Episode 12: Amber Sparks and We Love You, Bunny

We had a great time welcoming writer Amber Sparks to the show and discussing her new novel Happy People Don’t Live Here, which features a girl detective, abusive men, ghosts, a mermaid, and what it means to keep your love for someone alive long after they — or you — are gone. Amber is conflicted about the idea of Virginia Woolf using social media and, like several guests before her, stands up for the unjustly maligned second person POV.

Then, we do a deep dive on We Love You, Bunny, this year’s follow-up to Mona Awad’s cult hit novel Bunny. We are unanimous in our belief that it is both sequel and prequel, which is both interesting and problematic.

Amber Sparks' books can be found on her website, she can be followed on BlueSky, and her story “Your Life in Parties” is in the Substack literary journal Short Story Long.

Bunny fan art referenced in the episode by @sarahmirisolaart, Footsy, and wrengade.

Works cited this episode:

Alice’s Aventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
And I Do Not Forgive You, Amber Sparks
Self-Help, Lorrie Moore
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The Theory of Everything, dir. James Marsh
Dead Poets Society, dir. Peter Weir
Babel, R.F. Kuang
Katabasis, R.F. Kuang
Bunny, Mona Awad
Heathers, dir. Michael Lehmann
Mean Girls, dir. Mark Waters
The Breakfast Club, dir. John Hughes
The Craft, dir. Andrew Fleming
Blob, Maggie Su
A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
The Lost World, Michael Crichton
The President is Missing, Bill Clinton and James Patterson
The Hardy Boys series, Franklin W. Dixon/The Stratemeyer Syndicate