I read \u201cBunny\u201d by Mona Awad when I was in high school, longing for the days when I would get to go to college, like the preppy Warren University where her book is set. So, when \u201cWe Love You, Bunny\u201d came out on Sept. 23, I eagerly bought myself a copy, excited to jump back into Awad\u2019s fantastical and absurd realm of dark academia.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe Love You, Bunny\u201d functions as a sequel and a prequel to Awad\u2019s novel \u201cBunny,\u201d which centers on Samantha Heather Mackey\u2019s experience in a creative writing masters program at a university in New England. The other four students in her MFA cohort are a clique of rich girls who call each other \u201cBunny.\u201d As the semester goes on, Samantha is drawn into the Bunnies\u2019 strange, magical and cultish world. Soon, she discovers a ritual where they transform live rabbits into men with their minds. Samantha eventually confronts the Bunnies about their violent ritual, but the novel\u2019s ending turns ambiguous as Samantha\u2019s psychosis takes over and she makes peace with the Bunnies, initiating her into the group.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Awad\u2019s sequel brings a new dimension to the original, reframing its narration through fresh perspectives. \u201cWe Love You, Bunny,\u201d picks up the story with Samantha on tour for her first published book, which is about her time as a student with the Bunnies \u2014\u00a0 Coraline, Kyra, Viktoria and Elsinore. Angered by Samantha\u2019s description of them, the cultish clique kidnaps her to take control of their narratives.<\/p>\n
After only getting Samantha\u2019s perspective in the first book, it\u2019s exciting that each Bunny gets their own chapter in the novel\u2019s first sections, explaining their first weeks at Warren and how they discovered their shared power. The group initially met at the MFA welcome week party, inexplicably drawn towards each other\u2019s energies. They bonded over their shared hatred of their professor, Allan, who harshly criticized Coraline\u2019s writing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the rose garden after class, Coraline describes his critique as an \u201cassault\u201d and that she was \u201cviolated,\u201d leaving her with a creative wound. Kyra, who can\u2019t help but be controlled by her empathy towards Coraline, offers to kill their professor. Meanwhile, Viktoria encourages the group to indulge in their devilish desires. In the midst of their distress, the Bunnies spot a white rabbit in the garden and decide to take it back to Kyra\u2019s attic. In a haze of rage and creativity, the group members discover their shared ability to transform rabbits into men, naming their first creation Aerius.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the beginning, Awad confronts the reader\u2019s probable biases against the Bunnies, given that the first novel only tells Samantha\u2019s story. Whereas she described feeling purposefully left out from the clique, the Bunnies explained that \u201cWe could not say hello to you or even smile at you because you were hiding in your hair.\u201d Not only do the Bunnies confront Samantha\u2019s book, but they also interrupt and subjugate each other\u2019s sides of the story. When Kyra takes over after Coraline\u2019s chapters, she comments that Coraline was \u201ca little bit of fucking liar.\u201d These fractured truths leave it unclear if the Bunnies\u2019 accounts are fiction or non-fiction, proving Awad\u2019s ability to write not just one, but multiple compelling narratives that play with the reader\u2019s understanding of reality. This makes the reading experience even more immersive, as the reader\u2019s understanding of the novel is just as slanted as the characters\u2019 memories.<\/p>\n
After the Bunnies made Aerius, they edited their creation by presenting him with books, music and films. However, their effort to educate him fails and he escapes. At this point in the story, the narration is taken over by Aerius. When he escapes, Aerius is driven by the anger with which he was created \u2014 the desire to kill professor Allan. However, his half-human-half-bunny brain lacks the logic to accurately complete his mission, and he ends up accidentally killing other students along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Aerius\u2019 chapters, Awad demonstrates her literary range by personifying a bunny-human hybrid. Aerius\u2019 ungrammatical sentences and meandering thoughts contrast the motivated and pointed writing of the Bunnies. In the opening of Aerius\u2019 section he writes, \u201cThere is so much I have longed to share with you (for there have been many Happenings), but I could not I\u2019m afraid I\u2019ve not had much Solitude of late, my Mindscape has not been my own.\u201d Awad pushes writing conventions even farther, inserting smiling and frowning faces within his sentences. The combination of Aerius\u2019 violence and these amusing child-like emoticons keep the reader constantly unsettled while taking in this surreal realm.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Awad allows imagination and reality to co-exist through the narratives that each character presents. As the Bunnies\u2019 writing creations materialize into flesh and blood, these boundaries blur even further. Awad showcases her ability to indulge each character\u2019s side of the story without revealing what objectively happened during the cohort\u2019s first year. By opening even more perspectives than its predecessor, \u201cWe Love You, Bunny\u201d immerses the reader into Awad\u2019s all-consuming world, forcing them to decide who truly owns the narrative.\u00a0<\/p>\n