Cannonball Read 14

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“‘Willfully withholding. Unnecessarily inaccessible. Not delivering on its premise.'”

Bunny by Mona Awad

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You know those moments when you’re battling a fever, you’re in and out of fitful sleep, and you’re not entirely sure what is real and what is imagined? Those fever tinged experiences that you just want to be over but time stretches way beyond what it should be allowed to stretch? That was what reading Bunny was like. Samantha is a Narrative Arts graduate student at Warren, a prestigious university known for its experimental approach to both pedagogy and writing style it tries to pull out […]

A Sugary-Sweet Take on Dark Academia That’s Far Too Unpleasant to Other Women

Bunny by Mona Awad

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BIG OOF on this one! As I neared the end of this novel, I noticed a pull-quote on the cover that I originally didn’t pay attention to on account of being in an unappealing font to read (I’m weird about fonts, y’all, it’s part of my job after all). Upon actually looking at it, however, I saw that it was written by someone I very much don’t care for. So in retrospect, that might have been a clue that I wasn’t going to enjoy this […]

things that go “scoff” in the night

Bunny by Mona Awad

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This book was praised to high-heavens, thus giving me high hopes. It is all over “best of” lists, there are tons of snarky little quips in write-ups, and the paperback features pull-quotes from Margaret Atwood and Karen Russell. I was ready to be ruined by this book… but. …it fell flat, as so many pumped-up things often do. Samantha, an unreliable narrator if ever there was one, is a post-grad MFA fellow at Warren College, a told-but-not-shown sPoOoOoKy college somewhere in New England. There’s some […]

Murder Your Darlings

Bunny by Mona Awad

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This one was recommended to me by a friend of mine and I’m glad I gave it a shot. While it’s not my normal thing, Mona Awad’s prose is crisp and she tells a good story. The whole thing is a horror/satire work on the nature of grad school work and the feeling of belonging or not belonging to a particular clique. I think the horror bits work better than the satire ones. When Awad shifts into situations of hyperrealism and dream states, she describes […]

A little too familiar

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

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I picked this one up after catching Jenny S’s review the other day. Weirdly my library had it immediately available so here we are. I agree with Jenny, this is not one I see myself reading again. Or even recommending, honestly. Still, I wouldn’t call it bad. 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl is comprised of multiple small stories seemingly about the same woman (Lizzie/Beth/Liz/Elizabeth) strung throughout her life and throughout her battle with herself and her weight. Her dress size changes drastically, […]

Life is Way Too Short to Spend Another Day at War With Yourself

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad

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If your plan was to start 2019 with a blast of body positivity, you might want to avoid this book. Through a series of 13 potentially standalone stories, Mona Awad focuses on Lizzie, self-described fat girl, from her teens to her late twenties.  Awad is brutally masterful in her depiction of one young woman’s battle with her body and how that shapes in mostly horrifying ways the relationships she has in her life—with friends, family, and romantic partners.  There is something so bleakly realistic about […]



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