Mona Awad Has a Thing for "Dark Enchantment" Books—Here’s What She's Reading
We asked the 'We Love You, Bunny' author to tell us about the horror and fantasy novels that cast a spell on her.
When you're looking to get lost in a book, sometimes you need your reading material to match your mood. With Marie Claire's series "Buy the Book," we do the heavy lifting for you. We're offering curated, highly specific recommendations for whatever you're looking for—whether you're in your feels or hooked on a subgenre trending on #BookTok.
In this author-curated rendition, Mona Awad—a short fiction writer, the bestselling author of Bunny, and the Queen of Feminist Horror—shares her favorite books about dark enchantment.
Whenever author Mona Awad finishes a novel, she experiences a “grieving period” when she “[longs] to return to the characters.” Her 2019 bestseller and #BookTok favorite Bunny was no different—except she couldn’t let it go.
“Bunny never left me,” the writer says of the dark academia book about a peculiar cult of young women in the fictional Warren University’s MFA program. “When the book began to find more readers, I felt inspired to follow my heart and return to it.”
The result is the beguiling and darkly funny duel prequel/sequel, We Love You, Bunny (out September 23), in which the Bunnies get the chance to tell their side of the story that turned their classmate Samantha’s school year into a nightmare—and the subject for her debut novel.
As with most of her work, Awad turns to horror to tell yet another honest, yet twisted tale about the female experience. She shares with Marie Claire over email why she often turns to the genre: “Women live in a world where the truth of their experience is constantly being dismissed, denied, devalued. We are gaslit into thinking that we’re the ones who are wrong about our experience. That conflict is horror’s terrain. Horror is the perfect vehicle for exploring womanhood. I wouldn’t have been able to write All’s Well or Rouge, and certainly, Bunny, without it.”
The Canadian author also describes “enchantment” as a critical piece of all her fiction, especially Bunny and its follow-up. “It’s a driving force for fairy tales, but it’s also a crucial part of horror. If we’re not drawn in, how could we possibly stick around for the scare?” she says. “I love exploring what holds us captive, because ultimately that’s what enchantment is all about.”
Awad adds, “Enchantment sounds so light and lovely and magical on its surface, and it can be, but like all forms of desire, it can drive us into darkness.”
To take a journey down that rabbit hole, we asked Awad to share her favorite “dark enchantment” books with us. Below, you’ll find her picks ranging from literary classics to recent mythology-inspired favorites.
"If I’m sad or in a bad place, I read Marie Dermansky and I feel better. Bad Marie is very bad. Or is she? You’ll have to read to find out. This book is such a delight, even as it is quite dark at times. And it’s funny as hell."
"'The Little Mermaid' and 'The Red Shoes' are two of my favorite fairy tales. I love how powerfully Andersen captures being bewitched, and the longing for another kind of life. Often this longing leads to serious consequences for the heroes of his stories, but there is a great deal of compassion and empathy, too. And of course, magic, both dark and light."
"Written as a dialogue between a woman in grave danger and a young mysterious boy named David, this book hooked me and didn’t let go until the last page. It’s an absolutely terrifying story, but it’s dazzling too, and some of the images and scenes Samanta Schweblin has written here will stay with me always."
"I’m blown away by this collection. It’s not easy to contemporize the fairy tale in ways that truly make the form feel truly fresh and subversive. But Daniel M. Lavery has done this in these stories. Dark, playful, funny, and terrifying at times, these stories are a true testament to the fairy tale’s power to both enchant and reveal us."
"A classic I’ll never forget and that I revisit often. This is a story about the power of beauty to enchant us and the power of art to reveal who we truly are. I love how much this book celebrates beauty but also shows us its shadow side, and shows us, too, how our desire to possess it will undo us."
"Probably one of my favorite contemporary novels, I love the narration in this book. It’s told from the perspective of a young man, Piranesi, who lives in a labyrinth and has no memory. Though he himself adores the labyrinth, the reader becomes increasingly aware that he is in grave danger."
"I love Bret Easton Ellis’s novels, but there’s something truly singular about The Shards. This is the story about a young man in his senior year of high school in L.A. in 1981, and his obsession with a strange and charismatic new schoolmate. Brilliant, labyrinthine, and scary as hell."
We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad is available now.
