Bunny: A Novel
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Enter the Bunnyverse with the “wild, audacious . . . unforgettable” (Los Angeles Times) #DarkAcademia novel that started it all – the precursor to We Love You, Bunny
“[A] cult classic.” —People
“[A] viral sensation.” —USA Today
“O Bunny you are sooo genius!” —Margaret Atwood
“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 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.
Named a Best Book of the year by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library
Enter the Bunnyverse with the “wild, audacious . . . unforgettable” (Los Angeles Times) #DarkAcademia novel that started it all – the precursor to We Love You, Bunny
“[A] cult classic.” —People
“[A] viral sensation.” —USA Today
“O Bunny you are sooo genius!” —Margaret Atwood
“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 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.
Named a Best Book of the year by TIME, Vogue, Electric Literature, and The New York Public Library
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *Bunny* is a wild, surreal novel blending dark humor, horror, and feminist themes with a *Heathers* vibe and magical realism. Reviewers ag...
This book was the three-est of three stars for me. I didn’t hate all of it. I didn’t love much of it. I don’t think I really even liked most of it, but the parts I liked, I liked just enough to not hate it? Maybe? I don’t know.
I’m glad I finally read it. I’m equally glad it’s over, but I do want to read the sequel (We Love You, Bunny coming in September 2025) because it has Bunny backstories, and they seem infinitely more interesting than sad-sack Samantha who was annoying AF.
Very weird and intriguing. I was questioning everything constantly. I loved it and can't wait to start the next book.
I wish I’d gone into this knowing it’s one of those books where you don’t learn the rules or mechanics behind the supernatural, you’re really supposed to focus on its impacts. I probably would not have picked this up if I’d known how few answers I would get about… everything. I don’t particularly mind stories where aspects of the supernatural remain unexplained but I think there have to be at least a few answers to major questions supplied to the audience for things to stay engaging. Here you come away with a lot of questions but very few answers.
Maybe if I knew more about the supernatural side of the story it would make up for the rest. By no means is this a bad book, but it feels unnecessarily long and for the genre you would expect a bit more action, more thrilling scenes. And there are a few, but not nearly as many as I anticipated. I also really struggled to understand if there’s an underlying message to the whole thing or not. I can identify a lot of different interesting themes and ideas at play but they don’t come together in the end. I didn’t come away from this book feeling thoughtful and trying to digest and process what it all meant, I came away from it thinking: that was sad.
The main character confuses me but maybe that’s because experimental fiction often requires an equally out-there MC. But though I share her struggles with isolation and how they lead her to wild heights of desperation in social situations, some of the decisions she makes are just baffling. There were a few times I felt my immersion break because she would say or decide something and I’d think “really? This is what’s happening now?”
At around 90-99% it suddenly gets better but be prepared for a kind of mid, slow journey through a sad story.
Maybe if I knew more about the supernatural side of the story it would make up for the rest. By no means is this a bad book, but it feels unnecessarily long and for the genre you would expect a bit more action, more thrilling scenes. And there are a few, but not nearly as many as I anticipated. I also really struggled to understand if there’s an underlying message to the whole thing or not. I can identify a lot of different interesting themes and ideas at play but they don’t come together in the end. I didn’t come away from this book feeling thoughtful and trying to digest and process what it all meant, I came away from it thinking: that was sad.
The main character confuses me but maybe that’s because experimental fiction often requires an equally out-there MC. But though I share her struggles with isolation and how they lead her to wild heights of desperation in social situations, some of the decisions she makes are just baffling. There were a few times I felt my immersion break because she would say or decide something and I’d think “really? This is what’s happening now?”
At around 90-99% it suddenly gets better but be prepared for a kind of mid, slow journey through a sad story.
I want to be a bunny. Sufficiently weird and interesting story! I loved the writing and read in a day
I oddly enjoyed this book even though it was confusing at times to understand the lucid narrative between the dreaming one. The characters reminded me of a mixture of every teen girl group show/movie from the Plastics in Mean Girls to any WB girl group show. I think this book was a fun read but nothing I would want to read more of, Bunny.
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