“But I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t stopping. Because we were already running away again, me and my imagination.”
If you were hooked by the surreal, unsettling world of Bunny by Mona Awad, you’re not alone. This darkly addictive novel blends psychological horror, cultish friendships, and feminist literary fiction in a way that’s hard to forget. Whether you’re drawn to its weird girl energy, dark academia vibes, or the slow unravelling of reality, you’re likely on the hunt for more books like Bunny – and we have you covered here at What We Reading. In this list of thrilling reads, you’ll find disturbing literary fiction, mind-bending psychological thrillers, and haunting stories full of strange women, toxic friendships, and cult-like atmospheres. These books are perfect for anyone who loves unsettling fiction, surreal narratives, and feminist horror with a sharp edge. If you’re wondering what to read after Bunny, or looking for psychological thrillers with a twist of weird, these stories promise to get under your skin.
Bunny Summary
Mona Awad’s Bunny is a genre-bending, surreal psychological thriller that explores the dark side of female friendship, creative ambition, and identity. The novel follows Samantha Heather Mackey, a scholarship student in a prestigious MFA program at an elite, exclusive New England university. Feeling isolated and repelled by the saccharine, cult-like clique of girls in her cohort who call each other “Bunny”, Samantha maintains a critical distance – until she is unexpectedly hauled into a bizarre inner circle.
What starts out as strange bonding rituals soon morphs into something far more sinister and unhinged, as Samantha becomes ensnared in a twisted world of fantasy, obsession, and violence. Blurring the line between reality and hallucination, Bunny is both a satirical take on dark academia and a chilling descent into the mind of a woman unravelling. With its blend of dark humour, horror, and feminist commentary, Bunny is a haunting and wildly original novel that is as unsettling as it is page-turning.
My Year Of Rest And Relaxation – Ottessa Moshfegh
First up on our list of books like Bunny is My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, a dark, biting and strangely hypnotic novel about a young woman’s descent into intentional oblivion. Set in early 2000s New York, the unnamed narrator – beautiful, wealthy and recently orphaned – appears to have everything on the surface. Yet, she is utterly detached from the world around her. Disillusioned by life and plagued by a quiet, gnawing emptiness, she hatches a plan: to sleep for an entire year, aided by an alarming cocktail of prescription drugs and the advice of a questionable psychiatrist.
What follows is a disturbing, oddly comedic journey through the mind of a woman who wants to disappear, not in a tragic, dramatic sense, but through apathy, sleep, and erasure. As her world shrinks, the story delves into themes of privilege, grief, depression, and the absurdity of modern existence.
I Who Have Never Known Men – Jacqueline Harpman
One of the best feminist dystopia novels of all time, Jacqueline Harpman’s I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, minimalist novel that lingers long after the final page. This unsettling piece of literary fiction follows a young woman, only known as “the girl”, who lives underground with thirty-nine other women, all imprisoned in a cage by silent male guards. She has no memory of the world outside, no concept of love, and no experience of human connection beyond this regulated, hellish existence. When the opportunity to escape presents itself, the novel shifts into a meditative, post-apocalyptic exploration for freedom, identity, and what it means to be human.
Perfect for fans of Bunny, this disturbing and deeply introspective book delivers surreal horror, feminist undertones and mind-bending questions about memory and isolation. It’s a chilling, thought-provoking tale for anyone looking for more weird books, psychological thrillers with a dystopian edge, or dark feminist fiction that blurs the boundaries of reality.
Boy Parts – Eliza Clark
Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking man she persuades to model for her, scouted from the streets of Newcastle. Having been placed on a sabbatical from her dead-end bar job, she is offered an exhibition at a renowned London gallery. It’s an opportunity that offers an escape from her rut of drugs, alcohol, and extreme cinema.
The news triggers a self-destructive tailspin, centred around Irina’s relationship with her obsessive best friend, and a shy young man from the local supermarket who has caught her attention. One of the best books like Bunny that follows an increasingly unhinged female lead, Eliza Clark’s debut novel, Boy Parts, is a pitch-black comedy that fearlessly explores the taboo topics of sexuality and gender roles in the twenty-first century.
Big Swiss – Jen Beagin
Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is unrenovated, uninsulated, and full of bees. Greta spends her time transcribing therapy sessions for a sex coach who calls himself Om. She soon becomes infatuated with his newest client, a repressed married woman, whom she takes to affectionately calling “Big Swiss”.
One day, Greta recognises Big Swiss’ voice in town and they soon become enmeshed. Whilst Big Swiss is completely unaware that Greta has listened in on some of her most intimate exchanges, Greta has never been more herself with anyone. Her attraction to Big Swiss overrides her guilt, and she is willing to do anything to keep their relationship going. With its twisted exploration of identity, trauma, voyeurism and desire, Big Swiss is one of the best books similar to Bunny for anyone looking for another laugh-out-loud tale brimming with unhinged energy and flawed, fascinating women.
Nightbitch – Rachel Yoder
At home full-time with her two-year-old son, an artist reaches the conclusion that she is struggling. She is isolated, lonely, and exhausted. Her husband, always away travelling for his work, calls her from faraway hotel rooms. One more toddler bedtime routine, and she fears that she may just lose her mind entirely.
Instead, quite suddenly, she starts to gain things. Surprising things that happen one night when her child refuses to sleep. Sharper canines. Strange new patches of hair. New appetites, new instincts. And, from deep within herself, a seductive new voice. With its observations on contemporary womanhood and power structures, Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch is one of the best books like Bunny that blends satire and primal urges for a read that will make you want to howl in laughter and recognition.
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A Certain Hunger – Chelsea G. Summers
Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous and highly intelligent, Dorothy’s obvious mastery of the culinary arts makes it clear that she is easily capable of rustling up a meal far better than any of the chefs she writes about. Dorothy also loves sex and, whilst she may not have found a long-term partner, frequent trips from Manhattan to Italy keep her appetite for her two great loves in check.
But there is something within Dorothy that’s different from everyone else, and, having suppressed it for long enough, she begins to embrace what makes her uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from farm-to-table childhood to the lofty heights of her career and to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man’s neck on Fire Island, A Certain Hunger is a book like Bunny that shows us readers what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.
The Secret History – Donna Tartt
It is one of the most timeless, defining, and best dark academia novels of all time. No list of books like Bunny would be complete without mentioning The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Set within an elite college in Vermont, the story follows Richard Papen, a transfer student from California, who becomes entangled in an exclusive group of eccentric classics students led by the enigmatic professor, Julian Morrow. As their intellectual pursuits turn obsessive, the group commits an unspeakable act that fractures their carefully constructed world, leading them down a path of guilt, paranoia, and unravelling psyches.
Told in hindsight from Richard’s perspective, The Secret History is a masterclass in psychological suspense, brimming with toxic friendships, moral decay, and haunting prose. Similar to Mona Awad’s novel, this disturbing piece of literary fiction is essential reading for fans of unsettling, cerebral stories that dig deep under the skin.
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Our Wives Under The Sea – Julia Armfield
When Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ended in disaster, Miri believes she finally has her wife back. However, it soon becomes clear that Leah is not the same. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were left stranded on the floor of the ocean, Leah has brought part of it back with her, onto dry land and into their home.
Moving through something that only vaguely resembles normal, everyday living, Miri comes to the realisation that the life they had before might be gone for good. Though Leah is still there, Miri can feel the woman that she loves slipping through her grasp. Our Wives Under the Sea is the debut novel by Julia Armfield and a haunting LGBT horror tale about falling in love, loss, grief, and what life there is in the deep, deep sea.
Earthlings – Sayaka Murata
Natsuki isn’t like other girls. She has a wand and a transformation mirror. She might be a witch or an alien from another planet. Together with her cousin, Yuu, Natsuki spends her summers in the wild mountains of Nagano, dreaming of other worlds. When a terrible sequence of events threatens to pull the two children apart forever, they make a promise: survive, no matter what.
Now, Natsuki is fully grown. She lives a normal life with her asexual husband, surviving as best she can by appearing normal. But the demands of Natsuki’s family life are increasing, her friends wonder why she still isn’t pregnant, and dark shadows from Natsuki’s childhood are following in her shadow. Fleeing the suburbs for the mountains of her childhood, Natsuki prepares for a reunion with Yuu. But will he still remember their promise? One of the most famous Japanese horror novels, Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, is a disturbingly surreal book similar to Bunny about alienation, childhood trauma, and rejecting human norms.
The Vegetarian – Han Kang
Han Kang’s The Vegetarian is a haunting, surreal novel that explores the quiet rebellion of a woman who refuses to conform. When Yeong-hye, a seemingly ordinary, submissive South Korean housewife, decides to stop eating meat following a series of violent, dreamlike visions, her decision kickstarts a series of unsettling reactions from her friends and society. Her simple refusal becomes a staunch act of defiance that soon spirals into obsession, estrangement and, ultimately, a complete withdrawal from the human world.
Told through three shifting perspectives – her husband, her brother-in-law, and her sister – The Vegetarian is a chilling exploration of bodily autonomy, societal control, and the fragile boundary between sanity and liberation. Much like Bunny, it blends psychological horror, feminist themes, and surreal transformations to create a disturbing, poetic, and deeply meditative reading experience.
Such Sharp Teeth – Rachel Harrison
Rory Morris isn’t thrilled to be moving back to her hometown, even if it is only temporary. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant, estranged from the baby’s father, and in need of support. So, Rory returns to the place she had assumed she had left firmly in her rearview mirror. After a night out at a bar where she runs into an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate the accident, she is attacked.
Miraculously, Rory survives. But her life soon begins to look and feel different. She’s unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver – and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She’s changing into someone else, potentially even something else, maybe even a monster. But does that mean she’s putting those she cares about in danger? Or is embracing the primal wildness inside her the key to acceptance? Darkly comedic and brilliantly layered in its depiction of trauma, rage, and vulnerability, Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth is the perfect follow-up read for anyone who loved Bunny.
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Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
