I watch them tug at him with a fury that no doubt they put into their graduate school applications. An endlessly entitled fury that will drive them toward the shiny pretty things of this world and not stop until they have claimed them.
― Mona Awad, Bunny
CBR16 Bingo: Rage
I did not finish this book. I enjoy complicated, messy, unlikeable characters. But the only person I could stand was the poet whom everyone ostracized. Maybe that was the point all along.
Samantha Mackey (Smackie) is in her second year of a creative writing MFA program. Her cohort of workshop writers are “the Bunnies.” She calls them bunnies because that is what they call themselves. Samantha dislikes them but also wants to be part of their bizarre, overly-affectionate, codependent cult.
She and her best friend Ava mock them behind their backs. However, when Samantha gets invited to one of their meetups, she can’t resist. Ava tells her not to go, but Samantha makes an excuse and shows up.
I could not finish this for a number of reasons. To start with, the way the author describes the characters is too much for me to handle. While I can appreciate the writing, the descriptions of the interactions upset me on a visceral level. I feel rage building in my throat now as I recall how annoying each of these characters was in the brief time I spent reading about them.
Samantha and Ava are too unlikable for me to stomach for very long. They are judgy, hateful, and behave as if they are better than everyone else. Yes, the bunnies sound annoying as shit, but come on. Samantha and Ava are just as pretentious and codependent in their own bizarre way.
I did not get to the point where the horror started. I need at least one character to be relatable and I gave up before I found them. The only way I could finish this book is if pretty much everyone dies in horrible, satisfying ways. And, if that’s the case, then I should probably just read another book.
For what it’s worth, I tried reading this book two weeks ago. This week, I had no intention of attempting to white-knuckle through anything other than the bare minimum required for basic human function.
For this year’s CBR16 Book Bingo Reading Challenge I’m choosing albums from the 1970s that helped raise me. When I think of the bizarre, self-absorbed, “casually cruel” characters in this book, I am filled with rage. For this, there is one single that comes to mind, which is You’re So Vain, by Carly Simon from her album No Secrets (1972).
