I’m back from my holiday hiatus! I hope you’ve been having an excellent (or at least bearable) winter season. 🖤
I don’t know about you, but I’m relieved 2025 is officially over because what even was all of that… still, I’ll admit it’s surreal to be in a whole new year now.
Keeping with the surreal vibes, today we’ll be diving into the wacky world of Bunny, hearing about some occult research updates for the spooky novel I’m working on, and highlighting badass women artists.
The Weird and Wild World of Bunnies
At this point, Mona Awad’s novel Bunny is practically required reading for lovers of the weird girl lit genre. It’s equal parts horror, surreal, and just plain strange.
The novel follows Samantha, an MFA student studying writing at a prestigious university with its fair share of bizarre characters. She gets brought into a clique of sickeningly sweet and macabre girls in her program who refer to themselves as “the bunnies.” Things get out of hand.
As she ventures deeper into their so-called “Smut Salon,” she starts to wonder if she can still trust her own reality. Is it fact or fiction?
With its delicious prose, the novel is somehow both beautiful and brutal all at once. I mean, get a load of this:
“She was a great girl-shaped forest. She was a thing on fire. Her hand was leaves and smoke and snow and flesh all at once.”
Bravo, Awad. I’d also like to add that I absolutely adored Samantha’s snarky perspective. As a former English major, I loved that she called out how pretentious and ridiculous the world of academia can be.
This particular passage about “the Body” was so real and relatable.
“Because at Warren, the Body is all the rage. As though everyone in the academic world has just now discovered that they are vesseled in precarious, fastly decaying houses of bone and flesh and my god, what material.”
I don’t want to give too much away. Have you read the novel? If so, I’d love to know your thoughts!
If you’re also interested in fragrances, I recently made a TikTok video pairing some of my favorite fragrances with weird girl books. I obviously had to include Bunny in the mix.
Feel free to check it out here.
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Occult Research Updates for My Spooky Novel
@theweirdgirledit Come with me to do research for my spooky weird girl novel ✨🔮 If you’re in the LA area, I can’t recommend The Philosophical Research Socie... See more
If you’re new here, hi! I’m working on a spooky weird girl novel. I’ve always been interested in ghost stories, mysticism, the occult, and all things witchy for as long as I can remember.
I’ve been meaning to pay a visit to the library at the Philosophical Research Society here in LA, and wow. I can’t believe I haven’t checked it out sooner.
It had everything a spooky book lover and writer could dream of: old rare books that feel haunted, the loveliest and most knowledgable librarians, and true peace and quiet. Not to mention, the entire place is beautiful—two stories of dark wood shelves, stained glass, esoteric art, and a verging on sacred ambiance.
While I was there, I flipped through a few books about Theosophy and went down a rabbit hole or two. When I got home, I came across an intriguing Wikipedia article about Helena Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society. Let’s just say she lived quite a life, and her numerous beefs in the late 1800s were nothing short of entertaining to read about.
Take a look at this quote from Mabel Collins, a former member, describing Blavatsky:
“Her contempt for her kind was on the same gigantic scale as everything else about her…a more voracious appetite, a more confirmed passion for tobacco, a more ceaseless and insatiable hatred for those whom she thought to be her enemies…than I had ever supposed possible to be contained in one person. These, I suppose, must be reckoned as her vices, though whether a creature so indifferent to all ordinary standards of right and wrong can be held to have virtues or vices, I know not.”
The girls were fighting! Oh how I love research and historical beefs.
On that note, I’ll keep you posted with more novel updates in the very near future.
Behaving Badly with the Guerrilla Girls
@theweirdgirledit If you’re in LA, I highly recommend you check out the How to Be a Guerilla Girl exhibit at the @gettymuseum. It’s on view now through Apri... See more
Are you familiar with the Guerrilla Girls? A few years ago, I purchased their book Guerrilla Girls: The Art of Behaving Badly. It did not disappoint.
If you’re interested in contemporary art and art history, you may have heard of them. And if you haven’t, you should definitely check them out.
Formed in 1985 in New York City, the group of anonymous feminist artists made their voices heard to advocate for women artists and artists of color by using “guerrilla” tactics. Cue the iconic gorilla masks they’ve come to be known for.
Their recent exhibit How to Be a Guerrilla Girl is currently on view at The Getty Museum through April 12th, and I highly recommend you stop by if you’re in the area. It’s a fascinating look into their work, and it left me feeling inspired.
There was also an interactive chalk wall where museum goers could write a message or draw, which I thought was a fun touch.
Alright, time to get earnest. Seeing the exhibit in person made me take a minute to feel grateful for the strides made by those who have come before us. Things can feel bleak these days, but it helps to remember that equity was fought for then, now, and will continue in the future.
Weirdos like you and I can keep on fighting the good fight! ✨
Weird Girl of the Week: Alake Shilling
One of the highlights of my holiday season was discovering Alake Shilling’s decadent, whimsical world of cute and occasionally creepy creatures at the Hammer Museum’s Made in L.A. exhibit (on view through March 1st, see my video for more info).
Her paintings and sculpture work immediately made me feel nostalgic and cozy. It made total sense when I read more about her artistic inspirations:
“Alake Shilling was born in 1993 in Los Angeles. Wrought with dark humor and nostalgia, Shilling’s ceramics and paintings resonate with a millennial generation familiar with the designs of Lisa Frank, only her fantastic cartoon creatures and landscapes take on unsettling dispositions.”
Dark humor, Lisa Frank, and unsettling dispositions? A girl after my own heart.
Who else was guilty of stickering the life out of their notebooks with those iconic Lisa Frank designs? I should start doing that again…
Shilling’s creatures may be ceramic, but I want to hug them all.
I can’t wait to see what she gets up to next, but in the meantime, I’ll be following her on Instagram for more.
That’s it for now. Want more weird in your life?
Say less.
The Weird Girl Edit is a weekly newsletter written by Maya Rector, and it gets published every Wednesday. View past editions here. If you haven’t already, subscribe for the latest wacky musings in literature, media, and pop culture each week!