This collection of short stories, overall, just missed the mark for me. The first half I enjoyed, but the stories contained within the later half were too long and just didn’t really hold my attention.

There were 2 stories I actually really really liked in this collection and they are the sole reason why I am giving this a 3 star instead of a 2 star. ‘The Head’ and ‘Snare’ are most definitely the stand outs in this collection! Both of which made me feel weirded out in a lot of ways and also in awe of someone’s brain being able to come up with this type of stuff.

This collection of fables is absolutely brilliant! I have favorites, but that by no means signifies an uneven collection. Any reader knows that anthologies usually come with a mix of great, good, and mediocre stories, but I found all 10 stories in Cursed Bunny to be exceptional. I was able to pick out favorites based on the messages and intent of the stories.

“Cursed Bunny”, “The Snare”, and “Ruler of the Winds and Sands” dealt with the consequences of bad behavior. I love reap-what-you-sow stories so these were obviously favorites. The other story that really surprised me was “Reunion” with its unexpected ending.

I would definitely recommend reading this a story or two at a time; this isn’t one to sit down and read all the way through. If you find yourself having trouble with the first two stories, for reasons I won’t spoil, skip them and read the others; they might be too gross for some readers.

Recommended for: horror fans

Content warning: blood & gore; violence; murder; suicide; ghosts

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, Korean author Bora Chung makes a striking U.S. debut with her disturbingly unique collection of short stories, Cursed Bunny, translated by Anton Hur. As the characters face the monstrous and absurd, each tale grapples with lessons and morals that aren’t so easily pinned down. The stories in the collection read as modern fables commenting on generational trauma, the pitfalls of greed, and the confines of maintaining the status quo within a patriarchal society. Throughout the collection, Chung expertly blends surrealist horror with the unsettling truths that illustrate our darkest fears.

Full review featured in The West Trade Review: http://westtradereview.homestead.com/westendchungreview22.html

This collection of short fiction was originally published in 2017, but, with the help of translator, Anton Hur, is now being published in the States. If you’re looking for an optimistic, feel-good read, this is not the book for you. These stories are wildly inventive and dark, spanning a wide variety of genre influences including fantasy, sci-fi, horror and magical realism, jolting the reader from humor to the horrific. The collection is evocative of disturbing fairy tales, some, scatological in nature. One has Handmaid’s Tale vibes - a pregnant woman is told that she must find a father for her child or suffer the consequences. Another is about a shapeshifting lamp who takes on the appearance of an adorable rabbit. This is a book you will want to read under the covers with a flashlight, or, if you’re like me, in the middle of the day, with the blinds open and all the lights on. A critique and reflection of the horrors of society as well as an indictment on how women are treated in society, this was a compelling and creepy read in all the best ways. Thank you to Algonquin Books and to NetGalley for the advanced review copy.

I'm not usually a short story collection person but I've heard a lot about this book on BookTube and was happy to receive an eARC copy. The book is very well written and the stories are so interesting and at times pretty thoughtful. I would definitely love to read more by this author.

Favorite stories:
The Head
Cursed Bunny
Scars
Home Sweet Home
The Frozen Finger

I don't know how Bora Chung thought of any of these stories. They ranged from gory, bizarre, and gross. My absolute FAVORITE was the first story. I actually think this is one of the best openers I've ever read :

She was about to flush the toilet.
“Mother?”

...like seriously, does that catchy our attention or what. Just trust me, the first story is amazingly weird, funny, and gross. Other favorites were: The Embodiment, Cursed Bunny, Snare, and Reunion.

I do feel like the first half of the book was stronger than the last half. This was a definitely a uniquely different read .The formatting of this was terrible though and was really hard to read and I even tried on desktop, phone, and iPad. It made it really hard for me to want to continue to read. I think the experience would have been a lot more enjoyable if I didn't have to zoom in each page and adjust as I read. But it is an arc, so I'll take what I can get!

Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for chance to review this arc in exchange for a review.

CURSED BUNNY by Bora Chung is an incredibly bizarre but fascinating collection of short stories. These stories are truly weird but for whatever reason I couldn't stop reading them. Whatever you think might happen is absolutely not what does. I highly recommend this extraordinarily odd collection.

Translated into English in 2021, this collection of short stories defies the odds. I’m not big into this writing style, but it was definitely on the odd side, so it worked well for me.

Not your traditional horror genre, each story held a different mystique about it from the magical, fantasy, and sci-fi, with a small smattering of horror, blended in.

I would have given this review a higher rating, but my copy did not download well. It was tough to read as the words were all scrunched together and overlapping at some points. I read what I could and enjoyed the first two stories, but I will be purchasing a physical copy to finish it.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is an odd book for me to review and short story collections usually are. Some were really thought-provoking if not enjoyable but others just made me grimace. Maybe it was the translation. Either way something didn't work for me.

I was on the fence about requesting this book because usually I do not like short story collections. But all the praise I’ve been seeing around this made me intrigued. Especially after someone who also doesn’t care for short stories loved it. While I wasn’t expecting immaculate conception and poop babies, I was equally disturbed and engrossed. Many of the stories reminded me of Junji Ito’s work which also toes the line of being grossed out but not being able to take your eyes away. Several of the stories felt like folktales in a lot of ways, which I really enjoyed. I did feel like I would have gotten more out of this collection if I were discussing it with a group. The author was trying to make commentary on our modern society within the framework of horror-fantasy-scifi. As with most short story collections, some were hits and some were misses and the collection as a whole ends up being rated as a three star.

Cursed Bunny is a collection of short stories centered around horror, sci-fi and fantasy themes. I am not quite sure how I feel about it, and if I even understood everything the author may have wanted me to. That being said, I didn't dislike it and found the stories were still quite engaging! I was very curious to see where the author was going.

I will say this definitely leans very horror in genre, and there are quite graphic and disturbing descriptions of all sorts of bodily fluids. Not a book to read while eating something, but if you like horror, this is it!

I found this collection to be quite uneven. Some stories felt engaging and evocative, but most fell flat for me. I don’t know whether this could be a translation issue. Without being able to read the original text, I can’t know if certain details were omitted for this printing. For example, there are no names used in many of these stories. Instead, characters are mostly referred to as nouns like, “the woman,” “the man,” or “the child.” This creates a distance between the reader and the characters. One could argue this allows the reader to fill in with their own imagination, however, in my reading, this space made obvious how the author was unfurling the plot to address various themes. It was like reading a manual for magic tricks versus just watching a magic show. And while many stories had extremely original plots, I could read the author’s intention on the page instead of experiencing it.

The theme of inter-generational trauma passed down from parent to child is an important one and it comes up in multiple stories. I just didn’t find the collection compelling enough as a whole to recommend.

I also find the use of people with disabilities or physical differences as characters in stories about curses and sins to be tiring and unoriginal at best and perpetuating ableism at worst. Blindness and albinism are just two examples I encountered.

I received a digital advance reader copy from NetGalley and Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in exchange for an honest review.

Cursed Bunny is a translated book of short stories by Bora Chung. Each story is very different which make this collection very easily readable.

I do think this collection starts very strong. The first three stories had me gripped from beginning to end. However, after that, I feel like the stories just aren’t as gripping. Which is perfectly normal for a short story collection! It’s hard to make every story work for every reader.

I think with this being a translated work, for me, it exceeded expectations but didn’t now my socks off. It was a fun time that I would recommend to anyone who wants something that will make you feel uneasy. I think this author has so much potential and o can’t wait to see what they do next!

A collection of weird and sometimes horrific short stories. The bunnies in the title story are creepy and haunting long after you're done reading.

Thanks netgalley for this ARC!

I'm not sure how I feel after reading this. I breezed through the stories in one day and was left disquieted. I also can't get the imagery out of my mind. I've seen some reviews that mention that the prose is bland, or bare, but honestly I found it chilling. I didn't need in depth descriptions, the starkness of the writing itself gave me room to think, to imagine it in more dimension. I can tell sometimes when a book will stay with me, and this is definitely one of them. Was I grossed out? Yes, absolutely. Will I keep coming back to these stories? I hope so, this has given me a lot to sit with.

Perfect for fans of Han Kang or Marianna Enriquez, this collection of short stories is gritty, grimy, and gross, in a good way. Not for the faint of heart, these stories will leave you feeling uncomfortable and a bit confused but universally tired of being a woman. They're each accessible but deceptively deep - I like that they all tend to start slow/calmly and actually kind of progress slowly and calmly even though their plots are pretty strange, and then tend to end with a big bang. I do think there were many pieces of each story that I would have understood better if I knew more about Korean culture, specifically the hierarchies of respect built into the culture and language, but it was by no means necessary and the translator did a wonderful job conveying these stories in english.

The first story, about... well, is it an unwanted child who is treated as a monster by their mother? Is it a monster-clone ahaunting it's unwitting creator? gave me big Junji Ito vibes but only a woman could write the argument between selves at the grand finale. This was one of my favorite stories in the bunch.

The second is about a pregnancy and the insulting, infantilizing treatment of single women in general and especially expecting mothers, and the inane expectations put on pregnant people that quite literally cause more dangerous pregnancies and births.

The third and titular story, Cursed Bunny, was a bit less potent, to be honest, but much more fun than the others. It's a story of greed, loss, revenge, and ravenous bunnies, in that order.

The fourth, The Frozen Finger, is a good old fashioned ghost story but of course, with a feminist and a sort of nihilist slant.

The fifth, Snare, was a cautionary tale about greed and also includes some really unnecessary SA. TW.

The sixth, Goodbye My Love, was one of my favorites - it's a sci-fi robot-y story. I love sci fi when it's like somewhat believable. Low-sci-fi, is that a thing? and I love that the story is so predictable but still feels original and creative. <spoiler>I love that the main character concludes that the machines do not resemble humans like he'd believed but it's like after doing the most human thing imaginable (self-defense) and overriding their very machine-like programming to protect humans at all expenses to themselves. THAT would be the least human thing imaginable.</spoiler> Anyways, I liked it.

The seventh was cool, it was very much like a fantasy novel but also like a fable where the lesson is *trust no one*. This one didn't hit that hard for me.

8 - another story with fantasy elements, this time with a steampunky flavor, that didn't do much for me. Very soft and dreamy compared to the other stories in this collection and seems a bit like the "one of these things is not like the others" choice.

9 - this story, "Reunion", was my favorite of all of them. It's a sort of classic ghost tale but with the expression of trauma behind the ghosty parts.

Cursed Bunny Stories by Bora Chung is a collection of short horror stories. These tales are disturbing, gory, odd and really just strange. They are chilling stories and make you stop and think. They stay with you long after you are done reading. This is an intriguing, dark twisted read. I don’t really care for this type of horror, but I can see how others would like it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the ARC!

Thank you to Net Galley, the author, and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Overall? I'm so impressed by Bora Chung's ability to explore so many different genres, while still maintaining her own authentic style throughout. Great collection. More hits than misses!

The Head
This is 100% nightmare fuel. A woman discovers a partially formed head in her toilet that refers to her as "Mother." At first, she tries to ignore the problem. Then, she seeks help and advice from people around her. The general consensus is that she should ignore it. And eventually, when she can't ignore it, she tries to get rid of it.

After getting over how sick the concept was, I thought that maybe the story had to do with double standards and the sort of shame women are made to feel about their bodies. However, that seems to be only part of what's happening here. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Bora Chung said, “'The Head' is about the fact that no one wants to listen to women. When the woman in the story tells her family about the head in the toilet, they all say, ‘Ignore it, it’s nothing.’ Everyone acts like it’s normal, but life is not normal." Can already tell this story collection is not for the faint of heart!

The Embodiment
A woman is prescribed birth control pills to regulate her period, only to (as a side-effect of the medicine) become pregnant. At the prompting of everyone else, she spends the story attempting to find her unborn child a father, as the idea of single motherhood is an inconceivable horror to the world around her.

There's quite a few interesting points being made here:
1) The idea that hormonal birth control (which has adverse side effects for SO many women) is the go-to solution for so many doctors
2) Single mothers are mistreated within the confines of a patriarchal structure
3) Men have a choice in becoming fathers, while woman often do not

Cursed Bunny
A dark, twisted story with "damn the man" sentiments at its core. The narrator's grandfather recalls a personal vendetta he had against a CEO whose corporation destroyed his childhood friend's family (and its business). As a result, he sent off a cursed object to wreak havoc on the conglomerate, watching as it slowly but surely shredded its way through the company. However, the revenge comes at a cost, ultimately giving fable vibes with the slight twist at the end.

The Frozen Finger
Well, this was downright creepy. Kind of a running theme with these stories. After a brutal car crash leaves her foggy, a teacher is forced to trust the mysterious voice alongside her. However, the voice's "story" keeps changing. Escalating, more specifically. And as the tension between them builds, the bleak reality of her situation becomes clearer.

Snare
I'm living for these folktale/fable-esque stories that Chung has woven into the collection. This one might be my favorite so far (though equally disturbing as the others, if not more so). Like "Cursed Bunny," we see karma used as a tool to expose the evils of greed and capitalism. In his travels, a man encounters a wounded fox that bleeds gold. Instead of helping the fox, the man continues to exploit the fox's blood for his own gain, reinjuring it until it eventually dies. However, the cycle continues once his own children's blood proves just as fruitful. So, so dark, but it kept me on the edge of my seat.

Goodbye My Love
This one was less folktale and more Black Mirror. And while that's normally a good thing, this story played out a little bit predictably. It's your classic case of AI-gone-rogue (with a bit of commentary on aging bodies). Given how many unexpected twists and turns were in "Snare," I guess I was just hoping for more.

Scars
This was the longest story so far, but also the one I've liked the least so far. Our main character - "the youth" - escapes a dark, desolate cave where he is being tortured by an unnamed beast (referred to as "It"), only to end up being relentlessly exploited by his "savior." I can appreciate the commentary being made about monsters hiding in plain sight, BUT I also struggled to remain engaged with this one.

Home Sweet Home
These stories in the latter half don't seem to be hitting as hard as earlier ones. However, while I didn't love this story about a young couple investing in a cursed building, there were various thought-provoking moments. There just felt like too many things going on here that it was difficult to focus in on one specific takeaway.

Ruler of the Winds and Sands
Forget what I just said about the "latter half" not hitting as hard; this was excellent. Betrothed to a blind prince being punished for his father's crimes, a young princess sets off to reverse the curse, ultimately discovering that (seems to be a running theme here) men... ain't... shit. I think we all knew where this one was headed before it even got there. Still. She deserved better!

Reunion
There's truly nothing repetitive about this collection. Bora Chung proves she can tackle it all. Despite being a ghost story, there's nothing creepy or horrific about it. It's about two strangers-turned-lovers who have the shared ability to see ghosts. Actually a very sad note to end on.

Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung is a collection of short stories that have been translated from Korean. The stories delve between fantasy and horror. One of my favorite stories from the collection is "The Head," excerpted below, in which a disembodied head appears in a woman's toilet. Another of my favorite stories is "The Embodiment," in which a woman struggles to find a father for her unborn child. But is this an immaculate conception or something more horrible?

Here is a chilling excerpt from the first story "The Head":

"She was about to flush the toilet.
"Mother?"
She looked back. There was a head popping out of the toilet calling for her.
"Mother?"
The woman looked at it for a moment. Then, she flushed the toilet. The head disappeared in a rush of water.
She left the bathroom."

Overall, Cursed Bunny is a collection of short stories featuring robots, princes, and princesses. It will appeal to fans of Kelly Link and Junji Ito. One highlight of this book is how intriguing the premises of some of these short stories are. I was very interested after reading a few pages. If I had to complain about 1 thing, I would say that some of the stories didn't stand out as much as the highlights. If you're intrigued by the excerpt above, or if you're a fan of short story collections in general, I recommend that you check out this book when it comes out in December!

These stories feel like modern fairy tales - a mixture of horror and whimsy that will take readers into Korean culture and into universal human foibles. I enjoyed the titular story of the bunny - it has a moral story in it for sure. I also liked the first story about the Head - unsettling and memorable. There are plenty of thought-provoking stories in here. Perfect for fans of Sayaka Murata, Yun Ko-Eun, Kelly Link, and Samantha Hunt.