No matter how Samantha loathes the cliche of girls who make up the rest of her writing group, with their overwrought work and their insistence on referring to each other as ‘Bunny,’ she can’t help but get sucked into their strange world when they invite her to join them.
This is a dark and satirical read which pokes plenty of fun at the pretentious streak that can run deep in the people who attend MFA programs – considering the author was one of them, the mockery is more authentic and amusing. But it’s also an off-kilter exploration of intense loneliness and imagination which themes I found fascinating.
I didn’t always like Samantha, but the space to disagree with her makes the book more enjoyable. I enjoyed the fantastical elements of the story and various twists and turns that burst out at me, all perfectly unpredictable. The writing is vivid and easy to follow even when things turn psychedelic, which is not always easy to do.
However, the book is definitely structured in distinct acts, and I thought that they did not always blend together as they ought. The various parts of the story – the Bunnies, Samantha’s relationship with Ava, and Samantha’s acute writer’s block – coexist and sometimes overlap, but don’t successfully gel together, which in the end lowered my overall enjoyment of the book.
