Shelf Life: Mona Awad

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

Mona Awad’s second novel was the 2019 bestseller Bunny, set in a New England MFA program and partly inspired by Cinderella and the 1996 film The Craft. This fall, Awad has returned with Bunny’s follow-up, We Love You, Bunny, itself taking cues from Frankenstein and the ’80s comedy Heathers.

“Writing Bunny was such a joyous experience, and I missed the world of it profoundly when I finished the book,” Awad says. “So, in many ways, the story never left me—perhaps because I knew there was room to return. The reader response to Bunny was also so incredibly rich and creative that it kept the story alive and ever expanding in my head. Then one day, I just heeded the call. And We Love You, Bunny was born.”

Awad is also the author of the novel 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, which she wrote while pursuing her own MFA at Brown University, as well as All’s Well and Rouge, born of an addiction to YouTube beauty tutorials during the pandemic. Bunny, which is also a nickname Awad’s parents called her, was optioned for film by J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot Productions; Rouge is also being adapted for the big screen by Fremantle and Sinestra.

The Montreal-born and -raised, Boston-based award-winning author started as a poet; had a childhood ritual with her late mother of eating cherries while watching Hitchcock movies; was a goth in her teens; once worked at The King’s English bookstore in Salt Lake City; was named a literary heir to Margaret Atwood by Atwood herself, who read Awad’s palms; writes about food under the pseudonym Veronica Tartley; creates playlists for her books (Bunny’s included Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space”); earned a master’s in English at the University of Edinburgh and a Ph.D. in English and creative writing from the University of Denver; and teaches fiction at Syracuse University.

Were she to blurb her own book, she would describe We Love You, Bunny this way: “A sequel and a prequel wrapped around a standalone trip down the rabbit hole you'll never forget.”

Likes: music (in particular, the The Cure, Joy Division, and New Order); sparkling rosé; dance (she did flamenco and joined a bellydancing troupe to get in touch with her Egyptian heritage on her father’s side); the color red; SK-II’s yeast essence; oatmeal breakfast cookies; smoked meat sandwiches; bagels from St-Viateur Bagel in her hometown.

Dislikes: cutesy stuff; Las Vegas; buffets; buffets in Las Vegas

Fears: memory loss; flying.

Take a closer look at her favorite books below.

The book that…:…made me weep uncontrollably:

I always tell my students that, if you want to have your heart broken, read The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde. Read “The Nightingale and the Rose,” especially.

…I recommend over and over again:

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. The narration is so beautiful and surprising, and I love the strange, lost world of it.

…I read in one sitting; it was that good:

Not one sitting exactly, but almost anything by Marcy Dermansky. Her books are just so much fun. Bad Marie is a favorite, but they’re all great.

…currently sits on my nightstand:

A copy of Twelfth Night. I love a Shakespearean comedy. And an advanced copy of The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey, which is incredible so far.

…helped me become a better writer:

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. This book taught me how to be with a character and how to really bring a consciousness to life with voice.

…grew on me:

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. I remember it starting slowly and having to really give it a chance, but by page 160 (!), I remember being completely hooked—and being so grateful that I’d stuck with it. It’s such a great gothic novel.

…is a master class on voice:

Anything by David Mitchell, but I have a soft spot for Slade House and The Bone Clocks. David Mitchell is the Daniel Day-Lewis of voices, and I love how he bridges the fantastic and the real by dispatching from deep within his character’s head. And Duchess of Nothing by Heather McGowan, which is one of my favorites. Such a delightful, surprising mind.

…I’ve re-read the most:

The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey. I used to re-read this every year. It’s a dark story, but it’s home. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. This is probably my favorite novel of all time. The writing is gorgeous, and the world of it is so sinister and enchanting, yet the characters and their all-too-human longings feel so real.

…I consider literary comfort food:

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I love Mole and Ratty’s friendship so much. And Toad is such a wicked toad.

…makes me feel seen:

Anything by Jean Rhys. Probably Good Morning, Midnight is my favorite. I love her narrative style. It’s close and dreamy and vulnerable.

…fills me with hope:

The Torn Skirt by Rebecca Godfrey. Maybe I would modify this to “fills me with a sense of possibility,” even though it’s about a teenage runaway with very few possibilities. I’m mentioning it twice because this book means so much to me.