Only Ever Yours

by Louise O'Neill

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681449579
Publisher:	Mobius
Publication date:	03/08/2016
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Louise O'Neill was born in west Cork in 1985. She studied English at Trinity College Dublin and has worked for the senior Style Director of American Elle magazine. While in New York, she also worked as an assistant stylist on a number of high-profile campaigns. She is currently working as a freelance journalist for a variety of Irish national newspapers and magazines, covering feminist issues, fashion and pop culture.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/06/2015
In the dystopian society of Irish author O’Neill’s harrowing debut, freida is a 16-year-old “eve,” manufactured by genetic engineers and raised to serve men. The eves (whose individual names are never capitalized in the book, unlike those of men) spend 16 years learning how to avoid “Unacceptable Emotions”—such as anger—and to scrupulously maintain their appearance, all in the hopes of catching the eye of one of 10 Inheritants, “the very men for whom were created.” O’Neill’s novel spans the months leading up to the ceremony when freida and her fellow eves will be divided into three groups: companions (akin to wives), concubines, and chastities. Competition, cruelty, and self-critique thrive at freida’s school (“We may be perfectly designed, but really our eyes are too close together and our thighs are too big”), yet she can’t quite stamp out her skepticism toward the system and her sympathy for herself, her peers, and especially her best friend, isabel. Terrifying and heartbreaking, O’Neill’s story reads like an heir to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and M.T. Anderson’s Feed, and, like those books, it’s sure to be discussed for years to come. Ages 13–up. (May)

Publishers Weekly

Winner of the 2014 Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year Award at the BGE Irish Book Awards

"A haunting dystopian novel for fans of The Handmaid's Tale"—Refinery29

"A dark dream. A vivid nightmare. The world O'Neill imagines is frightening because it could come true. She writes with a scalpel."

—Jeanette Winterson

"Utterly magnificent . . . gripping, accomplished and dark."—Marian Keyes

"[A] terrifying but captivating book."—Company magazine

"Disturbing, provocative . . . I was utterly captivated from beginning to end."—Gabriel Byrne ("In Treatment," "The Usual Suspects," "Miller's Crossing)

"Dark and thought-provoking... There are some good Logan's Run shivers, and it is beautifully written."—Tara Flynn, The Irish Times

"Only Ever Yours is a chilling dystopian fantasy... It has the bleakness of Catcher in the Rye, the satire of The Stepford Wives and it made me recall how scared I felt reading Nineteen Eighty-Four... But by far the best thing about Louise O' Neill's book is that it is well written, by a fresh and original talent."—Anne Cunningham, Irish Independent

"Compelling writing and a brutal conclusion means this only-too-real dystopia grips from beginning to end."—SFX Magazine

"O'Neill has talent to burn; this dystopian YA debut is both compelling and frightening."—Irish Examiner

"If the Hunger Games series was your guilty pleasure then young Irish author Louise O' Neill's debut novel Only Ever Yours is about to become another... [It] explores the contemporary pressure on women and girls to be 'perfect' in this dark and gripping narrative."—Irish Tatler

"An ingenious exploration of gender roles, female identity, and female competition."—Buzzfeed

"Deep, dark and frighteningly believable. This story will stay with you for a long time."—Marie Claire

"A witty and unsettling story...Hopefully Only Ever Yours will be read widely."—The Telegraph

"Unbelievably believable, compelling, utterly riveting... Whilst it is dark, uncompromising and utterly daunting to read as a woman, it is and should be a classic in the making."—Liz Loves Books

"O'Neill's story reads like an heir to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and M.T. Anderson's Feed, and, like those books, it's sure to be discussed for years to come."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A beautifully written, remarkable debut. the near-future world, after a climate-change apocalypse, is fully imagined and vividly realized. The claustrophobic, insular lives of 16-year-old girls as they struggle against themselves and each other will ring eerily true for today's teens." - Common Sense Media

From the Publisher

06/01/2015
Gr 9 Up—freida and isabel live at the School, where every element of their world is closely controlled. They have been trained in the ways of perfect femininity, spending all of their time thinking exclusively about their appearances. At 16, the girls are in their final year so they must be more perfect than ever—that's the only way they will be selected as companions. Their fates otherwise are too horrible to contemplate. But isabel, always top in the class, begins to unravel. freida must now figure out what is happening to her best friend while the biggest change, and challenge, in their lives approaches. This British debut takes dystopias to the next level of intensity and bleakness. O'Neill creates a future world where girls are only products and they aren't even worthy of having their names begin with capital letters. Sophisticated readers will be quickly drawn into the horrific landscape and, thanks to the author's deft characterization and strong world-building, will feel the same kind of claustrophobic fear freida and isabel feel. These elements make the book immediate, compelling, and appealingly different. At points, however, the narrative strives too hard to make the dystopian future world an exaggerated mirror of our own, bogging down the plot. This book is dark and unrelenting, there are no revolutions or happy endings to be had here. VERDICT Recommended as an additional purchase where older teens are looking for more depth in their dystopian fiction.—Angie Manfredi, Los Alamos County Library System, NM

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