Bunny by Mona Awad

Bunny by Mona Awad is a dark, strange, and unforgettable literary novel about friendship, loneliness, creativity, obsession, belonging, and the dangerous possibilities of imagination.

The story follows Samantha Heather Mackey, a scholarship student attending a highly selective MFA program at the fictional Warren University.

Samantha feels like an outsider.

She prefers her own dark imagination to spending time with the wealthy women in her writing cohort.

Those women have formed an unusually close group.

They call one another “Bunny.”

Why Read Bunny?

Bunny is an excellent choice for readers who enjoy dark academia, literary horror, satire, surreal fiction, psychological stories, and books that deliberately blur reality and imagination.

At first, the novel appears to be about an outsider observing an irritatingly close group of privileged classmates.

Then Samantha receives an invitation from the Bunnies.

That invitation changes everything.

What begins as academic rivalry gradually becomes increasingly bizarre, disturbing, and difficult to explain.

Meet Samantha Heather Mackey

Samantha is isolated within her MFA program.

She is a scholarship student surrounded by classmates whose money, personalities, and intense friendships make her feel even more separate.

Her closest friend is Ava.

Ava exists outside Samantha’s academic world and shares her contempt for the strange group of women Samantha calls the Bunnies.

But Samantha’s feelings begin to change when the Bunnies unexpectedly invite her into their world.

Who Are the Bunnies?

The Bunnies are Samantha’s fellow fiction-writing students.

They behave almost like a single person.

They use the same language.

They show extreme affection toward one another.

They appear sweet, feminine, and almost ridiculously cheerful.

But there is something unsettling underneath that surface.

As Samantha gets closer to them, their world becomes much darker.

The Mysterious Smut Salon

The turning point arrives when Samantha is invited to the Bunnies’ legendary Smut Salon.

Instead of rejecting them, she becomes curious.

She enters their world.

In doing so, she begins distancing herself from Ava.

The invitation leads Samantha deeper into a strange social environment where friendship, creative writing, performance, and ritual begin overlapping.

The Workshop

Things become even stranger when Samantha participates in the group’s off-campus Workshop.

Penguin Random House describes these sessions as ritualistic gatherings where the Bunnies attempt to create monstrous beings.

From this point, the boundaries between imagination and reality become increasingly unstable.

Readers may begin asking the same question Samantha should be asking.

What exactly is real?

Dark Academia With a Twist

Bunny is frequently associated with dark academia.

It has many ingredients readers expect from that genre.

There is an elite university.

There is an exclusive academic group.

There are ambitious young writers.

There is rivalry.

There is privilege.

There are secrets.

But Mona Awad takes those ingredients somewhere far stranger than a traditional campus novel.

The book moves from academic satire into grotesque fantasy and psychological horror. Penguin Random House itself promotes the novel as part of the dark-academia tradition.

Friendship and Belonging

Beneath all the bizarre events, Bunny is deeply concerned with belonging.

Samantha begins as an outsider.

She dislikes the Bunnies.

Yet part of her is also fascinated by the closeness they share.

Being excluded can create resentment.

Being invited inside can create temptation.

The novel explores what someone might sacrifice to finally feel accepted.

Samantha and Ava

Samantha’s friendship with Ava gives the story another emotional layer.

Ava represents a connection Samantha already has.

The Bunnies represent something new and dangerous.

As Samantha becomes increasingly involved with the group, these relationships begin moving toward conflict. Penguin’s synopsis describes Ava and the Bunnies eventually being brought into a deadly collision.

This makes friendship just as important to the novel as horror.

Creativity Becomes Dangerous

Creative writing is not simply a background detail.

It becomes part of the strange world of the novel.

The characters are students trying to make art.

They want to create something original.

They want recognition.

They want their work to matter.

But Bunny takes the idea of artistic creation and pushes it into surreal territory.

The question becomes not only whether an artist can create something extraordinary, but what might happen if imagination begins taking on a life of its own.

Reality and Imagination

One of the biggest attractions of the novel is uncertainty.

Readers cannot always comfortably separate literal events from psychological or imaginative ones.

That uncertainty is deliberate.

The deeper Samantha enters the Bunnies’ world, the more unstable reality appears.

Readers who enjoy perfectly straightforward storytelling may find the novel unusual.

Readers who enjoy interpreting strange fiction may love it.

Femininity and Social Performance

The Bunnies exaggerate a particular style of sweetness and femininity.

Everything can appear soft, affectionate, cute, and harmless.

Yet the novel repeatedly places disturbing elements underneath that surface.

The contrast gives the book its distinctive atmosphere.

Cute things can become frightening.

Friendship can become controlling.

Creativity can become destructive.

Beauty can hide something grotesque.

Class and Privilege

Samantha’s scholarship status also separates her from the Bunnies.

She is aware that they belong to a more privileged social world.

This creates another level of tension inside the MFA program.

The story therefore explores not only friendship and art but also status, exclusion, academic culture, and class.

Humour and Horror

Despite its darkness, Bunny can also be very funny.

The novel exaggerates aspects of creative-writing culture, social cliques, and artistic pretension.

This satire makes the darker moments even stranger.

Readers may laugh at one scene and feel deeply uncomfortable during the next.

That combination is part of the novel’s unusual identity.

7 Shocking Reasons to Read Bunny

1. A unique dark-academia setting

An elite MFA program becomes the setting for something increasingly sinister.

2. A mysterious female clique

The Bunnies are charming, irritating, funny, and deeply unsettling.

3. Reality constantly shifts

Readers are repeatedly forced to reconsider what is actually happening.

4. Creativity becomes horror

Writing workshops and artistic ambition take a bizarre turn.

5. Strong friendship themes

Samantha’s relationships with Ava and the Bunnies drive much of the emotional conflict.

6. Dark humour

The novel combines horror with satire of academia, privilege, and social groups.

7. An unusual reading experience

It deliberately refuses to behave like an ordinary campus novel.

About Mona Awad

Mona Awad is the bestselling author of novels including Bunny, Rouge, All’s Well, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, and We Love You, Bunny. Penguin Random House notes that Bunny was a finalist for a New England Book Award and was named among the best books of 2019 by outlets including Time, Vogue, and the New York Public Library.

A follow-up novel, We Love You, Bunny, was published in 2025 and returns to the Bunny universe.

Book Details

For the Penguin Books paperback edition:

Title: Bunny
Author: Mona Awad
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 336
Publication Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 9780525559757

The original ebook publication listed by Penguin Random House dates to June 11, 2019.

Check your physical copy before entering edition-specific information because international editions may use different ISBNs or page counts.

Perfect for Readers Interested In

Bunny is a strong choice for readers interested in:

• Dark academia
• Literary horror
• Surreal fiction
• Psychological fiction
• Campus novels
• Female friendship
• Strange books
• Mona Awad
• Gothic fiction
• Dark comedy
• Creative-writing stories
• BookTok books

Build Your Dark Academia Collection

Readers who enjoy Bunny may also be interested in The Secret History, If We Were Villains, Rouge, and All’s Well.

You can add internal links to your Dark Academia, Literary Fiction, Horror, and BookTok Books categories.

If you stock We Love You, Bunny, link directly to it as the follow-up novel.

Buy Bunny in Sri Lanka

Looking for Bunny in Sri Lanka?

Mona Awad’s dark and surreal novel is an excellent choice for readers who enjoy strange academic settings, complicated female friendships, psychological suspense, bizarre rituals, dark humour, and stories where imagination and reality collide.

Enter Samantha’s elite MFA program and discover why the seemingly sweet Bunnies may be far more dangerous than they appear.

Add Bunny to your dark-academia and literary-fiction collection today. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/576726/bunny-by-mona-awad/