Bunny

I think it was all my fault because I was expecting it to be a lot different since I read a lot of reviews. It's such a pity because I wanted to love this book so much. It got really slow at the third part (for me), maybe because of those expectations.
The plot twist was really good tho and I didn't see it coming, to be honest.
One problem that I can think of is maybe the way the descriptions of the scenes are made. I didn't understand a lot of things, half of the time I was really confused (and maybe that was the point).
I don't know how to explain it, it was just fine for me. I didn't love it but I didn't hate it neither.

I loved how absurd and unhinged this book was. The writing style was a treat and I enjoyed the satire a great deal. I was a bit afraid of the horror aspects, but I could handle them just fine. If you're not usually into horror, please don't skip this book just because of that!

So much of this book reminds me of Life is Strange, Black Swan, and Mean Girls. But in the best way! When I finished this, I was left with so many questions wanted to do a re-read straight away.

I find it difficult to rate this book. It left me so confused that I started questioning my ability to follow a story in a foreign language. If other reviews are to be trusted I am not alone in my confusion, but contrary to them I cannot know whether my own lack of awareness is at fault here.

It started well though. I was intrigued to see what the premise and setting would lead to. But further in the book, as more and more pages were turned, I became perplexed then disinterested then annoyed. And I had made it as far as the last thirty pages so I had to finish, didn't I? Fortunately skipping even entire paragraghs did not seem to matter much for the actual plot, especially by the end.

Because if I had to make a succinct description of this novel: 300+ pages of self pitied rambling dusted with teenage drama. The latter could have been interesting if the main character had stopped wallowing in her misery so that we had time to focus on the rest of the cast. If you're looking for horror, which I did expect a bit of given how this book was advertised, just keep moving because there is no meat to it.

I might come back to this in a while and spit at my past self for not realizing how brilliant this piece of work has been all along. But for now I'll have to accept that I'm missing out.

The Secret History meets Mean Girls meets…well, one other book and one other movie which, if I name either, will reveal too much about this story. While it always feels like a cop-out because it means that I can’t say much, the less you know about this book, the better. Seriously, don’t even look at other reviews. There are inadvertent spoilers there too. Suffice to say, this was a dark, twisted, adamantium-razor-sharp story and a thoroughly gripping read. Also, there were times when I identified so strongly with the main character and felt so intensely seen that I wondered how Mona Awad knew so much about my past. It tapped into an old well of anxious, interpersonal woe that I seldom think about these days, but was surprised to find felt no less vivid for the passing of years. Equal parts distressing and validating in an ‘I thought it was just me’ sort of way. Oh, the magic of books.

This needs a drinking game. Take a shot every time...
- she gets lost in her head in the middle of an imbecilic conversation and the person has to recall her attention five times.
- people wave for an extremely long time.
- she doesn't know what's real.
- she doesn't want to go to a party and then inexplicably decides to go.
- she thinks that she should slow down on drinking at a party and then doesn't.
- instead of actually saying something to someone, she makes up what she would say, and then they would say, for like, ten minutes straight
- she doesn't write
- she lies for no apparent reason
- someone is described as having “fuck-you eyes.”
- "in the hour between the dog and the wolf."
- someone keeps repeating her name while she gets lost in some incredibly long thought-sequence

This book is largely a tongue-in-cheek commentary on MFA programs and their workshop groups. There's also lots of humorous commentary on the writing process as well. It was pretty funny at doing all this, but sometimes repetitive.

I think this would go into the category of magical realism. There are certain things that happens with this bunny cult that don't make sense...I think we're supposed to accept that and move along without trying to figure it out. I could mostly get down with that. Also, towards the end of the book, there's an increasing amount of blurring the lines between what the protagonist thinks and what other characters know. I suppose this could be part of the magical realism or could be that she has schizophrenia (I guess that's what the ending is revealing?). If she has schizophrenia, I feel this could be clearer. I don't know. It didn't quite work for me.

Unfortunately there's also this one main problem I had. It got annoyingly repetitive how the protagonist does a lot of things that don't make sense and just...doesn't do anything. There's lots of inane conversations (extremely normal, boring conversations full of platitudes and generalities) where there's tons of inner thoughts interspersed between the monosyllables and 1/2/3-word sentences. In fact, most of the whole novel is the protagonist's thoughts. That's something I could get down with, but in this case, her inner thoughts aren't very interesting. They're repetitive, predictable. She's frozen and remains frozen almost all the time. She does change somewhat towards the end though, so that helped. It's just frustrating that so much of the novel is full of non-action and non-talking.

Another problem was that the characters aren't very three-dimensional. Granted, some of the characters are all in her head...but Jonah isn't and the bunnies aren't unless I'm reading it wrong? And they're all so one-dimensional. The most nuanced characters were side-characters, her professors.

So...this was a mixed bag for me. Definitely funny oftentimes, but just too repetitive and not psychologically interesting enough for me.