This review contains spoilers.
Samatha Heather Mackey is something of an outcast on her highly selective MFA programme at Warren University. Her workshop group for the year consists of her and four other girls, who she has nicknamed the Bunnies, each with individual nicknames - The Duchess, Vignette, Cupcake, and Creepy Doll. They are all privileged young women who cling to each other, both literally and metaphorically, speaking to each other in babyish voices of adoration and approval. They have almost created a hive mind and Samantha hates it and them. In fact, she hates the whole experience of being at University, and has suffered from writer’s block almost the entire time. Her best friend Ava, who also hates the institution, believes such places suck the creativity out of you with their faux experimental, open ideals and their endless art speak in which they say nothing meaningful. She encourages her to leave. One day Samantha receives an invitation to join the Bunnies’ Smut Salon. She is wary of going, suspicious that it is merely a way to taunt her, but eventually she convinces herself, and it is at this point that the novel turns from a typical campus novel to one full of surrealism and a dose of horror.
Samantha spends the next section of the novel increasingly absorbed in their group. Taking their drugs, going along with their gruesome experiments, and allowing them to shape her appearance to fit in with them. As we delve deeper into their world we see the jealousies and insecurities that haunt them, and the ways in which their exaggerated affection for each other is both a rejection of their true feelings and a necessary part of their sense of self. Samantha loses touch with Ava, a fact that hurts her, and eventually she must choose between ripping herself out of the cult-like group she has become embroiled in and returning to her true self and Ava.
The Bunnies are saccharine sweet and dangerous. They are the stereotypical mean girls, trying to draw Samantha in, but always with the sense that they have an ulterior motive, they want something from her. Something perhaps that they can use to hurt her in the future. Of course, we are being told the story from Samantha’s perspective which comes loaded with her world view, which, as the novel progresses, we come to understand isn’t entirely reliable. Nonetheless, the Bunnies are uncomfortably familiar as characters.
There is an element of fantasy to the novel - the Bunnies run their own Workshops where they make Drafts, attempts at creating men from bunnies. They often have to literally kill their Darlings and there is a deeply dark side to all this. This is quite an unexpected turn in the story but I found it best not to question it too deeply and just go with it. As the story continues you are encouraged to increasingly question things. Are the Bunnies really carrying out these gruesome experiments? Is it a metaphor for the creative process? As one member of my book club queried, could it be a cautionary tale about AI? (This seemed like a really interesting reading of the book). The Bunnies seem quite inexperienced when it comes to romantic or sexual relationships. One of their fascinations with Samantha is that they believe she is more experienced, perhaps even having slept with one of the faculty. Perhaps this is why their creations always lack the necessary functions to fulfil them physically? Or perhaps they have been hurt by real men and are desperate to create a kinder, more gentle version which fits with the innocent daydream of a life they try to create for themselves.
Toward the end of the novel we begin to question everything. Was Ava ever real or a figment of Samantha’s imagination? Even Jonah, the sweet poetry student who is a constant source of kindness to Samantha, who doesn’t question her erratic behaviour, and is keen to be friends, is left to be questioned by the final lines. Perhaps the Bunnies aren’t carrying out horrific experiments. We are told throughout that Samantha has always got carried away escaping into her imagination, fuelled by thrillers and horror novels she read in her youth. Has she conjured this version of events, or perhaps this is her final thesis that we’re reading? Alternatively, she may be having a psychotic break and believes these things are real. One member of my book club suggested that actually they all may be in a mental health institution rather than a prestigious University and the whole backdrop of the novel is Samantha’s delusions.
It’s a hard book to discuss because you’re never quite sure what is supposed to be real and what is not. Certainly the story feels real to your narrator, but we know that she is unreliable. There is so much in this book to get your teeth into, and it was a wonderful choice for a book club read. I absolutely loved it and found it quite addictive, devouring it in every free moment. If you love a book that keeps you thinking and questioning long after reading then this is for you. If you want to read it on the surface and are happy to just go with the unpredictability of the thing it’s a great read. You can take as much as you want from it. It’s well written and engaging and I’d love to explore more of Awad’s writing.
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