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. Works cited this episode:   Alice 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