Louise O'Neill - Only Ever Yours.

Louise O’Neill – Only Ever Yours.

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars.

Hey Everyone! I have a few things to post over the next two days that I’m excited about. The first being this review. My lovely friend let me borrow her favourite book to read and I’m so happy I liked it. This book confused me, baffled my brain, and left me with so many questions but it is a very good window into everything that is wrong with the treatment of women. Despite it’s completely fictional setting, many areas of the book could be applied and compared with society and it’s issues. I gave this a 4 out of 5 stars due to the sheer amount of questions I have about the ending. I am debating pushing it up to a 5 stars though. I’ll think about it while I’m writing this review.

Synopsis:

freida and isabel have been best friends their whole lives.

Now, aged sixteen and in their final year at the School, they expect to be selected as companions – wives to wealthy and powerful men. The alternative – life as a concubine – is too horrible to contemplate.

But as the intensity of the final year takes hold, the pressure to remain perfect becomes almost unbearable. isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty – her only asset – in peril.

And then, 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. . .

A Little About The Author:

Louise O’Neill is an Irish author who writes primarily for young adults. She was born in 1985 and grew up in Clonakilty, in West Cork, Ireland. Louise has written two award winning books, Only Ever Yours, and her most recent Asking For It, which won Book of the Year at the Irish Book Awards. She is currently working as a freelance journalist for a variety of Irish national newspapers and magazines, covering feminist issues, fashion, and pop culture.

A Little About The Story:

This story followed the girls that grew up in the ‘School’. These girls were designed to be who they are. Designed with certain traits, all of which are there to be beneficial to the powerful men of the world. They are taught classes on how to be desirable and how to be attractive and good women. They are judged mainly by weight and appearance and compared against each other. Seeing each other first and foremost as competition. We follow along as this group of girls in their final year at the School prepare for their roles. Whether that be companions, concubines or chastities. Which one of these groups they fall in is outside of their control, all they can do is there best to be the perfect woman and hope they are fortunate enough to be chosen.

The main characters in this story were the girls from the school. The narration comes from freida. But there is as much interest in isabel too. She is a mystery. There isn’t a lot of information given on isabel in the beginning and middle of the book. She does a lot and there is a lot of focus on her but we don’t know why she is so important until near the end of the book.

freida is no mystery at all. We know every thought going through her head at every point in the book. But it doesn’t make the ending any less shocking. We grow attached to this girl and sympathise with everything that is happening to her. We have empathy and understanding to some extent of what she goes through as a woman in this book.

Other characters include megan. She is the mean girl. Of course there is going to be a mean girl in a ‘School’ full of girls. She wanted to be number one, and she got it, no matter how much teasing and taunting she had to do. Then there was the group of girls who followed megan around and wanted to be just like her. Of course the chastities are important too. These are the kind of teachers at the School. They raise the girls and teach them how to act and how to stay the right weight and look as good as they’re expected too. They play an important role in the story.

In this story the main characters were in the School being raised to fit into one of three categories after they leave the school. Whether they were going to be the companions of men, concubines who were there for the men’s pleasure, or chastities, raising the next generation of women for the men. We follow freida and her disastrous last year at the School and how her decisions both good and bad lead to an ending she didn’t expect at all. We watch as women are treated like belongings and tools rather than their own human beings and we witness what happens to them when they aren’t the things men need.

One of the problems freida faced was understanding her rankings and how to improve herself. She was in constant turmoil throughout the book, thinking that she wasn’t good enough and that she had to be better. This is something many young girls these days can compare with. She makes some very bad decisions trying to be like the other girls and ultimately pays the price for it.

My favourite character in this book is. Hm. If I had to choose it would be freida. But I didn’t agree with a lot of the things she did. I felt sorry for her. I felt for her situation and how she thought she had to act in order to be in a good position for her future. But there were a million better ways she could have handled things. Second favourite would be isabel. I liked the mystery surrounding her character. She was very well written, and it kept me intrigued the waiting to find out more about her.

As a woman this story hit differently and it hit hard differently than other things that I have read. I have felt the need to limit what I am eating. I have compared myself to every single other woman I have walked past in the street and felt that I am not enough. I have felt the need to look good because otherwise guys won’t want me. And thankfully I am now in a place where these things matter a lot less to me. However, I can understand how in the scenario set out in Only Ever Yours, why freida was acting the way she was. This is a mirror being held up to the treatment of women throughout history, and even in some places, the treatment of women right now. I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been told to do something or look a certain way so that boys think I’m pretty. I am so grateful I read this book, it gave me a little more perspective on a big issue. Thank you Louise O’Neill.

I loved this book. I didn’t expect to. If I was in a book shop and buying books for myself, in all honesty I don’t think I would have picked it up. That teaches me a lesson about judging books by their covers I guess. I ask friends quite frequently if I can read their favourite books. In my opinion you can learn a lot about a person by reading their favourite book, so I love this book for letting me be a little closer to a friend in a time when we are all so separated from each other. I loved the messages in the book, I loved the way the characters were built and the world that was created. And at this point in my review, I am a little closer to changing my rating to five stars.

My favourite part of the book was the first half of the growing relationship between freida and Darwin. I thought it was sweet and it seemed like there was hope in a world that appeared hopeless. I can only imagine how happy they would have been if they actually got to be together before everything happened. I kind of liked Darwin’s character and how he took a shine to freida even though she wasn’t as out there and confident as the other girls. In a book that was so problematic, this bit holds my heart.

My least favourite part of the book was anything that involved megan. I know so many people with the same personalities and traits that go out of their way to put you down. She was a well written character with a good purpose, I still didn’t like her though.

I would one hundred percent recommend this book to another person and I’m so glad it was recommended to me. It sort of holds a mirror up to our society and its treatment of women. In no way am I saying that men don’t also get treated poorly, please please please do not think I am ignoring that. But I am yet to meet a woman who does not think she isn’t enough. Women feel they have to be compared to every other woman out there, like they must be slim enough, like they must have the right curves in the right places, like they must be perfect for a guy to see them. It feels like this book holds a mirror to a more extreme version of life right now. Of what some girls actually go through, so I feel like a lot of women would understand and enjoy this read.

Okay guys. It happened. Throughout writing this review and fully considering this story, I have changed my opinion. This book is a five star story. It is beautifully written and the talent of the writer seeps off the pages. I really hoped you liked reading my review. If you have read this book, I would love to hear your thoughts on it. If you haven’t read it yet, I hope my review encourages you to pick up a book.

Stay Curious! J x