This is a terrific and thought-provoking short story collection. Moving between genres and often mixing them, the stories are instantly memorable and will have you thinking long after you finish the book. Through situations that are, on the one hand, completely unbelievable, but, on the other, evoke deeper truths about the modern world, the book explores interesting issues related to family, wealth, and freedom. One of the most original books I have read in a long time.

Highly recommended!

There are some short story collections that just fit into my wheelhouse – they’re particularly weird and wonderful at the same time. “Cursed Bunny” by Bora Chung (translated from Korean by Anton Hur) will definitely not be everyone’s taste, but I was super happy I read it.

Chung’s writing is often graphic and does tend to stray into the horror genre a bit, but there is so much depth in each story. The characters are full human beings right from the get-go (which is often missing from some short stories). They’re flawed and selfish and dishonest, which makes them all too relatable. There were some stories that were a bit too gross (namely “The Head”) but I don’t often read books that get that tone of terror and magic that Chung so beautifully encapsulates. The only thing that kept this from being a five-star read for me was that I think perhaps a little bit of Chung’s authentic voice was lost in translation (how I wish I could read Korean to get the full gist!).

Fave stories: “The Embodiment,” “Cursed Bunny,” “The Frozen Finger,” “Reunion” – These run the gamut of a commentary on motherhood and the patriarchy to the effects of generational trauma. These particular stories also happen to be a tad shorter than some of the other ones – I think Chung truly succeeds when she’s more succinct in her storytelling.

I would definitely recommend this collection to anyone who loves magical realism (especially when it strays to the dark side). But beware: there are some major trigger warnings – especially if you’re squeamish around blood or gore.

This is a phenomenal collection of short stories based in Korean lore and just an all around unsettling nature. It was GREAT!

As with any story collection, there are a couple I didn’t care for and some that I really really enjoyed. My favorites were:

•The Head
•Cursed Bunny
•Snare
•Scars

These were all eerie and incredibly entertaining. I love this style of horror writing. The stories are off putting and still completely connect you to the characters.

This collection of short stories, overall, just missed the mark for me. The first half I enjoyed, but the stories contained within the later half were too long and just didn’t really hold my attention.

There were 2 stories I actually really really liked in this collection and they are the sole reason why I am giving this a 3 star instead of a 2 star. ‘The Head’ and ‘Snare’ are most definitely the stand outs in this collection! Both of which made me feel weirded out in a lot of ways and also in awe of someone’s brain being able to come up with this type of stuff.

This collection of fables is absolutely brilliant! I have favorites, but that by no means signifies an uneven collection. Any reader knows that anthologies usually come with a mix of great, good, and mediocre stories, but I found all 10 stories in Cursed Bunny to be exceptional. I was able to pick out favorites based on the messages and intent of the stories.

“Cursed Bunny”, “The Snare”, and “Ruler of the Winds and Sands” dealt with the consequences of bad behavior. I love reap-what-you-sow stories so these were obviously favorites. The other story that really surprised me was “Reunion” with its unexpected ending.

I would definitely recommend reading this a story or two at a time; this isn’t one to sit down and read all the way through. If you find yourself having trouble with the first two stories, for reasons I won’t spoil, skip them and read the others; they might be too gross for some readers.

Recommended for: horror fans

Content warning: blood & gore; violence; murder; suicide; ghosts

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize, Korean author Bora Chung makes a striking U.S. debut with her disturbingly unique collection of short stories, Cursed Bunny, translated by Anton Hur. As the characters face the monstrous and absurd, each tale grapples with lessons and morals that aren’t so easily pinned down. The stories in the collection read as modern fables commenting on generational trauma, the pitfalls of greed, and the confines of maintaining the status quo within a patriarchal society. Throughout the collection, Chung expertly blends surrealist horror with the unsettling truths that illustrate our darkest fears.

Full review featured in The West Trade Review: http://westtradereview.homestead.com/westendchungreview22.html

This collection of short fiction was originally published in 2017, but, with the help of translator, Anton Hur, is now being published in the States. If you’re looking for an optimistic, feel-good read, this is not the book for you. These stories are wildly inventive and dark, spanning a wide variety of genre influences including fantasy, sci-fi, horror and magical realism, jolting the reader from humor to the horrific. The collection is evocative of disturbing fairy tales, some, scatological in nature. One has Handmaid’s Tale vibes - a pregnant woman is told that she must find a father for her child or suffer the consequences. Another is about a shapeshifting lamp who takes on the appearance of an adorable rabbit. This is a book you will want to read under the covers with a flashlight, or, if you’re like me, in the middle of the day, with the blinds open and all the lights on. A critique and reflection of the horrors of society as well as an indictment on how women are treated in society, this was a compelling and creepy read in all the best ways. Thank you to Algonquin Books and to NetGalley for the advanced review copy.

I'm not usually a short story collection person but I've heard a lot about this book on BookTube and was happy to receive an eARC copy. The book is very well written and the stories are so interesting and at times pretty thoughtful. I would definitely love to read more by this author.

Favorite stories:
The Head
Cursed Bunny
Scars
Home Sweet Home
The Frozen Finger

I don't know how Bora Chung thought of any of these stories. They ranged from gory, bizarre, and gross. My absolute FAVORITE was the first story. I actually think this is one of the best openers I've ever read :

She was about to flush the toilet.
“Mother?”

...like seriously, does that catchy our attention or what. Just trust me, the first story is amazingly weird, funny, and gross. Other favorites were: The Embodiment, Cursed Bunny, Snare, and Reunion.

I do feel like the first half of the book was stronger than the last half. This was a definitely a uniquely different read .The formatting of this was terrible though and was really hard to read and I even tried on desktop, phone, and iPad. It made it really hard for me to want to continue to read. I think the experience would have been a lot more enjoyable if I didn't have to zoom in each page and adjust as I read. But it is an arc, so I'll take what I can get!

Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for chance to review this arc in exchange for a review.

CURSED BUNNY by Bora Chung is an incredibly bizarre but fascinating collection of short stories. These stories are truly weird but for whatever reason I couldn't stop reading them. Whatever you think might happen is absolutely not what does. I highly recommend this extraordinarily odd collection.

Translated into English in 2021, this collection of short stories defies the odds. I’m not big into this writing style, but it was definitely on the odd side, so it worked well for me.

Not your traditional horror genre, each story held a different mystique about it from the magical, fantasy, and sci-fi, with a small smattering of horror, blended in.

I would have given this review a higher rating, but my copy did not download well. It was tough to read as the words were all scrunched together and overlapping at some points. I read what I could and enjoyed the first two stories, but I will be purchasing a physical copy to finish it.

The publisher provided ARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is an odd book for me to review and short story collections usually are. Some were really thought-provoking if not enjoyable but others just made me grimace. Maybe it was the translation. Either way something didn't work for me.

I was on the fence about requesting this book because usually I do not like short story collections. But all the praise I’ve been seeing around this made me intrigued. Especially after someone who also doesn’t care for short stories loved it. While I wasn’t expecting immaculate conception and poop babies, I was equally disturbed and engrossed. Many of the stories reminded me of Junji Ito’s work which also toes the line of being grossed out but not being able to take your eyes away. Several of the stories felt like folktales in a lot of ways, which I really enjoyed. I did feel like I would have gotten more out of this collection if I were discussing it with a group. The author was trying to make commentary on our modern society within the framework of horror-fantasy-scifi. As with most short story collections, some were hits and some were misses and the collection as a whole ends up being rated as a three star.

Cursed Bunny is a collection of short stories centered around horror, sci-fi and fantasy themes. I am not quite sure how I feel about it, and if I even understood everything the author may have wanted me to. That being said, I didn't dislike it and found the stories were still quite engaging! I was very curious to see where the author was going.

I will say this definitely leans very horror in genre, and there are quite graphic and disturbing descriptions of all sorts of bodily fluids. Not a book to read while eating something, but if you like horror, this is it!

I found this collection to be quite uneven. Some stories felt engaging and evocative, but most fell flat for me. I don’t know whether this could be a translation issue. Without being able to read the original text, I can’t know if certain details were omitted for this printing. For example, there are no names used in many of these stories. Instead, characters are mostly referred to as nouns like, “the woman,” “the man,” or “the child.” This creates a distance between the reader and the characters. One could argue this allows the reader to fill in with their own imagination, however, in my reading, this space made obvious how the author was unfurling the plot to address various themes. It was like reading a manual for magic tricks versus just watching a magic show. And while many stories had extremely original plots, I could read the author’s intention on the page instead of experiencing it.

The theme of inter-generational trauma passed down from parent to child is an important one and it comes up in multiple stories. I just didn’t find the collection compelling enough as a whole to recommend.

I also find the use of people with disabilities or physical differences as characters in stories about curses and sins to be tiring and unoriginal at best and perpetuating ableism at worst. Blindness and albinism are just two examples I encountered.

I received a digital advance reader copy from NetGalley and Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in exchange for an honest review.

Cursed Bunny is a translated book of short stories by Bora Chung. Each story is very different which make this collection very easily readable.

I do think this collection starts very strong. The first three stories had me gripped from beginning to end. However, after that, I feel like the stories just aren’t as gripping. Which is perfectly normal for a short story collection! It’s hard to make every story work for every reader.

I think with this being a translated work, for me, it exceeded expectations but didn’t now my socks off. It was a fun time that I would recommend to anyone who wants something that will make you feel uneasy. I think this author has so much potential and o can’t wait to see what they do next!

A collection of weird and sometimes horrific short stories. The bunnies in the title story are creepy and haunting long after you're done reading.

Thanks netgalley for this ARC!

I'm not sure how I feel after reading this. I breezed through the stories in one day and was left disquieted. I also can't get the imagery out of my mind. I've seen some reviews that mention that the prose is bland, or bare, but honestly I found it chilling. I didn't need in depth descriptions, the starkness of the writing itself gave me room to think, to imagine it in more dimension. I can tell sometimes when a book will stay with me, and this is definitely one of them. Was I grossed out? Yes, absolutely. Will I keep coming back to these stories? I hope so, this has given me a lot to sit with.

Perfect for fans of Han Kang or Marianna Enriquez, this collection of short stories is gritty, grimy, and gross, in a good way. Not for the faint of heart, these stories will leave you feeling uncomfortable and a bit confused but universally tired of being a woman. They're each accessible but deceptively deep - I like that they all tend to start slow/calmly and actually kind of progress slowly and calmly even though their plots are pretty strange, and then tend to end with a big bang. I do think there were many pieces of each story that I would have understood better if I knew more about Korean culture, specifically the hierarchies of respect built into the culture and language, but it was by no means necessary and the translator did a wonderful job conveying these stories in english.

The first story, about... well, is it an unwanted child who is treated as a monster by their mother? Is it a monster-clone ahaunting it's unwitting creator? gave me big Junji Ito vibes but only a woman could write the argument between selves at the grand finale. This was one of my favorite stories in the bunch.

The second is about a pregnancy and the insulting, infantilizing treatment of single women in general and especially expecting mothers, and the inane expectations put on pregnant people that quite literally cause more dangerous pregnancies and births.

The third and titular story, Cursed Bunny, was a bit less potent, to be honest, but much more fun than the others. It's a story of greed, loss, revenge, and ravenous bunnies, in that order.

The fourth, The Frozen Finger, is a good old fashioned ghost story but of course, with a feminist and a sort of nihilist slant.

The fifth, Snare, was a cautionary tale about greed and also includes some really unnecessary SA. TW.

The sixth, Goodbye My Love, was one of my favorites - it's a sci-fi robot-y story. I love sci fi when it's like somewhat believable. Low-sci-fi, is that a thing? and I love that the story is so predictable but still feels original and creative. <spoiler>I love that the main character concludes that the machines do not resemble humans like he'd believed but it's like after doing the most human thing imaginable (self-defense) and overriding their very machine-like programming to protect humans at all expenses to themselves. THAT would be the least human thing imaginable.</spoiler> Anyways, I liked it.

The seventh was cool, it was very much like a fantasy novel but also like a fable where the lesson is *trust no one*. This one didn't hit that hard for me.

8 - another story with fantasy elements, this time with a steampunky flavor, that didn't do much for me. Very soft and dreamy compared to the other stories in this collection and seems a bit like the "one of these things is not like the others" choice.

9 - this story, "Reunion", was my favorite of all of them. It's a sort of classic ghost tale but with the expression of trauma behind the ghosty parts.

Cursed Bunny Stories by Bora Chung is a collection of short horror stories. These tales are disturbing, gory, odd and really just strange. They are chilling stories and make you stop and think. They stay with you long after you are done reading. This is an intriguing, dark twisted read. I don’t really care for this type of horror, but I can see how others would like it.
Thank you to NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the ARC!