The violence of creation: A review of We Love you, Bunny by Mona Awad
By Leigh Patrick, January 21 2026—
Mona Awad released her newest book, We Love You, Bunny, in September of 2025. Author of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Alls Well, Rouge and her most well-known Bunny, Awad is a three-time finalist for a Goodreads Choice Award and a finalist for the Giller Prize.
Bunny was a finalist for the New England Book Award and won the Ladies of Horror Fiction Best Novel Award. With so many accolades and a story that gripped readers fiercely, it’s no surprise Awad chose to re-enter the world of the Bunnies in her newest novel.
We Love You, Bunny has been shortlisted for the 2025 Giller Prize, a feat that happened while Awad was in Calgary on her book tour.
An author whose style is surrealist, dark fantasy and a macabre fairy tale, We Love You, Bunny embodies what makes an Awad book so deliciously unsettling. Part fairy tale and part slasher, We Love You, Bunny is the perfect storm for anyone who loves the weird, surreal world of horror movies and fables. Awad guides readers through an exploration of creativity, destruction and violence.
With a velvety dark-blue cover featuring a flowered bunny mask and shiny pink letters spelling “We Love You, Bunny,” the echo of cultish endearment and contempt from Bunny is inviting. The title guides readers through its cultish allure — naively adorable on the outside, dark and bloody inside, with pink horror blood splashed across pages in hot pink and black axes—a treat for those who love the juxtaposition of a dark tale in bright pink font. And so, readers enter into the dark and twisted fairytale that is We Love You, Bunny.
The novel follows the original Bunnies, affectionately known as Cupcake, Creepy Doll, Vignette and The Duchess. The narrator from Bunny, Samantha, is on the outskirts, but this is not her story. It is about four lost girls desperate to create something they love, and when they do, it nearly destroys them. The surprise fifth narrator takes us into a darker, yet more innocent mindscape, prompting readers to consider the ‘death to the author’ concept and what happens when we claim our work created itself. This revenge tale—triggered by creation—serves as the opening image, and weaves through the narrative to the final, bloody conception. Gruesomely fantastic, it felt as if I had fallen down the rabbit hole into a pink womb of Frankenstein.
The motifs of “good vs. evil,” ambition and human nature hum through the pages. Awad makes a statement on the violence of creation. During her book tour stop here in Calgary, she mused on how violent we are when we refer to the creative process. We bleed on the page. We kill our darlings. We claim death to the author. We revise by cutting close to the bone and going for the jugular with our art, leaving our readers bleeding. While the first book seemed to critique the elitism of higher education and the idea that schooling is needed to be a skilled creator, We Love You, Bunny cut to the heart by questioning whether we need to destroy ourselves to create, whether ambition leads to our downfall, and define what makes good art.
With the physicality of real bunnies, metaphorical girls-as-bunnies; and bunnies as a theme of nature vs. nurture, creation vs. destruction and innocence. The story’s journey is a mind-warping discussion of art and artist. Awad poses questions about form and word choice, as well as whether creation can be defined. She provides answers to questions from the first book and offers a deeper look into the bunnies’ world and their origins.
The novel intertwines beauty and darkness, inviting readers to embrace life’s strangeness. For those open to the unexpected, this book offers an adventure into the twisted vulnerabilities of an artist’s mind. Reminding us that amidst chaos, we can find stories that resonate with our innermost curiosities.