Asking For It
the haunting novel from a celebrated voice in feminist fiction
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4.1 • 98 Ratings
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- £2.99
Publisher Description
'A soul-shattering novel that will leave your emotions raw. This story will haunt me forever. Everyone should read it' Guardian
In a small town where everyone knows everyone, Emma O'Donovan is different. She is the special one - beautiful, popular, powerful. And she works hard to keep it that way.
Until that night . . .
Now, she's an embarrassment. Now, she's just a slut. Now, she is nothing.
And those pictures - those pictures that everyone has seen - mean she can never forget.
For fans of Caitlin Moran, Marian Keyes and Jodi Picoult.
BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS 2015. The award-winning, bestselling novel about the life-shattering impact of sexual assault, rape and how victims are treated.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Once we started reading this heart-stopping drama, we couldn’t stop. Small-town beauty Emma O’Donovan is far from a sympathetic heroine—she’s an angry and petty teenager who puts down her friends and exploits her looks to always be the centre of attention. But when Emma comes to on her front porch after a party—with no recollection of how she got there—her world starts to fall apart. Asking for It is a compelling, hard-hitting story about the devastation of sexual violence and the role of social media in shaping and skewing the narratives of victims and perpetrators alike. It’s a novel that’s sure to spark conversation.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
O'Neill (Only Ever Yours) again examines the ways in which society devalues the bodies and lives of girls, this time taking on the subject of sexual assault. Emma O'Donovan, 18, has always been praised for her beauty, and she walks a line between cruelty and kindness to bend everyone to her whims. One night Emma parties too hard, drinking and taking drugs until she passes out. The next day she learns that she was the victim of a Steubenville-like gang rape, and the boys involved have plastered horrific and explicit photos of the assault online. Soon everyone in Emma's tightknit Irish community has taken sides mostly against her and as a trial nears and the world watches, even Emma's family abandons her. O'Neill's treatment of how communities mishandle sexual assault and victimize its victims is unforgiving, and readers will despair to see Emma helpless in the face of injustice. It's a brutal, hard-to-forget portrait of human cruelty that makes disturbingly clear the way women and girls internalize sexist societal attitudes and unwarranted guilt. Ages 12 up.
Customer Reviews
Broke my heart
Everybody needs to read this. Just once.
Amazing.
Heartbreakingly amazing. It's so raw and modern and a truly incredible read. So many different elements to this book, my emotions were all over throughout. Honestly a must read.
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I don't know what to say about this book, it upset me but I couldn't put it down. The story was upsetting but relevant and I understood the ending even though I wanted more answers. It feels wrong to call it good, cos this kind of story isn't good and I can't say I enjoyed as it made me angry and upset most of the time but this is definitely one that will say with me for a while.