Bunny is a fairly trope-heavy 2019 young adult novel by Mona Awad. The novel is an extremely dark, yet absurdly humorous deconstruction of the "outsider joins girl posse" plot, from films like Heathers and Mean Girls, but it's essentially a horror story a la Jennifer's Body for...reasons you will see as you read.
Samantha 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 cohort,a clique of obnoxious rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one. They include the extremely optimistic Caroline, the Perky Goth Kira, the sex-minded ex-punk Victoria, and their extremely arrogant yet influential leader Eleanor.
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. Together with the Bunnies, she creates "Hybrids", half-man, half-rabbit creatures based on their ideal men, with the goal of reclaiming the narratives of women's lives.
This book provides examples of:
- Aggressive Submissive: Victoria, a former punk and rebel who became a Bunny during her first year at Warren.
- The Alcoholic: Ava and Max, who are always seen drinking a mysterious alcoholic liquid called “Drink Me.”
- Alpha Bitch: Eleanor among the Bunnies, at first.
- Academic Alpha Bitch: She has fantastic grades and is loved by the school community.
- Animal Motif: The Bunnies, who call each other “bunny” and capture rabbits for their witchcraft. Also the Lion, who is only known by his nickname until the very end.
- Ava was Samantha's imaginary friend created from a swan who used to swim in the campus fountain, and is always associated with said swan.
- Max, on the other hand, is always associated with and compared to a wolf. The narration goes out of it way to make you think he was transformed from a wolf into a man - moments before his creation, Samantha asks the Bunnies if it'd be possible to use a wolf instead of a bunny for the ritual. Upon encountering him, he says the bunny they were looking for was eaten by a wolf, with the implication that it's him. As it turns out, though, the animal he was really made from was a stag.
- Antagonist Title: While they're not exactly evil except for Eleanor, this still fits the bill.
- Arc Villain: The Lion in seems to be one in the first half thanks to the way he treats Samantha, before it’s revealed that he’s not actually a bad guy.
- Arc Words: Characteristic of Awad’s writing style, there are several words besides the title that are repeated throughout.
- Author Avatar: Samantha is arguably a fictionalized version of Mona Awad herself, who felt isolated thanks to being different from her peers at Brown.
- Backstabbing the Alpha Bitch: The rest of the Bunnies, under Max’s influence, betray Eleanor.
- Badass Normal: Samantha sees Ava as this – possibly because she’s an imaginary ideal figure.
- Becoming the Mask: Samantha becomes a Bunny by hanging out with them. She later regrets this.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Samantha and Jonah, until the end.
- Better Living Through Evil: Max helps Samantha speak her mind and live a better life by abandoning the Bunnies. Too bad he is a representation of all of her darkest thoughts bottled up to let out her anger at the world.
- Big Eater: Caroline. She’s never seen without a cupcake, which leads to Samantha’s nickname for her.
- Black Comedy: It’s clearly inspired by Heathers, so why shouldn’t it be? Some situations are hard not to laugh at in this book, and part of it is through Awad's writing style.
- Break the Haughty: Max does this to the Bunnies by pretending to be different idealized men to each of them and distancing them from each other.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Samantha. She mentions being a good student until her writer's block, and now she just doesn't feel the need to write anymore. Inverted once she's free of the Bunnies, as she keeps writing and writing after that.
- Broken Bird: Samantha. Her parents are not talking to her anymore. She could also be a Broken Ace because of her writer’s block.
- Bully Hunter: Max thinks that he’s one because of what Samantha made him think when she "created" him. While, yes, they are horrible people, his “performance piece” is physical and psychological torture.
- Bully Magnet: Samantha, due to her lower-class background and history with depression.
- Butt-Monkey: Kira among the Bunnies. She’s constantly exploited and treated like less by them, yet she stays their friends.
- Cavalry Betrayal: Kira shows signs of this early on, before all of the Bunnies do so after Max enters their lives.
- Coming of Age Story: Arguably. Yet in the darkest way possible.
- Cool Teacher: Benjamin, the faculty chair, is seen as this by Samantha. She used to see the Lion as one too, due to their shared interests, until her mental breakdown in his apartment.
- Dark Messiah: Samantha describes her professor Fosco as this, or a "gynecological witch", due to her appearance and constant sexual and Satanic metaphors which entrance the Bunnies.
- Deadpan Snarker: Samantha and Victoria.
- A Degree in Useless: Lampshaded by Samantha. Before starting at Warren, she worked menial jobs as a receptionist and bookstore sales associate after she finished her English degree.
- Disappeared Dad: Samantha hasn’t seen father since she was in high school. Her mother, on the other hand…
- Dogged Nice Guy: Jonah.
- Eccentric Mentor: Fosco is a rare female example towards the Bunnies, and later Samantha.
- Subverted in the end because she's not actually as caring as she seems at first.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: The Bunnies cover Samantha in sparkles before they drug her at her first Smut Salon.
- Everytown, America: Warren is an amalgamation of several real-life New England universities, and based on Rhode Island.
- Evil Brit: Subverted with the Lion, as he is not actually a bad guy, just apathetic.
- Flat "What": Ava's only reaction when Samantha reveals that Max is her creation.
- Foreshadowing: There's a lot of it.
- Ava’s origin as a representation of the campus swan is hinted at right in the first chapter when Samantha mentions she yells at tourists and eats trash, which only birds can do.
- When Samantha first sees Max, she notices he smells like an animal, the way all the Hybrids do, as he may be her Hybrid.
- Max says he is working on a "performance piece" that Samantha would relate to. His piece? Physically torturing the Bunnies because Samantha was psychologically tortured by them.
- Girl Posse: The Bunnies.
- Graduation for Everyone: Even if the Bunnies become terrible students as a result of Max’s meddling, they still graduate with Samantha.
- Granola Girl: Both Kira and Victoria among the Bunnies - one's a goth and the latter is a punk.
- Happiness Is Mandatory: How the Bunnies make Samantha live her life when they drug her.
- Hypocrite: The Bunnies mock Samantha for having become so emotionally attached to an animal she conjured into a human. Moments later, they all run out of the room in frenzied lust for an animal she conjured into a human, who seduced them all into completely debasing themselves for him.
- In the Style of: Every character has a distinct writing and dress style echoing a famous "dead" style or genre.
- Samantha: Horror
- Kira: Gothic novel and fairy tales
- Caroline: Early 20th century literature/film
- Vignette: Flash fiction and punk music
- Eleanor: "Proetry" - prose/poetry combos
- The Marvelous Deer: Samantha encounters a stag in front of The Duchess' house right before going in for a meeting, and is mystified by it, seeing it as a magical, majestic moment. When she tries making a Hybrid, it turns out she accidentally uses that stag instead of the bunny provided by her group, and it becomes Max.
- Manipulative Bitch: Eleanor.
- Manipulative Bastard: Max, who manages to psychologically – and later physically – torment the Bunnies because of Samantha’s feelings towards them.
- Morality Pet: Ava is Samantha’s. She is revealed to quite literally be one.
- Ms. Imagination: Samantha. She's been that way her whole life, and this makes her even better than the Bunnies at creating humans from animals - so much so she does it unintentionally and seemingly unaware of it.
- The Nicknamer: Samantha. She has nicknames for many characters, and usually refers to them exclusively by their nicknames in the narration. It's a sign of her Bunny indoctrination when she starts calling them by their actual names.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Fosco jokes about it, having a Ph.D. in English.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Samantha has nicknames for everyone, which she calls them until their names are revealed.
- Caroline is called "Cupcake" because she's pudgy and loves to eat.
- Kira is called "Creepy Doll" because she reminds Samantha of a Creepy Doll.
- Victoria is called "Vignette" because of her writing style and bluntness.
- Eleanor is called "The Duchess" because she always wears a tiara and is a Spoiled Brat.
- They are called by their nicknames when Samantha is her normal self, but by their real names when she is a Bunny.
- Ursula, Samantha's writing professor, is nicknamed "Fosco" by Samantha (a reference to the villain in Collins' The Woman in White, because she reminds Samantha of "someone hiding maidens in their basement"), and "Kare-Kare" by the Bunnies because they see her as a caring mother figure.
- Her thesis advisor Dr. Alan Reid, called "The Lion" because of his appearance, never has his name revealed until the very end.
- Pastiche
: Happens a lot in the narrative - of both creation horror and mean girl narrative - to critique college life and isolation. - The Reveal: Several big ones halfway through.
- What exactly Samantha did in the Lion's apartment that made him ignore her. After a party they both attended, they got drunk and had their typical conversations, but it was different - she had a mental breakdown. She began crying about her missing family, her loneliness, how much she hated the Bunnies, how much they hated her, and her writer's block. She poured her heart out to him, but he didn’t say or do anything – he just "kept drinking and watching. Didn’t speak and didn’t touch.” Whenever she talked or wrote about that night, she would “fill [her story] with something different...Something happens in that silence. Something like sex. An insinuation of violence.” She lives her life through writing, and she wanted this story to have a different ending than the one it had – a relationship, even if it was just developing her friendship with him from before, and instead everything after that night became awkward, because he was avoiding her since then.
- Ava's origin, revealed when Max brings a dead swan into Samantha's house.
- It turns out that as a result of the night in the Lion's apartment, Samantha imagined the campus swan jumping out of the lake and becoming a young woman - who reminds Samantha of an idealized version of herself, and likes all the things she likes.
- Rich Bitch: All of the Bunnies, particularly Eleanor and Cupcake.
- Riot Grrrl: Victoria.
- Shout-Out: There are several:
- Because it's a surreal story and set in Rhode Island, there are numerous references to H. P. Lovecraft.
- Some of Awad's favorite musical artists are referenced throughout as some of Samantha's favorites, such as David Bowie (who Ava is said to look like), New Order, and The Cramps.
- Spoiled Brat: All of the Bunnies, but especially Eleanor.
