BOOK REVIEWS &
RECOMMENDATIONS
with Abby Kernya IG @abbigalekernya
Bunny
by Mona Awad (2019)
Genre: Fiction, Humour, Satire, Dark Humour
Recommended Age: 16+ readers
Rating Scale
Educational value: 2/5
Positive message: 1/5
Positive role models: 0/5
Violence: 5/5
Sex: 4/5
Language: 4/5
Drinking, drugs, smoking: 5/5
Consumerism: 1.5/5
“The real world lady, it's out there. Do you even know that? You're going to have to get back to it sometime.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny
Down, down the rabbit hole we go…or should I say bunny hole?
It's imaginative, it's exotic, it's a bad trip, it's every dark thought you don’t say aloud. Bunny by Mona Awad takes place in a prestigious New England University where a group of cliquey English students, known formally as the bunnies, wreak havoc on their own personal playground. Samantha has the delight of being the only non-bunny in their creative writing workshop – a narration I greatly appreciate as a current creative writing student stuck in workshops with my own personal bunnies…minus the cult.
Oh, yes. This is a story about a cult.
Pampered in pink ruffled in feathers and generationally wealthy, these bunnies put your average New Englander to shame. Samantha and her best friend, Ava, watch the bunnies from afar until one night Samantha accepts their offer to attend their “smut salon”, an extension of their writing workshop. Bunnies known as The Duchess, Cupcake, Creepy Doll, and Vignette warp Samantha into the world of the bunny in a night that spirals into months. Missing boys, bloodied bunnies, secret rituals, what's not to love?
How far will loneliness push someone? How much can you caress your desires before it no longer becomes fantasy? Awad does a beautiful and innovative job of displaying the power dynamics between women, the dynamic between confidence and isolation, the struggle for control, and the relationship that exists between self and self-destruction. Bunny is weird, Bunny is gross, Bunny will leave you asking yourself, “what the f*ck did I just read?”
For this reason alone, Bunny is five stars for me. A Frankenstein-esque story meets the cousin of The Secret History, Bunny is a satirical fever dream that explores the privilege, power, and limits of the human condition. Nothing is real, but everything exists – how can anyone find their way back from this?
“Sad. Very sad, Samantha. To be lost like this. Sad, sad, sad that when someone asks you, What do you want? nothing comes to mind but a pair of fists clutching little broken bits.”
― Mona Awad, Bunny
Giovanni's Room
by James Baldwin (1956)
Genre: Gay literature, drama, psychological fiction
Recommended Age: 15+ readers
Rating Scale
Educational value: 5/5
Positive message: 2/5
Positive role models: 0/5
Violence: 4/5
Sex: 3/5
Language: 4/5
Drinking, drugs, smoking: 5/5
Consumerism: 1.5/5
James Baldwin was, is, and will forever be, one of the greatest writers to walk this Earth. Giovanni’s Room is a testament to his ability to shatter through the page. This is my second read of Giovanni’s Room, the second time I have lived and lost through these characters and am yet again left with that lingering fear of life slipping by without having lived it, without having truly loved. The short novel follows David as he wanders through the streets of Paris trying to find himself, trying to run from himself, and in doing so - runs into Giovanni. In a silent sort of suffering, David becomes enthralled with this strange Italian barman as they share a tiny room in the south of France.
When the most violent, precious part of your soul longs to be held, how do you refuse? How do you refuse the guilt that follows suit? Why does love feel so filthy? As David falls deeper and deeper into a world built just for the two of them, he is torn between maintaining his American traditional masculinity, and the ache in his heart that beats for Giovanni’s room. But as David reconciles with himself, the return of his fiancé, Hella, threatens to tear the world from under that room. In a beautiful poetic critique on heteronormative society, James Baldwin forces David to once again face the mirror and make that choice between a woman that represents everything he so desperately wants, and the crumbling fragments of the man who showed him what he needs.
David's deepest confession, once a quiet search for understanding, now unravels him utterly bare as he must ask the question: how can anyone survive such agony, how can anyone learn to live with the shame?
How can you choose?
In a poetic plea for unrelenting peace, James Baldwin writes a love between two lost men struggling to scrub their skin clean from themselves. Told in flashbacks from that first glance to the to the last, Giovanni’s Room is a story that will never leave your side. David, with all his harrowing faults, speaks to those who cannot face themselves when confronted with repressed desire - with their own Giovanni. And Giovanni speaks to those messy with love, those who carry their heart so tight it spills out in resentment.
“love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty— they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’ He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. ‘You play it safe long enough,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
Ninth House
by Leigh Bardugo (2019)
Genre: Fantasy Fiction, Thriller, Paranormal fiction
Recommended Age: 16+ readers
Rating Scale
Educational value: 4/5
Positive message: 3/5
Positive role models: 2/5
Violence: 5/5
Sex: 5/5
Language: 4/5
Drinking, drugs, smoking: 4/5
Consumerism: 1.5/5
“That was what magic did. It revealed the heart of who you'd been before life took away your belief in the possible. It gave back the world all lonely children longed for.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House
Alex Stern should never have gone to Yale. There are a lot of things actually, that Alex should never have done…Should never have seen. In Leigh Bardugo’s debut adult fantasy series, Yale’s eight secret societies are at war - a war with magic, a war with Alex. After a bloody accident that leaves Alex alone and hospitalised, an unlikely ally offers her last chance at survival: study at Yale. But why? Why Alex? A runaway that is every example of a student who does not belong at one of the most elite Universities. Maybe it’s because there are higher forces at play, maybe she is a pawn in a very, very large game, or maybe it’s because survivors don’t know how to stop fighting.
Meet Daniel ‘Darlighton’ Arlington, golden boy of the Lethe House that ensures the other societies follow the rules and don’t mess with things they shouldn’t. Darlighton has every right not to trust Alex, and Alex has every right not to be trusted. But what happens when power and greed threatens to corrupt this ancient arcane magic? When an outside girl shows up dead and rituals are compromised? How can a girl spun in a web of lies and a boy on a mission to prove his worth stop the worst before it happens? Ninth House is a gothic fantasy story perfect to quench your murder mystery craving. Add in secret societies, the occult, a mysterious disappearance, and you might find yourself at the centre of this investigation wondering who can be trusted.
Bardugo blends together the fantastical with contemporary issues in this novel. Dissecting how real world prejudices, privileges, and traumas find their way in a world much bigger than our own. From darkened history, cover-ups, and a chance at redemption, Ninth House offers a place for those looking in every corner of their world for something bigger, something only they can see. If you are looking for a read to get lost in over the holidays, or one to test your limits of reality, then I highly recommend Ninth House.
“All you children playing with fire, looking surprised when the house burns down”
― Leigh Bardugo, Ninth House
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
by Stephen Chobosky (1999)
Genre: Novel, Young Adult Fiction, Epistolary Novel
Recommended Age: 14+ readers
Rating Scale
Educational value: 3/5
Positive message: 3.5/5
Positive role models: 2/5
Violence: 5/5
Sex: 5/5
Language: 4/5
Drinking, drugs, smoking: 5/5
Consumerism: 1/5
“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a novel everyone needs to read at least once in their life. I was lucky enough to find this story when I was lost trying to navigate the complexities of highschool, and it helped ease the isolation so many of us felt in our youth. With the arrival of autumn and winter following in pursuit, seasonal depression often torments many of us and we find ourselves searching for something in the darkness to feel less alone.
To me, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is, and has always been, that something. It is a piece of familiarity within everything uncertain.
Where do you go when you don’t quite fit? How does one become a wallflower? This classic coming-of-age story follows Charlie as he navigates his loneliness and discovers what it means to be alive and what it means to be a wallflower; to be still as you watch the world go by without you. I first discovered Charlie when I was entering adulthood as a young and lost student. When I picked up this book during all the chaos, I was immediately captivated by Charlie. Stephen Chobosky perfectly captures how it feels to discover who you are, while also losing every sense of who you thought you were. He tells Charlie’s story through letters addressed to an anonymous friend. Through these letters, we uncover the trials and tribulations of first love, mental health, self-discovery, and rock bottom.
The simplicity of the writing conveys a tender tragedy familiar to those of us who see things, and understand. As Charlie copes with the haunting loneliness after losing his best friend to suicide, he falls in with the ‘misfits’ of his highschool. Each character in this story brings their own unique perspective on growing up. From self-love, finding your voice, running from shame, and learning love is more than just heartbreak, Charlie takes the readers on a silent adventure through his eyes as a quiet wallflower in a very loud world.
Some of the best things are unexpected, and some of the worst things have no reason. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good people choose the wrong people to love. Sometimes we hide who we are, and sometimes we don’t know how to stop thinking about everything all the time. Sometimes, we all need a little bit of Charlie to make us feel less alone.
“We accept the love we think we deserve.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
A HISTORY OF MY BRIEF BODY
by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2020)
Genre: Autobiography, Essay
Recommended Age: 15+ readers
Rating Scale
Educational value: 5/5
Positive message: 3/5
Positive role models: 3/5
Violence: 5/5
Sex: 5/5
Language: 4/5
Drinking, drugs, smoking: 4/5
Consumerism: 3/5
“Let's start with the body, for so much is lost and lost and lost there."
- Billy-Ray Belcourt, A History of My Brief Body
Belcourt dissects what it means for him to be a queer indigenous writer in a country built on the elimination of indigenous peoples. It is raw, rotten, and embedded with grief strong enough to survive generations - grief that has been forced to survive under the boot of this country. But A History of My Brief Body is also painstakingly beautiful. Emphasize the pain and beauty, for they are two very different themes intertwined in this timeless piece of literature. This memoir explores a lived experience as a queer Indigenous person living within a country that refuses to truly reconcile with its past.
Where do you go when the world becomes hollow? How do you find your way back when you can't describe what you're running from?
Belcourt writes about how his queerness and identity have become his target, muse, and agony as he exists within a country caged around him. This memoir tells a story of a boy turned man, turned human, turned fetish, turned battlefield. Belcourt’s pure and raw accounts of the vulnerability of words woven between pain and existence take readers on a journey that stains any pre-existing notion they had of Indigenous existence. Belcourt writes about the beauty of identity and loving without restrictions, but also the fear and violence that follows in a country built on lies. He shares how isolating it is to be an outsider in your own home, and how frightening it is to feel your own loneliness.
“I didn’t know what to do with my agony, so I did what most do with the unknown and menacing: I waged a war on it”
-Belcourt
It is my firm and undying belief that Belcourt is a one-of-a-kind writer. His raw poetic talent transcribes into a seemingly effortless image of staring at something beautiful while fighting the urge to collapse in front of it. A History of My Brief Body is a capsule of art, poetry, clarity and grief that will no doubt change the course of readers’ lives - it certainly has reshaped mine. If you are looking for a read that highlights Canada’s true treatment of Indigenous peoples, a protest of restricted love, and one writer’s take on the human condition, then I highly recommend A History of My Brief Body.
Solitaire
by Alice Oseman (2014)
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Recommended Age: 15+ readers
Rating Scale
Educational value: 3.5/5
Positive message: 4/5
Positive role models: 3/5
Violence: 2/5
Sex: 1/5
Language: 3/5
Drinking, drugs, smoking: 2/5
Consumerism: 2/5
“All the people are chatting and laughing and smiling, and it sort of makes me feel a bit sad, like I'm watching them through a dirty window."
- Alice Oseman, Solitaire
Solitaire follows the life of sixteen-year-old Tori Spring. Tori is not your average sixteen-year-old, she struggles to make friends, hold conversations, and find a way to exist outside of her head. Alice Oseman’s first novel paints the world through the eyes of a cynical diet-lemonade-addicted blogger as she navigates her way through high school and family. This is the sort of novel you wish you had when you were younger, the sort of novel that makes you feel less alone in the constant struggle to understand yourself. Tori is a character that we can all relate to in a way: she hates stupid people, hates meaningless conversations, and HATES Michael Holden.
But, this is not a love story.
Tori is in a new school year, but nothing goes as planned. With an unexpected childhood friend showing up, a new student named Michael with ridiculous glasses, and a secret group called “Solitaire” wreaking havoc on what was supposed to be a normal school year. Tori is now forced to step out of her comfort zone and adapt to these unforeseen events that just don’t seem to be leaving her alone.
Solitaire tells a story that is not easy. One that deals with growing up, mental health, and finding peace within the parts of yourself you don’t understand. Alice Oseman shares how safe it is to live life as if other people are the problem and how to find yourself in a world where you don’t quite fit in. It is witty, heartwrenching, and unexpected. It will stick with you days after finishing it, perhaps you’ll even return back to the mind of Tori Spring and catch everything you missed in the surprise mystery of the “Solitaire” chaos. This is a fictional story that feels so real you can almost touch it. Alice Oseman wholeheartedly conveys how devastating it can be to exist within the world completely alone, and how it is even more difficult to let someone in. If you are looking for a read to comfort your younger self or a mystery to lose yourself in, then I highly recommend Solitaire.
“We’re so used to disaster that we accept it. We think we deserve it.”
MORE RECOMMENDED READS
Babel
by R.F Kuang
Mrs. Dalloway
by Virginia Woolf
This Wound Is A World
by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Beautiful World,
Where Are You
by Sally Rooney
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
by Ocean Vuong