Name: Lapin
ISBN: 9782764443101

Mona Awad

"Pour Samantha, une étudiante en lettres de la Nouvelle Angleterre, ainsi que son amie Ava, ces quatres filles un peu étranges qui semblent vivre dans un monde pastel de licornes et de cupcakes semblent tout à fait risibles. Mais quand elles invitent Samantha à se joindre à elles, les conflits de valeurs éclatent. Un livre sur la solitude et l'appartenance, teinté de magie et d'humour, noirs tous les deux."--Publisher's description.

Lapin

Carla Máñez González 

The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls who seem to move and speak as one "We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?" Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight they become one. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, a caustic art school dropout, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the sinister yet saccharine world of the Bunny cult and starts to take part in their ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they magically conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision. A spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from an author whose work has been described as "honest, searing and necessary" (Elle).

Bunny

Linda

this does for me what people thought my year of rest and relaxation was doing for them

camille paradis

This book is genuinely hilarious; Awad’s satire constantly oscillates between crystal clear and subtle. The book still remains a really creative vision of horror. The only reason it isn’t higher for me is because the last ~50 pages sort of lost it for me in terms of the writing, but nevertheless I will absolutely be diving more into Awad’s work. 

Clark Louis

The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls.

'We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?'

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort – a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other 'Bunny', and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight they become one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled 'Smut Salon', and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door – ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the sinister yet saccharine world of the Bunnies, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision.

A spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from the author of 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl.

slow to pickup speed but when it does it is so riveting, only to lose that sorts of momentum ... it seems it just did not agree with me to such a degree

plantdad

'No punches pulled, no hilarities dodged, no meme unmangled. O Bunnyyou are sooo genius!' MARGARET ATWOOD. We call them Bunnies because that is what they call each other. Seriously. Bunny. Samantha Heather Mackey is an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at Warren University. In fact, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort - a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other 'Bunny'. But then the Bunnies issue her with an invitation and Samantha finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door, across the threshold, and down their rabbit hole. Blending sharp satire with fairytale horror, Bunnyis a spellbinding trip of a novel from one of fiction's most original new voices. 'A brilliant, utterly unique peek into the dark side of female friendship' SUNDAY INDEPENDENT. 'Made me nod and cackle in terrified recognition' LENA DUNHAM. 'Hilarious and subversive, magical and knife-sharp' LAURA VAN DEN BERG. 'Cerebral and compulsively readable' VANITY FAIR. 'Enchanting and stunningly bizarre' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

A Novel

A schizophrenic writer and their imagination.

The essential weird-girl book, but not my kind of weird. It just doesn't click for me.

Reading it felt like one long fever dream, the kind you get when you're sick, where nothing makes sense and everything just feels bad. Instead of sticking with me, it just wore me out.

A schizophrenic writer and their imagination.

The essential weird-girl book, but not my kind of weird. It just doesn't click for me.

Reading it felt like one long fever dream, the kind you get when you're sick, where nothing makes sense and everything just feels bad. Instead of sticking with me, it just wore me out.

"Things just happen to her, don't they, Samantha?" Samantha Mackey is a graduate student at a prestigious university studying narrative writing. Unfortunately, she is the only one in her small cohort who is not wealthy, who is not connected, who is not inspired, who is not loved by her family, and certainly not in their adorably dark, codependent friend group. Until she receives an invitation to their writing performance group one evening and enters a dizzying haze of artistic girlhood. Underneath the writing group lies a mysterious and dangerous coven committing violent and creative magical work. 

Finally, an unlikeable narrator that I don't endlessly relate to. At least not anymore. Samantha is jealous, immature, and a perpetual victim who views herself through the lens of Them and Me. It's the cultic bunnies who I relate more to: their need to belong, to share, to love, to beautify everything they touch, and drawn to impossibly dark forces. 

The book itself has a twist I very much saw coming, one I didn't, and one that never came! I loved the themes and plotline: endless outsider jealousy, dark and artistic fashion choices, cultic group-dynamics, occult homunculus, and the ways in which we are our own undoing, the ways we run away with ourselves. However, I found the writing style to be too flowery and endlessly descriptive. How the leaves looked, how everyone smelled, how everyone dressed.  My eyes lept ahead several sentences at a time to find more plot or narrative. I think I prefer a more straightforward style, despite my own rambling tendencies; as it was very easy for me to lose my gumption while reading and it was easy to put down the book after an hour or two, despite the thrilling premise.

constance

"Things just happen to her, don't they, Samantha?" Samantha Mackey is a graduate student at a prestigious university studying narrative writing. Unfortunately, she is the only one in her small cohort who is not wealthy, who is not connected, who is not inspired, who is not loved by her family, and certainly not in their adorably dark, codependent friend group. Until she receives an invitation to their writing performance group one evening and enters a dizzying haze of artistic girlhood. Underneath the writing group lies a mysterious and dangerous coven committing violent and creative magical work. 
Finally, an unlikeable narrator that I don't endlessly relate to. At least not anymore. Samantha is jealous, immature, and a perpetual victim who views herself through the lens of Them and Me. It's the cultic bunnies who I relate more to: their need to belong, to share, to love, to beautify everything they touch, and drawn to impossibly dark forces. 
The book itself has a twist I very much saw coming, one I didn't, and one that never came! I loved the themes and plotline: endless outsider jealousy, dark and artistic fashion choices, cultic group-dynamics, occult homunculus, and the ways in which we are our own undoing, the ways we run away with ourselves. However, I found the writing style to be too flowery and endlessly descriptive. How the leaves looked, how everyone smelled, how everyone dressed.  My eyes lept ahead several sentences at a time to find more plot or narrative. I think I prefer a more straightforward style, despite my own rambling tendencies; as it was very easy for me to lose my gumption while reading and it was easy to put down the book after an hour or two, despite the thrilling premise.

i think there’s something aesthetically that didn’t really work for me; the outfits and stuff kept pulling me out of it. could maybe be described as frills. some of the satire landed and some didn’t. the end is where things were the most interesting; i wanted more of a payoff than there was, most of the action felt ultimately inconsequential. i can see why people are divided on this but i’m still thinking about it, so yeah

zoe m

I'm still processing it.. do i laugh or do i weep, i don't really know?

march🐇

This is like the My Immortal of books paying homage to The Secret History. Magic realism doesn't work if the framework for the characters and setting are not strong enough. Some satire and criticism of MFA programs--which isn't unwarranted--but this book's criticisms were overbearing and a slog to get through. The book REALLY wants you to know it's chock-full of 

. Was weird and threw in horror elements just for the sake of being weird and having horror elements. Tired gendered critiques. Plot gets completely uncertain of itself toward the end.

 also just reads like the author has a chip on their shoulder. I love unlikeable characters, but I did not 

 in Samantha and couldn't buy her "not like other girls" characterization. For the schizophrenia interpretations--this is a poor interpretation. Rather than sparkling with sharp wittiness, the story comes off as immature.

dagonet

This is like the My Immortal of books paying homage to The Secret History. Magic realism doesn't work if the framework for the characters and setting are not strong enough. Some satire and criticism of MFA programs--which isn't unwarranted--but this book's criticisms were overbearing and a slog to get through. The book REALLY wants you to know it's chock-full of symbolism. Was weird and threw in horror elements just for the sake of being weird and having horror elements. Tired gendered critiques. Plot gets completely uncertain of itself toward the end.

It also just reads like the author has a chip on their shoulder. I love unlikeable characters, but I did not believe in Samantha and couldn't buy her "not like other girls" characterization. For the schizophrenia interpretations--this is a poor interpretation. Rather than sparkling with sharp wittiness, the story comes off as immature.

Would have loved this if I were 17.

Romy

well this was definitely a fucking ride oh my god

nina 

marlisa

“The Secret History meets Jennifer’s Body. This brilliant, sharp, weird book skewers the heightened rhetoric of obsessive female friendship in a way I don’t think I've ever seen before. I loved it and I couldn’t put it down.” - Kristen Roupenian, author of You Know You Want This: "Cat Person" and Other Stories The Vegetarian meets Heathers in this darkly funny, seductively strange novel about a lonely graduate student drawn into a clique of rich girls who seem to move and speak as one. "We were just these innocent girls in the night trying to make something beautiful. We nearly died. We very nearly did, didn't we?" Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more different from the other members of her master's program at New England's elite Warren University. A self-conscious scholarship student who prefers the company of her imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and are often found entangled in a group hug so tight it seems their bodies might become permanently fused. But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' exclusive monthly "Smut Salon," and finds herself drawn as if by magic to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, an audacious art school dropout, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into Bunny world, and starts to take part in the off-campus "Workshop" where they devise their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur, and her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies are brought into deadly collision. A spellbinding, down-the-rabbit-hole tale about loneliness and belonging, creativity and agency, and female friendship and desire, Bunny is the dazzlingly original second book from an author with tremendous "insight into the often-baffling complexities of being a woman" (The Atlantic).

Angeleeka

one of my ABSOLUTE favorites ! i enjoyed the writing style so much it’s insane and it’s also so uniquely terrifying … I JUST LOVE HUMOROUS HORROR 

The Otessa Moshfegh comparisons and Margaret Atwood approval had me hyped but I think those references set up false expectations for what this was. 

Jacob Reader

I love that it’s so confusing but sometimes it’s too confusing yk 

Honey cocoa 

And oh love seems so fragile, lost and corrupt yet it was fresh and close 

Claire Maguet

Great if you are 14 and not like other girls

This book is what I imagine it feels like to be on drugs. It is so far from what I was expecting but so good at the same time. Not my usual choice of genre but it had me so excited to know what happened next. The twist at the end was a little brain-warping but such a good ending!

Soph

At no point did I have a clue what was going on and I love it for that. 

Mckenzie Collard

Laoise Giblin

*stumbles out of this book covered in blood

3.8 

*stumbles out of this book covered in blood* lawrd what the hell was that!

first buddy read with nica !! @maisonnica 🐇💗

Nica

3.8

first buddy read w/ ari ! @jellypoppd 

"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?"

i literally have no idea what i just read. it was weird and bizarre, but like in the best way possible. it's the strangest book i've ever read.  it was interesting and captivating, and really held my attention. i don't think i loved it, but i enjoyed it. if anyone ever asks me what this book is about i hope the ground opens up and swallows me, disappear, or explode like one of those bunnies because i already have trouble describing some books and the plot of this one doesn't help me at all.

victor

"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?"

i literally have no idea what i just read. it was weird and bizarre, but like in the best way possible. it's the strangest book i've ever read.  it was interesting and captivating, and really held my attention. i don't think i loved it, but i enjoyed it. if anyone ever asks me what this book is about i hope the ground opens up and swallows me, disappear, or explode like one of those bunnies because i already have trouble describing some books and the plot of this one doesn't help me at all.