Asking For It by Louise O’Neill
Dec. 31st, 2015 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quippeThe Blurb On The Back:
”They’re good boys really. This all just got out of hand.”
It’s the beginning of the summer, and Emma O’Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy and confident.
One night, there’s a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma.
The next day, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She doesn’t know how she got there.
She doesn’t know why she’s in pain.
But everyone else does. Photographs taken at the party show – in great detail – exactly what happened to Emma that night.
But sometimes people don’t want to believe what’s right in front of them, especially If the truth concerns the town’s heroes …
18-year-old Emma O’Donovan is one of the queen bees of her local school – beautiful, popular and academically gifted, she has all of the local boys running after her and she loves the attention. Then she goes to a party on a gorgeous summer’s evening where she drinks, takes drugs and then everything goes murky until she wakes up the next morning on the front porch of her house.
Emma has been gang raped. Worse, those at the party took photographs of what was happening to her. Everyone can see her naked and abused. They comment on it, laugh at it, email her to tell her what a slut she is. There’s no doubt in their minds that she’s a little slag who was asking for it. And Emma doesn’t know whether they’re right or not. As she struggles to come to terms with what happens, she finds herself caught up in events that she can’t control and judgments that she can’t influence – no one believes her, not even herself …
Louise O’Neill’s emotionally devastating and highly topical YA novel is a horrifying update of THE ACCUSED for the social media age. Bitchy, vicious and jealous, Emma has a complicated relationship with her friends – Jamie, Ali and Maggie – and key to the novel is her relationship with Jamie who has been through similar trauma, which Emma knows about but has no sympathy for. Emma is therefore not a character to easily sympathise with and her reputation for promiscuity and flirting make the residents of the small Irish town where she lives all too willing to believe the worst of her. Further complicating the case is the fact that the boys involved are local sporting heroes, set for the big time – this compounds Emma’s crime because in making what many believe to be a false accusation, she is seen to be unjustly ruining their futures. The double standards are breath-taking and all too relevant, as is the hate campaign and media furore that blows up around it. O’Neill does well at showing Emma’s turmoil and inner conflict as she tries to come to terms with an act she can’t even bring herself to name. This was easily the best YA book I’ve read in 2015 and one that should be required reading on every school’s curriculum – I will definitely check out O’Neill’s other work.
The Verdict:
Louise O’Neill’s emotionally devastating and highly topical YA novel is a horrifying update of THE ACCUSED for the social media age. Bitchy, vicious and jealous, Emma has a complicated relationship with her friends – Jamie, Ali and Maggie – and key to the novel is her relationship with Jamie who has been through similar trauma, which Emma knows about but has no sympathy for. Emma is therefore not a character to easily sympathise with and her reputation for promiscuity and flirting make the residents of the small Irish town where she lives all too willing to believe the worst of her. Further complicating the case is the fact that the boys involved are local sporting heroes, set for the big time – this compounds Emma’s crime because in making what many believe to be a false accusation, she is seen to be unjustly ruining their futures. The double standards are breath-taking and all too relevant, as is the hate campaign and media furore that blows up around it. O’Neill does well at showing Emma’s turmoil and inner conflict as she tries to come to terms with an act she can’t even bring herself to name. This was easily the best YA book I’ve read in 2015 and one that should be required reading on every school’s curriculum – I will definitely check out O’Neill’s other work.
ASKING FOR IT was released in the United Kingdom on 3rd September 2015. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
It’s the beginning of the summer, and Emma O’Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy and confident.
One night, there’s a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma.
The next day, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She doesn’t know how she got there.
She doesn’t know why she’s in pain.
But everyone else does. Photographs taken at the party show – in great detail – exactly what happened to Emma that night.
But sometimes people don’t want to believe what’s right in front of them, especially If the truth concerns the town’s heroes …
18-year-old Emma O’Donovan is one of the queen bees of her local school – beautiful, popular and academically gifted, she has all of the local boys running after her and she loves the attention. Then she goes to a party on a gorgeous summer’s evening where she drinks, takes drugs and then everything goes murky until she wakes up the next morning on the front porch of her house.
Emma has been gang raped. Worse, those at the party took photographs of what was happening to her. Everyone can see her naked and abused. They comment on it, laugh at it, email her to tell her what a slut she is. There’s no doubt in their minds that she’s a little slag who was asking for it. And Emma doesn’t know whether they’re right or not. As she struggles to come to terms with what happens, she finds herself caught up in events that she can’t control and judgments that she can’t influence – no one believes her, not even herself …
Louise O’Neill’s emotionally devastating and highly topical YA novel is a horrifying update of THE ACCUSED for the social media age. Bitchy, vicious and jealous, Emma has a complicated relationship with her friends – Jamie, Ali and Maggie – and key to the novel is her relationship with Jamie who has been through similar trauma, which Emma knows about but has no sympathy for. Emma is therefore not a character to easily sympathise with and her reputation for promiscuity and flirting make the residents of the small Irish town where she lives all too willing to believe the worst of her. Further complicating the case is the fact that the boys involved are local sporting heroes, set for the big time – this compounds Emma’s crime because in making what many believe to be a false accusation, she is seen to be unjustly ruining their futures. The double standards are breath-taking and all too relevant, as is the hate campaign and media furore that blows up around it. O’Neill does well at showing Emma’s turmoil and inner conflict as she tries to come to terms with an act she can’t even bring herself to name. This was easily the best YA book I’ve read in 2015 and one that should be required reading on every school’s curriculum – I will definitely check out O’Neill’s other work.
The Verdict:
Louise O’Neill’s emotionally devastating and highly topical YA novel is a horrifying update of THE ACCUSED for the social media age. Bitchy, vicious and jealous, Emma has a complicated relationship with her friends – Jamie, Ali and Maggie – and key to the novel is her relationship with Jamie who has been through similar trauma, which Emma knows about but has no sympathy for. Emma is therefore not a character to easily sympathise with and her reputation for promiscuity and flirting make the residents of the small Irish town where she lives all too willing to believe the worst of her. Further complicating the case is the fact that the boys involved are local sporting heroes, set for the big time – this compounds Emma’s crime because in making what many believe to be a false accusation, she is seen to be unjustly ruining their futures. The double standards are breath-taking and all too relevant, as is the hate campaign and media furore that blows up around it. O’Neill does well at showing Emma’s turmoil and inner conflict as she tries to come to terms with an act she can’t even bring herself to name. This was easily the best YA book I’ve read in 2015 and one that should be required reading on every school’s curriculum – I will definitely check out O’Neill’s other work.
ASKING FOR IT was released in the United Kingdom on 3rd September 2015. Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.
