona Awad's Bunny

[that-one-girls-blog-posts]

girly/-girl🎀

because no matter what you like, you're never doing it right

I don't play about my girly girl things, I'm gonna reclaim all that shit! yes I am girl, I like my shallow hobbies I like my shallow thoughts and I'm gonna prove you wrong about them again and again

indulge or look down upon but girl beware to them I'm worth just as much as you are!

I'm sensitive, I have an eye for visuals and aesthetics, my makeup is art, I like my basic music, the lyrics get me, my impractical styling the fake, the fixed, the plastered and caked, all a calming ritual reminding me of beauty throughout the day

I let them dump all their "at least she can walk in them heals", "those nails probably make great weapons","she does have the body for that dress","I bet that hair and makeup took her hours"and"oh what an interesting outfit" 's on me!

let them go to bed with the satisfaction that they are better than me while I close my eyes and smile at all the stupidly girl things that make me happy

I let them feel satisfied with their wit when I uncomfortably smile at those backhanded compliments and I feel satisfied with my heart for not coming up with a single mean thing to come back with, because I can see beyond my interests!

your looks are cool, your words are cool, your thoughts are cool, and your girls so cool and important and not just accepted or tolerated but celebrated, not like those other girls, not like me, at least not right now, when we need them smart instead of sexy, because ofcourse both doesn't exist

but no! keep looking down at us with your normal life and mature behavior and proper ways, you with your artsy sporty smarty lifestyle, your games and books and fancy equipment, which "DONT TOUCH you're gonna break it, just go back to brushing your hair!" which "oh you're into that book? I bet the boys like that about you!" which "ugh just try harder princess and the pea!" and there will be pretty pink pop culture fashionista which "no makeup can fix this", "no glow up make you right", "you're not girly enough to be girl", "no letting you in until you've consumed all we did already so long ago"

be girly or be reasonable, madonna or whore, girls fight no more, be shallow or deep, Lilith or eve, it doesn't matter what you like because girl you're never doing it right, smart or dumb cause that's what that is

girls can't do make up and science fair CHOOSE

girls can't read romance and classics CHOOSE

girls can't like videogames and shopping CHOOSE

so you do and you do it wrong only girly girls like shopping, only sporty girls can run, only smart girls know history

if your hobby is skincare or reading or something else, it's valid, it's not a hobby, it's right, it's wrong and useless and helpful and beautiful and ridiculous and shallow and deep depending on the observer because it's girl!

but all our hobbies are ruined by machines you support capitalism and small peoples dreams, the products made by brands instead of innovative minds, you empower some and you hurt others, the books made of tropes instead of plots, the projects about honor instead of encouraging curiosity, the matches about money instead of skills and play

so there might never be no taking eachothers hand and showing them what girl is like, no loving eachother because we're all right, in this conversation, too different, not all the same but maybe someday aware that the problem was never girl and always system

they applaud intellect by calling others stupid, and drool at the overstyled you're not supposed to be like

my friend does math like no one else so quick and easy and always right but when she wears a dress they laugh all night, I do my math counting with nail polishes and stuffed animals but they see my dress and it's me they wanna dance with, now look at it from one side or the other, they deem both of us worthless none better than the other

by simply liking the things I like, I've been called silly, ditzy and shallow, girly all my life but hobbies are hobbies no matter if you disagree! coffee runs and hearts on my notes and trying new hairstyles, I wear my ribbons and glitter and "fakestuff" while impressing you with knowledge you thought "someone like me" couldn't posess, knowledge which you still explain slow and easy back to me not because I didn't get it but because you never will

girl isn't ditzy, girl isn't pointless, girl isn't too stupid to understand! it's misogyny not respecting women and tainting the term girl with their lack of taking me seriously

and one more word to be perfectly clear "girls" and "girly girls" and "non girly girls" and "girly not girls" if things are bad as they often are, and no one will accept you not even one of us, be confident, embrace and accept, only you have the power to truly validate yourself

[mintytea-exe]

g-d I loved the psychological horror that Mona Awad depicted in Bunny so much, and now reading Rouge and seeing the development of her style of writing is fantastic

[fox-under-the-willow-tree]

Bunny- Mona Awad Book Review

Story:

Part of me feels the only appropriate way to describe this book is in colourful emojis or handwritten in my own blood. Some described this novel as Heathers meets The Secret History, but that doesn't fully cover it. It also gives me "fever dream Scream Queens teenage girls laughing behind your back Electra Heart blood guts and cake" vibes. Samantha Macky is a girl who's slowly becoming part of a creepy clique run by four girls who only refer to each other by the name "Bunny". She is one day invited to join them and things go berserk pretty quickly. The Bunnies only refer to each other as one hivemind collective and perform strange rituals with rabbits. As you read, you start to question the sanity of the protagonist and even whether what she's describing is real or just in her head.

Analysis:

As this novel takes place in a prestigious university in which Samantha majors in creative writing, I wouldn't be surprised if this novel exists on a meta level. There are many moments in which reality and fiction blur. The dance partner she and Ava made up, her fantasising about the Bunnies, surrealist events that take place that can't take place in reality. Events in which people randomly appear and disappear in a scene, not to mention the insane ceremony she and the Bunnies partake in.

Furthermore, Samantha keeps writing about how at the end of the year she has to hand in a manuscript for one the professors with whom she has a tense relationship.

I argue the Bunnies are plane ordinary girls, but they reflect a deep fear of Samantha, as she is a closeted queer person who struggles with identity and feels intimidated by extreme displays of womanhood. Not to mention that she never is involved with a man and is clearly deeply in love with Ava. This story could be her way of villafying traditional displays of womanhood as a way to cope with her struggles being a closeted queer person.

Anyway, the first 150 pages were great, but there was no resolution, no definitive answers, no climax. So it went from 5 stars to 3,5 for me.

Mona Awad is a talented writer, but the story was unnecessarily dragged out past the 300 page mark. If you want an analysis similar to mine, I recommend this video:

[child-of-hurin]

I’m sorryyyyy about Bunny I just needed someone else to experience it!

-@outofangband

I liked it though! I had a lot of fun for half of it, and regardless of how I feel about the ending, I do not regret reading it <3

[belle-keys]

I hate how the booktokification of the “unhinged woman” genre has completely reduced the concept of female rage to just “girlboss” without taking seriously how important it is to unequivocally portray female rage.

Throughout the history of literature, we’ve been given countless instances of women in despair and in sadness but save for a few writers (take Euripides, for example), we’ve rarely ever been given angry women who aren’t the villains or the foil for the perfect poised passive princess. Female rage has constantly been subdued and erased or warped into “she’s just batshit crazy” in pretty much every society.

And now that publishing and media marketing has reduced women showing rage in books to the “white hypersexual girlboss with a knife”, instead of uplifting the way women are allowed to have more dimension and sympathy in their visible anger than ever in literature, the media still isn’t taking this subgenre seriously.

[darksophistication]

girls should be allowed to go feral and unhinged. as a treat.

[d3cayingdolly]

"She’s looking at me so hopefully. So willing to take a coat I’m not wearing, I almost want to give her my skin.”

- 'bunny' by mona awad moodboard

(i'm the no.1 cupcake stan with no shame)

[abnormalpsychology]

I like to call this the “In Just Seven Days, I Can Make You A Man” family of media

[hannahlockillustration]

Bunny without text.

[knightsickness]

mona awad’s bunny is fun and topical gender and class commentary specifically tearing apart that genre of woman intellectual who knows all the language of feminist theory and uses it to justify being viciously sexist and racist bc this world is sooo big big big and full of scary (poor) people who’d probably rape me and horrible (not girl’s girls !!) bitches who want to be raped and im just an innocent little girl (she is 25) trying to make something beautiful (she maims animals). unfortunately youll never guess precisely which group got extremely into bunny as a straightforward ‘yuck boys !!’ ‘feminine rage’ book

[yourhoneymoongirl]

[softpoetrygf]

yes babe you’re so bunny a certain hunger my year of rest and relaxation boy parts the pisces gone girl milk fed nightbitch the bell jar the virgin suicides earthlings pizza girl vladimir and ily for it

[swanmittens]

૮꒰ ˶• ༝ •˶꒱ა 🦢🎀🍒🥣

. ྀི ⊹ “We never joke about bunnies, Bunny.”

⁺ ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ -Bunny by Mona Awad ⋆୨୧˚ ⋆

(My most favorite book ever)