ŷ������

*deep, deep breath*

*lung-bursting shrieks*

*choked swear words*

*another deep breath in, then out*

Alright, with that out of the way, let's get this shit over with.

MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILER WARNING!!!!!!

Words cannot, and I mean CANNOT, express how disappointed I am with this novel. I went from, "wow, this is so creepy, I love it!" to "well, that was a little disappointing," to "FUCK THIS SHIT SO FUCKING HARD." The best word I can use to sum up my emotions right now (aside from the obvious ones like rage, hatred, and disappointed) is BETRAYED. I feel so FUCKING betrayed by this novel because there were so many things that I liked and it legitimately feels like the story saw my joy and said, "oh, you're happy? That won't do, let's fix that, shall we?" and turned this book into a fucking dumpster fire by the end of it.

Before I start rage-hating this book, I want to express the one aspect that I loved for most of it: the writing. Holy shit, the writing was amazing! The details given to locations, the senses, appearances, even emotions was done so well and added depth to scenes that ordinarily wouldn't get. However, the amount of detail started to weigh down the story considerably towards the end, to the point where you could skim whole paragraphs and not miss anything crucial.

One thing that I loved about the writing was the detail given to each of the Bunnies, specifically from Samantha's perspective. For example, one of the Bunnies she referred to as Cupcake, because she always wore bright colored dresses (like brightly colored frosting) and smelled like sweet fruit (a common ingredient in cupcakes). What was interesting about this is that this can be interpreted as objectification. Samantha doesn't see Cupcake as a person (for most of the book) but rather as a consumable product, and since they are both writing majors and they are told to focus on The Body, her nickname and description unintentionally characterizes Cupcake as a consumable object rather than a person. I could on about the other women in the story, but for the sake of this review's length I'll keep it at that. Suffice to say, that was an aspect I truly enjoyed. Too bad it couldn't carry the rest of the fucking story.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves, let's talk about the main character Samantha, or as I like to call her, Our Lady of Perpetual Pity Parties. Look, I get it, her entire character arc is supposed to be about her whining about how much her life sucks and constantly needing other people for support only for her to realize that in the real world, sometimes you have to do difficult things on your own, and give her a triumphant concluding chapter. Yeah, here's how I feel about that:

FUCK. THAT. SHIT.

All Samantha did for LITERALLY 3/4 OF THE BOOK was whine, whine, whine about her life and how she hates people but can't tell them, and LIES, LIES LIES. Holy shit, did she tell the fucking truth AT ALL in this story? I couldn't tell because the author was SO ADAMANT about making her lie about FUCKING EVERYTHING that I honestly couldn't tell. I was so done with her self-created and self-attended pity parties that by the time she actually did something it didn't feel satisfying.

Quick side note, I hated pretty much everyone in this fucking book. They were all self-entitled, judgmental, and uninteresting. Moving on.

Now it's time to talk about the moment where this turned from awesome to disappointing. You know how the summary promotes the idea that these are women bringing to life their "dark fantasies"? Yeah, sounds interesting, doesn't it? You wanna know what their "dark fantasies" are?

Men. Their ideal, fantasy-created men. I'm not kidding. They literally sacrifice bunnies so that they can create their own men. Oh, but they're not called men, instead they're "Drafts," "Darlings," or "Hybrids". Yeah, WHAT FUCKING EVER. I was expecting twisted, disturbing creatures birthed from twisted minds, not their fantasy guys. Seriously, fuck this plot twist so hard, it was such a disappointment.

And to add the cherry on top of this disappointing story, we have the totally off the rails depiction of women hating. That's effectively what this story boils down to, women hating that is suspiciously juvenile but it takes place in a college so it's TOTALLY ADULT. Here's the plot: unpopular girl gets drafted into popular group, leaves the group for awhile, that group gets bitchy revenge, girl returns to group, then leaves group again, girl gets final revenge at the end. HOW IS THIS NOT A YA STORY?! Seriously, I have seen this EXACT FORMULA at least half a dozen times already, but because it takes place in a college its ADULT?! FUCK THAT SHIT! Oh, and let's talk about the women hating, shall we?

First off, Samantha is unfathomably judgmental to the Bunnies, until she is officially inducted into their ranks. The Bunnies are always cooing and coddling each other, all the while saying nasty and judgmental things sugarcoated as suggestions or whatever. So, you know, there's that. I thought this story was going to be about rising above all that and be a feminist piece but NOPE! You want to know what unravels their little friend group?

A FUCKING MAN.

I shit you not, Samantha is able to "create" a man that all of the Bunnies love (all other men were failures. Oh and Samantha was able to do this ON HER FIRST TRY, because OF FUCKING COURSE, why the fuck not?!) and they tear each other AND THEMSELVES apart to please him, going so far as to LITERALLY FIGHT EACH OTHER for his affection. And you want to know the best part? Based off of my interpretation of the text, Max (Samantha's "creation") exists to do all the things she wants to do but can't because she's too scared (like date Ava, her friend, or destroy the Bunnies). Are you telling me that Samantha had to create A MALE VERSION OF HERSELF to be able to do all the things she wanted to do before her plot induced epiphany kicked in?! Oh, and speaking of endings, you want to know what her "new and improved" self does when approaching the Bunnies after Max is destroyed? She acts snarky and condescending towards them. Female empowerment at its finest, AM I RIGHT, GUYS?! Holy shit, how is it possible for a story to derail so spectacularly?! (Although the same thing happened with The Black Coats, so I guess anything's possible).

Welp, that about does it. All of my rage and hatred has finally been quelled, thanks to my best friend, the caps lock key. In closing, I do not recommend this book to anyone, I wish I could have lit my copy on fire and throw it out a window but it was a library book so I couldn't, I hope everyone has a nice day and never has to suffer like I did reading this book.