Bunny, by Mona Awad

I can't remember the last time this happened to me: the reader in me is down. Every book I start disappoints and bores me, and I begin to think that this is it, I've read too much, my honeymoon is over. From now on, I tell myself, it will be very difficult to find something good enough to hold my interest.

Which is completely absurd, of course. The brain can think such ridiculous things when it's depressed. At least I think I recognize one of the things responsible for this slump: it's Bunny, by Mona Awad.

Summary

A young literature student has been accepted into a prestigious university, and she has impostor syndrome. She tells herself that the only reason she was accepted is because she was recommended by a professor, with whom she had an aborted romance. He must be regretting his decision, since she has been drawing clouds in her notebooks for months instead of writing. Plus, she clashes with the scenery: while all the students are there because their parents can afford it, she can only afford the crummiest apartment you can imagine, and she has no one to visit at Christmas.

Fortunately, she has a ray of sunshine: her friend Ava, who has a fuzzy schedule and with whom she can laugh about anything, especially about a group of her colleagues. Cooing girls, who look like they came straight out of a gingerbread house, and who spend their day telling each other how much they love each other and calling one another "Bunny". She despises them. But when she receives a personal, handwritten invitation from a Bunny inviting her to a party, she finds herself desperately wanting to go.

Impressions

I decided to read Bunny because last year, on August 12, "I buy a Quebec book" day, it was a title that came up very often in my friends' shopping list. I didn't remember that I had already read a title by Mona Awad (13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl) and I didn't know that although the author has Montreal origins, she lives in the United States and writes in English. I thought she was a Quebec author to discover.

So I had high hopes. When the Bunnies first appeared, I laughed, because I've known girls like that before. I loved the caricature of literature classes, where students and professors alike describe works with obscure terms (I will always remember one of my college classes where the professor spoke of "formless form." The caricature is often not far from reality). At the first really strange event, I was curious to know what was going on. But I had the unpleasant impression that the answer would be disappointing.

I still hoped for a flamboyant explanation throughout the book, while my curiosity waned at the same rate as the strange and disgusting reached higher and higher heights. To finally be rewarded for my patience with a "it was all a dream" ending.

Maybe I'm the one who's lacking enthusiasm, I know there are plenty of people who thought this book was great, but I find it depressing. I had a little uneasiness the whole time, for nothing. No exciting revelation. No moral, or if there is one, it's well hidden. What's the point?