The best things to see, do, read and hear this month in Toronto

A darkly funny novel about a cult of Ivy League witches

- ANTHONY MILTON

We Love You, Bunny
Out September 23
BOOKS Toronto-raised writer Mona Awad has a taste for the occult. Her 2019 novel, Bunny, follows Samantha, a writer in a prestigious MFA program. There, she meets a clique of rich classmates who engage in all manner of witchery and call one another “Bunny.” Samantha spends much of the book castigating them, and in the sequel, We Love You, Bunny, the women take their revenge. Sam finds herself tied up and tormented by the Bunnies, who are furious about their depictions in the first book. It’s a dizzying perspective shift that gets stranger as each Bunny shares her story. Here, Awad talks about the upside of being an outsider, the high cost of creativity and whether there will be a Bunny 3.

What made you want to revisit the world of Bunny?

I missed it. The book never left me. When I write my novels, I really inhabit them. When they're over, I grieve. I started to see visions of the Bunnies when I'd see actual bunnies on walks.

Why did you opt to tell the story from their perspective?