Only Ever Yours By Louise O’Neill

[amazon_link id=”184866415X” target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]’Only Ever Yours’ is Irish author, Louise O’Neill’s debut book and recent winner of ‘The Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year’ at the 2014 Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Awards 2014.

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…

‘Only Ever Yours’ has got to be one of most messed up and soul destroying books, I’ve had the joy of reading in recent months and I say that with the highest respect to the author Louise, as it’s a book that has stayed in my thoughts, long after I closed the final page.

The story is set in a time where women are designed and men are naturally created. Girls are then sent to school for 16 years where they are trained to become the perfect woman in preparation for their future, in which they will overtake one of three roles. Companion, where they will become a wife and bear a son, a concubine, who is essentially a prostitute and finally a chastity who is a teacher, living a life of solitude preparing the girls for their future. The girls are ranked on their appearance with regular updates of popularity and a strong emphasis on weight gain, if a girl puts on weight then she is ridiculed and bullied by her fellow classmates.

The story is seen through the narrative of frieda, on the lead up to the ceremony in which their futures will be decided. frieda is an interesting character, once best friends with isobel who is number one in the rankings, she is quiet, blending into the background. But when isobel mysteriously becomes unwell, frieda finds herself in the cool gang, where the girls are bitchy, competitive and thrive on jealously as they all prepare for the roles and become ready for the boys who will choose them to become their companions.

When isobel returns, she is quieter and withdrawn but still competition for Megan, the leader of the group who is now ranked number one now taking isobel’s place. Even though frieda tries to help isobel, she is pushed away and soon find herself absorbed with the lead up to the ceremony as one of the boys, handsome and most sought after Darwin catches her attention.

This book makes for dark and extremely chilling reading. In a world where a woman is ranked solely on appearance, compete for a boys attention, only to be thrown away when they age or lose their looks. It’s like a throwback to the ‘The Stepford Wives’ meets ‘Mean Girls’ where the women are controlled, unable to voice their own opinion, only now with advanced technology and are far more bitchier towards each other.

Set in a clinical and minimalist dystopian world, where the men are king and women are only there to provide a service, I found myself gripped with this twisted story. It’s scary, how frenzied the world is at times, as the girls turn on each other when they are at their weakest, especially when they put on weight, they are chanted at and told to go to the Vomitorium (a place to go to be sick). They are constantly in competition with each other and no friendship is genuine, this is occasionally distressing reading as they all lead a very lonely and desolate lives.

One thing that caught me off guard with the story is that, all the names were written in lower case, I initially found this to be a bit disconcerting but then got quickly used to it.

Sharply and vividly written that flows at a fast pace, Louise is a bright new young voice from Ireland and most certainly deserving of her recent awards with this incredibly disturbing story. In a world where appearance and popularity are paramount, where gender and appearance dictate your future and girls are encouraged to develop eating disorders, ‘Only Ever Yours’ is a deeply unsettling and believable story that is worryingly set in world that doesn’t seem far from happening.

You can buy [amazon_link id=”184866415X” target=”_blank” ]Only Ever Yours from Amazon [/amazon_link] and is available to buy from good bookshops.