Louise O'Neill grew up in Clonakility in Co.Cork. She is very popular on Twitter (@oneilllo) because of her feminist attributes and her quirky statements. She studied English, Gender and Sexuality roles and Post-Colonial in women's fiction in Trinity College, Dublin. After that she went on to complete a course in fashion buying and management in Dublin Institute of technology. She worked in New York as a fashion buyer for a period of time before returning to Ireland to publish both 'Only Ever Yours' and 'Asking for It'.
This book follows the main character, Freida, as she begins her last year in school as an eve (gentically modified girl who is made to look pretty) getting ready to be hopefully chosen as a companion (wife). The eves have been taught that the man is always right and that they should follow everything that they want to do but none of them have ever even seen a boy. The year starts out badly for Freida, her best friend, Isabel , the girl who has always been chosen as number one for the prettiest girl in the class, has gained weight, everyone is ignoring her, Freida begins to ignore her too because she feels like she needs to fit in with the new number one pretty girl, Megan. Freida is the number ten pretty girl, almost
destined for companionship because of her looks. There is a ceremony held at the end of the year for all of the boys to choose a companion who will have their sons (Girls are grown). Freida befriends one of the boys and is certain he will pick her for companionship but will he?....
This book feels like a potential social commentary. It feels like Louise O'Neill is trying to tell us something about our generation because she uses many links from this 'New World' to ours such as 'ephone' and 'MyFace'. She is trying to tell us that we are destined to become like this if we do not step away and take a deep look at our generation and make some drastic changes.
This book was written while Louise had anorexia, which is entirely evident, in one part a girl who put on weight was drawn on with a red marker around her areas of fat while her classmates laughed at her and in another someone was slowing down on a treadmill and it started screaming 'fat fat fat' at her.
I liked this book but it was a bit creepy and eerie at times. It made me re-think my meals and it occasionally made me put down my biscuits while reading. I would recommend this to anyone who likes dystopian novels such as Divergent and The Hunger Games, but also to people who like contemporary novels such as Paper Towns and Fangirl. I would give this book three and a half out of five stars because of it's non-typical approach to the dystopian genre.
