Not a huge fan of Awad but wanted to give this a try. Ultimately I did not finish as this wasn’t really my speed

When I first heard this book was coming out, I was skeptical. Why did we need a follow-up?
But reading this cleared up so many questions I didn't even remember I had from Bunny. The voices were spot-on, and I loved getting lost in this world again.

Many thanks for my ARC. This was wild! Gave major Alice in Wonderland vibes. Mona really roped me in with the Jenny (girl with the green ribbon) and Donnie Darko references. I feel like everything she writes is just for me. It was such a fever dream and I loved every second of it. I really appreciated all the little details especially in the girls back story right down to their attire. This was unhinged in the best way. Anything Mona Awad creates will forever be an auto read for me!

"All Art is Risk!" ...Monas risks pay off!

Bunny, I missed you

We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad is the companion to the much loved Bunny. While it can be read as a standalone, I think it’s best to read Bunny first to get some more context.

I was cautiously optimistic about this book. I adore Mona Awad’s books and Bunny has such a special place in my heart. But I wasn’t sure how necessary this book was. I am so happy that I loved it. There is something so bizarre but compulsively readable about Awad’s writing and I am so captivated by her stories.

This book follows the perspective of the Bunnies from Bunny and they are just as delightfully unhinged as I was expecting. There is also another perspective that I don’t want to spoil. I was so emotionally invested in this book that I teared up at one point.

This book was exactly what I needed when I picked it up. I think most fans of Bunny will enjoy this one!

This book is totally bizarre and I loved it. It’s funny, creepy, and completely over the top in the best way. The Bunnies get to tell their side this time, and it somehow made things even weirder. It’s part horror, part satire, part really messed-up friendship story. I had no idea what was going to happen next and honestly didn’t care—I was just along for the ride. If you liked Bunny like I did, you’ll definitely want to read this. Mona Awad is so talented. Thanks Netgalley for the ARC.

I was initially unsure of how to feel about this release, Bunny felt quite self-contained and I wasn’t sure how much room there was to explore this further. And I did struggle through the first 20% or so of reading from the perspective of the Bunnies. Thankfully the perspective switched and I started to enjoy it a lot more.

It avoids the problem a lot of prequels have by talking about a story adjacent to Bunny without directly working towards the events we already know about.

Where Bunny told a story with an undercurrent exploring the creative process, We Love You Bunny is first and foremost a story about creativity. The metaphor is stripped back and exposed and we see how each character struggles to birth something real and perfect in its imperfections. We see how creations become bigger than their creators and take on a life of their own.

It keeps the satirical tone of Bunny and ramps it up a notch, which I really enjoyed. I don’t recommend reading this without having read Bunny. I think this would be perfect for creatives and artists or anyone with a complicated relationship to the creative process.

4 bisexual girls in a cult of their own creation accidentally make one adorable gay boy out of a bunny.

Insane. Addictive. Unputdownable. Ridiculously unique.

Totally can be read as a stand alone!!! Totally recommend for anyone that wants something weird, different, and mind-fucking.

Also, I am afeared that Aerius has captured my heart and soul. I miss my dear friend already

There are some books that feel like experiences, and We Love You, Bunny is one of them.

Returning to Bunnyland felt like slipping back into a fever dream I wasn’t sure I’d fully left, only to discover the dream had teeth — and maybe a smiley face or two. This sequel-slash-prequel picks up with Sam, fresh off the publication of her novel (yes, the novel we all know and love as Bunny), kidnapped by the Bunnies who are less than thrilled with how she depicted them. They want to tell their side, and oh, do they ever.

What unfolds is delightfully chaotic: each Bunny takes a turn narrating how they came together, how they discovered their particular brand of creativity, and how they became not just cohort-mates, but a collective. The structure reflects their relationships: individuals first, then one unsettling, sugar-pink organism driven to create their perfect Fictions. It’s meta, layered, weird, and sharp in that way only Mona Awad can deliver.

Can you read this without reading Bunny? Technically, yes. But you’d be doing yourself a disservice. Bunny is the key that unlocks this candy-coated, blood-slick door, and if you’ve been meaning to read it, now’s the time. Once you’re in, We Love You, Bunny will feel like coming home to the strangest, most unhinged slumber party you’ve ever attended.

It’s also long, so plan accordingly. But honestly, if you’re here, it’s because you’re craving Awad’s fever-dream prose and this delivers in spades.

Open your hearts, Bunny, and get ready to lose yourself in the Warren once more.

[ Huge thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for this ARC! ]

I had to take some time to chew over this book because there was so much to process. Much like Bunny 1, Awad really hit the nail on the head with the satire and allegory in this novel, and it's packed with her signature humor. Unlike Bunny 1, this book had what I can only describe as a more sincere side that I very much enjoyed. I absolutely adored my boi Aerius and his journey of self-discovery and love. I felt like it grounded the story in a way that may or may not work for other readers, but that very much worked for me.

My one complaint is that I felt like there was too much hand-holding in terms of explaining the themes and the point. Bunny 1 left a lot to the reader in regards to forming their own conclusions, but We Love You, Bunny was pretty explicit in the messaging and left little to interpretation, which was a little less fun, imo.

Regardless, it was a wild ride full of batshit happenings, and I really enjoyed my time with it. Def would recommend to other readers who enjoy dark reads with fantasy elements and lots of satire and laughs mixed with murder and mayhem!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of "We Love You, Bunny." I was thrilled and honored to have received this before publication date! Jumping and screaming and throwing up, bunny.

I loved every moment of reuniting with the bunnies. This book is fresh, wild, and laugh-out-loud funny.

Aerius, O sweet Aerius- was my favorite character of the Bunny universe.
:-)
:-(
:-)

Thank you, Mona Awad, for this literary masterpiece. No notes.

We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad is the follow up to Bunny, and it was as wild as I expected it to be. Samantha, the protagonist from Bunny, has been taken hostage by the Bunnies so they can tell their side of the story. Alternating between the Bunnies & Aerius, one of the Bunnies' bunnies, they tell Sam about the start of their cohort & all the events that actually took place during the events of Bunny.
While I did ultimately like this book, I did feel like it was a little bit too long. Especially Aeries's POV, which was written exactly like you'd imagine a rabbit-come-to-life's inner thoughts would be. It was kind of insane, and took me a long time to get through, but I did like the weirdness of it as a whole.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of We Love You, Bunny in exchange for my honest opinion. I do enjoy Mona Awad's writing and look forward to more by this author in the future.

We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad follows Sam, now a published author, getting kidnapped by the Bunnies during her book tour so they can tell their side of the story from the original novel. What should have been a return to Awad's brilliantly unhinged world instead felt like tedious Bunny fanfiction - all the surface elements are there, but the magic that made the first book so weirdly captivating is missing. The mystery and ambiguity that made Bunny so compelling gets replaced with heavy-handed explanations and lore that I never wanted or needed. When a second POV kicks in partway through (the bunny-turned-boy creation), it briefly livens things up with its childish, emoji-filled narration, but even that novelty wears thin across nearly 500 pages. I found myself wishing Awad had left the Bunny universe unexplained and perfect rather than giving us this tedious expansion that somehow manages to be both overlong and underwhelming.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC of this book!

Wow. That's really all I can say. Originally it was my sister who'd told me to read Bunny, stating it as a weird, bizarre psychedelic horror trip. Now, normally a book like that I'm not super into sequels. I think it's something that sits perfectly on it's own, but this one was different enough that it really stood out.

Welcome back, Bunny! We missed you!

All the things I adored from the first book were within this one, and seeing how it all began and the downhill spiral, how different stories are and how they match up, was a real treat! It even held the same WTF factor that really endeared me to the first one! Highly highly recommend, This one I'll be excited to share with the rest of the world when it comes out!

Such a good follow up! I have been in a slump lately and this is the book to help you get you out of one that’s for sure

We Love You Bunny picks up several years after the events of 'Bunny.' Samantha Mackey is back at Warren University promoting her debut novel about a promising young writer in a prestigious MFA program who gets tangled up with a group of axe-wielding, hive-minded classmates who call each other "Bunny." Sounds familiar, no? Well, the Bunnies are disappointed, to say the least, with Sam's rendering of them and they are bound and determined to set the record straight. We Love You Bunny follows the Bunnies through their first year at Warren leading up to and retelling the events of 'Bunny' from their point of view as well as a secret fifth narrator. We Love You Bunny acts as a kind of prequel-sequel which I thought was quite fun. It also employs one of my favorite storytelling tropes; sentient being experiences the world for the first time (or in a new way.)

In framing We Love You Bunny as a meta-narrative where 'Bunny' exists both in the real world and her fictionalized world, Awad introduces fiction vs. reality and the blurred line between the two as a jumping off point for some literary criticism. At its core, the Bunny Literary Universe is a vehicle for Awad's social satire and literary criticism at large. I would argue that 'Bunny' focused primarily on satirizing and subverting the idea, "kill your darlings." This novel's primary focus seems to be attempting to answer the question, "who does art belong to? The artist, the subject, the consumer, or the universe?"

Before I say anything else, I want to make it clear that I ENJOYED this novel as much as I enjoyed 'Bunny,' if not more. If you live and die by Bunny, this book is different enough structurally that you may find it disappointing. If you really enjoyed Bunny and are itching to get back into its orbit, you're going to enjoy this. If you liked Bunny's vibe but didn't really "get it," I think this book is for you. That being said, I am me and I'd like to get into some critical analysis so if you're not into that kind of thing, thank you for reading up to this point. I think you should read We Love You Bunny! Now...

For better or for worse, Awad really spells it out for readers in this novel. "It" being "the point," if you will. Bunny, and Awad's work in general, is loaded with references, extended metaphor, and social satire to varying degrees of success. In We Love You, Bunny alone there are no less than 25 references to other pieces of art/media and if you're unfamiliar with any of them, then part of the parallel that Awad is drawing is lost. Which like, duh. That goes for any piece of media that attempts to reference another piece of media. But because there are so many here, there's a greater chance that something is going to be missed. This leads readers, I think, to feel like they're not quite sure what's going on. When you have that many references slammed into a 350 page novel, there isn't an opportunity to fully tease out ALL of those parallels in a way that is meaningful for the reader. This ultimately leads to some of the parallels feeling slightly empty. It feels like it's there just for the sake of being there. I would happily buy this choice as intentional in the world of 'Bunny' specifically because of the characters we are dealing with. Does it make sense that the characters in these two novels would throw around references willy-nilly in order to seem more intelligent, to substantiate their opinions with references to other pieces of media so that they might be free of actually having to do heavy academic lifting? Abso-fuckin'-lutely. It totally works here! However, I noticed this sort of referential Frankenstein walking around in All's Well too. There were quotes and imagery being pulled from a bunch of Shakespeare's work instead of the two pieces that were central to the narrative and it simply didn't work. For me! For me.

Awad is very clearly aware of literary criticism in general, as well as any criticism she may have received for Bunny and new criticism that could possibly be coming her way after the release of this novel. That awareness is all over the pages of this novel. However, I can't help but wonder if simply being aware of the criticism and giving voice to it is enough to shield you from it. I'm disinclined to believe that it is. The only other real qualm I have with these novels is that Awad's vagueness can make it difficult to defend her critical/satircal point of view at all times. It's difficult to tease out exactly what I mean by this without getting into spoilers and I don't want to do that here. Perhaps I'll write a review with spoilers once the novel is out and more people have read it. That being said, I think there is a lot of literary merit in both of these novels. Awad is attempting to push the boundaries of genre with the novels in the Bunny Universe, and is doing so pretty successfully. I will say, it seems like this novel sets us up for another installment which is super exciting.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Element for an advanced e-book copy of this novel!

Thank you so much to Netgalley for giving me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

In its essence, I truly feel that you won't be able to read this without reading Bunny. The story is almost like a prequel instead of a sequel. Mona Awad''s wriiting is very unique, and plays heavily into the unreliable narrator (or in this case, multiple unreliable narrators) with very distinct voices. I read Bunny such a long time ago that I had to continuously reference the original novel to get a sense of what each bunny was talking about in their narration. I did not realize that the original Bunny came out in 2019 (and that I read it in 2022.) If you are expecting this novel and are excited for it, I suggest you re read Bunny before picking this up just to have an easier time jogging your memory about the plot and what goes down. it was genuinely difficult to recall names and major plot points while reading. BUT a possible upside to this, at least for me, is that I forgot the major plot points in the book, and it was nice to reread them with fresh eyes and a fresh outlook.on the crazy things that happen.

It was jarring to be pulled out of one character narration or specific voice to be instantly placed back into another one, and I feel like readers will love that or really dislike it. however, I think it is a really unique way of writing a book with multiple POVs. while this can be a strong selling point and a good way of setting the plot and the pace, I feel like the constant jumping of character to character didn't allow for a lot of room to grow. when I found myself getting into a specific Bunny and their retelling of the events, I suddenly got ripped away from it when the perspective changed which was kind of annoying. a lot of telling, especially when doing specific actions or planning events -- it was a lot of saying that things would get done, but difficult to get through and actually DO the things the Bunnies said they were planning to do without a ton of filler in between. I feel as if Bunny could absolutely stand on its own, and it was sort of unnecessary to write a sequel despite the interesting things going on.

I might change my rating once I give it more thought, but its teetering around a 2.5-3.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon Element for the eARC.

“We Love You, Bunny” is an addicting, enjoyable ride that made me reread the original novel. It’s a genuinely laugh out loud story, BUT I think it should have been split into two novellas: one for the Bunnies and how they formed their group, and one for the bonus perspective. The latter took up just as much, if not more space than the former. While I eventually enjoyed the narrative voice of this new character :) , it was definitely different and can be taxing for readers :(

If you’ve read Bunny, you’ll need to read this. If you haven’t read Bunny, you’ll probably still want to read this. A sprawling and chaotic ode to fiction, an allegory composed of allegories, We Love You, Bunny is 96% prequel, 4% sequel, and all exceptional fun.

Thank you to Simon & Schuster, Mona Awad, and NetGalley for this eARC. All opinions are my own.

The sequel and prequel to Bunny reunites Samantha with her literacy cohort the bunnies, students at Warren, a prestigious Ivy League college. Awad immerses the reader into the POV’s of the bunnies and their first creation Aerius. Back in the attic of the Smut Salon, the reader gets to know the bunnies and all their comically spooky quirks. The coven of characters are unique, funny and engaging, part Mean Girls, part Heathers, part Frankenstein and Rocky Horror Picture show. Awad slices the ax into the pretension of academia with witty descriptions of poets trench coat flocking like bats in a world where slaughtering your darlings is just part of the process.

Thank you NetGalley and S&S Marysue Rucci Books for this eARC.

I really liked some aspects of this book. I thought it was really interesting to see all of the different POVs of the Bunny girls, and was not expecting an Aerius POV, but found his to be the most interesting. But with that, the way each POV was done made it a little hard for me to get through. I do like and understand that they were talking directly to Samantha and telling their story to her, but one would be talking and then their chapters/parts would end by another Bunny being like wait no that’s not what happened, let me tell you what actually did. I did really like seeing a bit more into the characters lives though. Aerius chapters were my favorite, the drama and humor of him going after Allan and killing the wrong ones, but also seeing him and Jonah, and also seeing just his growth and understanding of his life. I hope wherever Aerius is that he is happy. I did like the ending plot twist through of the “Samantha” they told this whole story to ending up being a Bunny. This book did feel so long. Almost 500 pages and I really felt every page, I do think it could’ve been a little bit shorter, but that being said I had a fun time and I was glad to be back into this world and learn more about how they really started turning Bunny’s