BOOK REVIEW: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

This is a book review for Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill. I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is May 12, 2015.

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.

Wow, the world that Louise O'Neill creates puts even The Handmaid's Tale to shame. It was scary and creep and so disturbing. Freida lives in a world where women are appreciated for beauty and nothing else. These women are created in labs. They are then are raised in schools and taught how to please a man. They are raised to be either a companion or a concubine  A companion is the wife of a "Inheritant" and her only duty is to give birth to sons until the age of 40, at which point she has a "termination date" so her beauty is always preserved. A concubine lives with many other women and never has children, but is there solely for the sexual pleasure of men. The girls in the school all have eating disorders because they are told repeatedly that "fat woman must be obsolete." These girls are so mean to each other. They put each other down if they are too fat and they put each other down if they are too skinny  These women are told repeatedly that men didn't like women who cried, men didn't like women who were angry or showed emotion of any kind, men don't like women who are academic, etc.


I felt equal parts frustrated and sad for Frieda. She would make these decisions that would make me want to scream at her. But I could also relate to her. I don't live in the kind of world Frieda does (thank goodness) and yet, I think all the same ugly things about myself that Frieda does. It's sad. Towards the end, when she was striving so hard to become a companion I could feel her desperation so strongly. The ending left me just as frustrated as the entire book. It is not the kind of book that leads to a satisfying resolution, much like The Handmaid's Tale. But this is a book that you need to read. This book will stay with me for a very long time.

Here are a few quotes from the book: 

"I should leave, but just for a moment I want to stay in here. I want to hide, fold into the shadows and become invisible so no one can look at me anymore."

"I have a theory that she views her need for food as her only flaw."

"I massage my thighs violently, wanting to tear strips off them as I feel the skin dimpling underneath my fingers. The room is inky black and I am glad. I am glad. I don't want the others to see me, to see how wrong I am."

"I stare at myself in my mirrors, seeing how less beautiful I am in comparison, how less perfect, less, less, less I am."

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy!!!