Friday, January 05, 2018

#BookReview: Only Ever Yours by @oneilllo

About the Book: Where women are created for the pleasure of men, beauty is the first duty of every girl. In Louise O'Neill's world of Only Every Yours women are no longer born naturally, girls (called "eves") are raised in Schools and trained in the arts of pleasing men until they come of age. freida and isabel are best friends. Now, aged sixteen and in their final year, they expect to be selected as companions--wives to powerful men. All they have to do is ensure they stay in the top ten beautiful girls in their year. The alternatives--life as a concubine, or a chastity (teaching endless generations of girls)--are too horrible to contemplate.
But as the intensity of final year takes hold, the pressure to be perfect mounts. isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty--her only asset--in peril. And then into this sealed female environment, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride. freida must fight for her future--even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known.







Reviewed By: Caity G.

Publisher: Quercus

Recommended Age: New Adult

Genre: Dystopia, Science Fiction

How I Acquired this book: Purchased

Overall rating: ★★★★

Goodreads | Amazon

About the Author: Louise O' Neill is from Clonakilty, in west Cork. After graduating with a BA in English Studies at Trinity College Dublin, she went on to complete a post-grad in Fashion Buying at DIT. Having spent a year in New York working for Kate Lanphear, the senior Style Director of ELLE magazine, she returned home to Ireland to write her first novel.
She went from hanging out on set with A-list celebrities to spending most of her days in pyjamas while she writes, and has never been happier.
Noteworthy experiences while reading this book: I wanted to scream and cry and was SO ANNOYED by some of these girls but at the same time, they were literally taught to be this way and ugh. My soul was destroyed by the ending, though. 


Check out author's other books? I know I will be in the future

Recommend this book? YES!!!

Notes and Opinions: So here's the thing: The characters are ANNOYING. They're irritating and petty and shallow. They're made to be like this. They're literally raised to irritate anybody who reads this book, and this is all done on purpose by the author to show just how bad this particular version of society is for women. 

And believe me when I say that it is very, very bad.

So bad, in fact, that these girls were made with the sole purpose of giving birth to boys and looking pretty on their future husbands' arms. So bad that they barely know anything about the world outside their school until it's too late. So bad that they're taught that tearing each other down is actually helpful.

It moved me in ways I didn't think a book could, outside of the classic Handmaid's Tale and similar dystopian tales. It made me so angry to think of all that the main character went through, yes, but also what certain supporting characters went through. Everything in their lives was such a sham, yet they still fought to advance regardless because they were taught that doing anything else was unacceptable.

So if you can't handle annoying, petty teenage girls - even those written like that for a reason - maybe don't read this one. But if you think you can take it, grab it, please, and then join me in getting ANGRY because some elements of this sometimes feel straight out of reality.

Go Into This One Knowing: The ending is SUPER ROUGH, but fitting. Unfortunately. This one hurt.
 









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