Well, Another Hyped Book Put Out To Pasture...

TITLE: Bunny
AUTHOR: Mona Awad
PUBLISHER: Viking
PUBLISHING DATE: June 11, 2019

FROM GOODREADS: 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 seem to move and speak as 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 Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination. 

MY THOUGHTS: Someday I'll learn.  Someday I'll stop picking up extremely hyped books  thinking "I'm gonna love this."  Because inevitably, there's always one here and there that just doesn't work for me despite so many of my fellow bloggers loving it which always makes me question what's wrong with me.  However, no more excuses or apologies.  We don't all love the same books - that's the beauty of reading because there's something for everyone.  So I'm going to embrace my differences and try to give you a somewhat coherent review of "Bunny."

This book has been described as a combination of "Mean Girls" and "Clueless."  Well there are definitely plenty of mean girls but I was the clueless one.  Samantha Mackey is part of a MFA program at the prestigious Warren University.  She is also part of a workshop with a group of rich girls who constantly refer to themselves and each other as "bunny."  Samantha has always been an outsider but during her last year, she is invited to become a bunny, leaving her best buddy Ava behind.  And in joining the group, she finds out what terrible things the bunnies really do behind closed doors.  Hint, it involves bunny sacrifices, guys who rival the kids from "Village of the Damned" and exploding heads.

There were so many things I didn't like about this book.  First of all, Samantha was a horrible MC.  She was insecure and lacked any kind of confidence and even though she hated the Bunnies, and ripped on them all the time with her friend Ada, she couldn't wait to be a part of them.  Also, she clearly questioned their practices but again, had no problem joining in.  Secondly, I found so many lose ends.  Something happened between Samantha and her thesis advisor which left her reeling and honestly, I either didn't understand it all (because I may have been skimming at that point) or else it really wasn't that big of a deal.  Also, Samantha's father was apparently on the run hiding out from shady business partners but other than that meaning she really didn't have a "home" to return to on holiday, why was it really included?  And finally, for a book with limited characters, why did it seem like there were so many?  So you have four Bunnies.  They each have a name, a nickname Samantha has given them when talking with her best friend and the name Bunny.  For a university, there seems to be limited other people on campus.  Yet I was confused a lot of the time - or maybe I reached the point where I didn't care.  And I almost forgot, there are many mentions of this being one of the most dangerous campuses because of missing people and murders and rapes, but it never ties in directly with the Bunnies?  And why are there so many actual bunnies all over campus who are apparently so easy to catch?  Are they dumb college bunnies?

So if you stayed with me this long, thanks and I'm sorry.  I really can't recommend this book to anyone which is okay because so many other people love it and they are recommending it which is how it made its way to me in the first place.  I really wanted to love "Bunny" and am kind of sad I didn't.  But I'm done apologizing.  There's plenty more books in the library swimming around...oops, maybe that's swans in the lake?  Fish in the sea?  Well one thing for sure, I don't remember there being any fish in the book.  Oh wait, there was a non-shark shark - damn!

RATING: 2 PAWS