Only Ever Yours

by Louise O'Neill

Paperback, 2014

Status

Available

Call number

823.92

Genres

Young Adult

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Accelerated Reader

Publication

Quercus Publishing

Description

"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"--Amazon.com.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member wyvernfriend

Now I get why folks connect it with Margaret Attwood's Handmaid's tale and why they deride the connection. Yes it's about girls trained to be subservient and brood mares but the story is different and while both are scary and logical extensions of some of the mores and commentary of today, I think

Only Ever Yours hit me as more scary. The night-time programming they got reminded me of the continuous background noise of advertising and other messages that everyone sees and hears continuously in modern living.

freida and isabel have been best friends the whole of their lives but now there are problems with that relationship. They both are part of a class of girls who are competing for 10 places as companions to 10 boys. They are literally bred to be perfect, made to stay at perfect weights, forced to criticise each other, made to regard themselves as so lesser that even their names don't deserve capitals. As wives they will only survive as long as they are attractive, and can bear boys, if they're not productive, they're waste and will be treated as such. Girls who aren't wives are concubines and will die earlier. The only other option is to be a Chastity, keeping the brutal training going. At some time in the past selective breeding meant that no more girls were born and in order to continue the species they had to start creating girls and now that they're creating them they treat them as lesser. It reminded me a little of Brave New World in ways too.

It was a brutal read, I was very shocked by the ending, it really hit me hard. And as I look at sites that talk about how men don't want "girls" who are fat a shudder ran through my body. This book is going to linger.

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LibraryThing member sianpr

Set in a dark dystopian future, Only Ever Yours tells a grim coming of age story of "eves" - the lot of all women to become 'companions', 'concubines' or 'chastities' on their 17th birthday. The story is gripping but relentlessly narrated through the voice of Frieda whose self loathing knows no

bounds. Louise O'Neill has taken a well worn storyline - that of the total objectification of women for men - and added in 21st Century twists - particularly the use of social media to keep the girls in the story in line. However, the story was grim from beginning to end in its return to a pre-historic gender order in which all resistance is futile. As a reader there was little possibility to read against the grain - no heroine to shatter the 21st Century version of Stepford Wives and the narrative of 'sisters doing it for themselves' was totally absent. As such I think versions of the misogynist gender order portrayed in Only Ever Yours are better done in earlier novels, particularly Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale, despite O'Neill's sharp writing.

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LibraryThing member blodeuedd

I have been thinking about this review for a while now. The book was intense, brutal, a future I hope will come true.

I read it in one sitting. I am not sure I even blinked while reading. I just could not stop, the horror, the normality of it all.

All their futures suck. But if they are engineered

right, maybe they will not feel those kind of feelings.

This is the future. Not a lot of people left in the world. Women bear sons. Girls are made, and then put to live in a "school" until they are chosen or not.

You can be chosen as a companion, this is the best, you bear sons, you are killed at 40. You do everything your husband tells you, you are his slave. If you do not give him a son he will send you to the Pyre.

You can be chosen as a courtesan, which technically is a prostitute. You must do everything a man tells you, and you must look like you are loving it. You will never have children.

Or you can become a Chastity, take care of newer generations of girls. In silence, alone. It's not like this is a good choice either. They are all miserable choices, ones you do not make, they are made for you.

Or you can be sent underground and never seen again.

At school you are taught to do all the things a woman must do. And you must obey, be proper, never cry, always be calm. You must look good, be thin. Be perfect, and there is always improvement. You are never perfect.

In this world we follow Freida. Who can't sleep. Who is afraid of not looking her best for picture day. Who has gained a tiny bit of weight. Who must lose it or she wont be chosen. Who wants to be like the nr #1 girl. Who is a follower. Who breaks herself in trying to follow. Who gets broken by others trying to be perfect, thin and pretty.

The atmosphere is horrible at that place. Nr 1, nr 1! You have to be chosen by the right man. If he wants to beat you you will smile and thank him.

I could talk for ages on the misery of it all. And it was so good. A world were women are cattle. A fascinating world in it's horror. All choices will be bad, and what will happen to this class?

My version was the adult version, I have no idea what that means. But a YA version came first, and then they wanted to market it to adults too. Maybe they made it darker. All hope is lost to those who enter here.

Totally recommends it.

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LibraryThing member Kristymk18

To sum this book up in one word: disturbing.

Only Ever Yours was not what I expected. It takes place in a future where girls are genetically engineered to be "perfect," although they still have their own thoughts and can therefore "err" at times. Their sole goal is to please man, either by becoming

a companion (look pretty and bear children) or a concubine. Some other reviews mention the similarity to The Handmaid's Tale and I have to agree. The premises are similar although the execution differs.

The drama in this book was like high school on crack. Catty, vain, vapid girls who shunned intelligence (as per society's directives) and lusted after materialistic beauty. The snark, fake-ness, backstabbing, and gossip was just too much. I can honestly say I disliked every character in this book.

freida, our MC, lacks a backbone and it only seemed to grow weaker as time passed. Her insecurities and need for "friends" and "approval" was so strong she willingly destroyed every good thing or possibility going for her just to have five minutes of fame and someone to sit with at lunch. I couldn't stand her incessant whining and spinelessness.

For me, if freida had better character development, or stood up for herself, or something other than be a doormat, I would have appreciated this book more. Unfortunately, the characters killed the story for me.

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LibraryThing member boudicca123

A nasty school for girls - very nasty. It's a school in the future where the objective is to be chosen by a man with a view to breeding sons. Not everyone gets picked to be a "companion", they could be "concubines" or "chastities". This was a wonderfully horrible look at the future or what the

future could be. I was gripped by the scenario but not entirely by the story which I felt was overly long. None of the young ladies were particularly nice and were in fact mean and nasty to each other. I liked enough if this book to be interested in reading something else by this author.

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LibraryThing member boudicca123

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LibraryThing member oddandbookish

What an incredibly dark yet thought provoking book. I think the most terrifying part is that it's so reflective of our own society. From our attitudes about periods to slut shaming.

LibraryThing member chaiya

This book scared the ever-loving shit out of me because it's such a possible future of the patriarchy. I cannot even. Incredibly well-written, well thought out, and intense. Rape culture examination required.

LibraryThing member atreic

Ok, this had me hooked. It was so gripping. I woke up early to read it. I went to the loo and came back 30 minutes later because I’d been reading it. I couldn’t put it down. Which is funny, because not a lot happens in it in many ways – the ‘eves’ (the pre-17 year old manufactured girls,

being trained at their school until they are chosen by men into their roles for life) basically just bitch about weight and looks and are cruel to each other and stupid and look at their ePads and agonise over their food choices for about 300 pages. But oh, I cared about freida, trying so hard but so weak, and oh, I wanted to know what isabel’s secret was, and oh, Darwin and frieda were so sweet, and I wanted them to make it up and get their happy ever after so much…

At which point you get to the last ten pages of the book, and wait for the character growth / the warm fuzzies / the reunions / the escape / the happy ever afters. And it pulls out your heart and shreds it into teeny tiny little bits, because basically nothing changes about the whole fucked up mess, and everyone you care about has an unhappy ending. The dream boy marries the bitch queen (who we know will make him unhappy) and never sees frieda again (so the last time they saw each other was the crying row after she had sex with him to try and make him chose her), the best friend never gets a chance to be reunited with frieda and they never make up after their distance (which happened basically because Isabel had a nervous breakdown after being raped by the man she would be forced to marry and couldn’t tell anyone), then she kills herself! and then frieda is taken to a grim science lab in the basement, and drugged into unconsciousness to be tested on for the rest of her life. And that really is the end. She doesn’t get any last thoughts like ‘but one day I will escape’ just relief it is all over.

Err, I like my fiction dark. But I like my fiction dark with some glimmer of the redemptive power of humanity in the dark. This just left me feeling punched in the gut and desperate to talk to people about that awful awful book, to take some of the pain away.

So, err, this might be a hugely powerful book that makes a bold decision not to pull punches in order to underline the horror of the story it’s telling. But I would be very hesitant to recommend it to anyone. It’s hugely good at showing the dystopia of living in a world obsessed with image and looks and other people’s judgement. But it does that by building a hugely powerful world where people are obsessed with image and looks and judgement. I’m not hugely easily triggered about food and weight loss, and I came out of reading this thinking that a pound over 120 pounds is dangerous, and people would judge me if I ate cake. And it offers no escape or happy ending or way out of this world – the ones who play the game and win win, and the ones who lose have nothing else to do but die.

Addictive. Page turning. Chilling. So much of everything that is good about dystopias, but, (unlike the hunger games, which leaves you thinking everything is broken, but we can still be and love and fight back), it drags you down to a conclusion where they have won, and all we can do is hope for the mercy of ceasing to be.

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LibraryThing member froxgirl

It's a mashup of Lord of the Flies, Stepford Wives, Mean Girls, and The Handmaid's Tale. This novel presents a post apocalyptic TrumpWorld, where girls are groomed from birth to become dazzling wives of powerful men to provide pleasure and to pump out sons. The less perfect ones are forced to be

concubines or celibate supervisors of the girls, like Mother Superiors. Too much emphasis on clothing and makeup, like Style or Shape Magazines. Creepy with a few twists and surprises, but the writing is pedestrian, the characters a bit dull, and over matched by the plot.

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LibraryThing member ComicGirl178

The Plastics, from "Mean Girls"; combined with "The Handmaid's Tale" 2.0

LibraryThing member itchyfeetreader

A dark, and I really do mean dark, dystopian young adult novel in the spirit of The Handmaids Tale. There was much I enjoyed about this novel, which had lots of interesting things to say about the nature of female friendship, misogyny and perspectives on beauty but overall I felt it was let down by

a lack of worldbuilding.

“I’m sick of being in this School. I’m sick of being in this body. I’m sick of being me. Every toxic feeling I’ve ever had seems to explode inside me, like a million different voices screaming to be heard at once”

Plot in a Nutshell
This novel is set in a dystopian world where populations have rapidly shrunk and being male has become a genetic preference. Enter an artificial breeding programme where female children carefully selected for idealised beauty traits are bred and then educated together until their final role in life, as a wife, a concubine or a teacher is determined. The novel follows freida and her classmates in the final year at School as the pressure for perfection intensifies.

Thoughts
So many thoughts!

It is worth noting that this novel really is very dark – there is some strong imagery about eating disorders, rape, addiction, suicide, mental illness, all sorts of shaming and not a great deal of light at all. However, for all of that I think it was a good and important read even if I cannot imagine choosing to read it again.

First of all the comparison with a Handmaids Tale is obvious. At first glance I thought this would be a retelling of that story for a young adult audience. But it really isn’t. Yes, superficially there is a similarity in the worlds – women and not valued here, ( side note I initially enjoyed but then tired of the lack of capitalisation for female names vs the treatment of male ones), and their beauty and attractiveness to men is the only thing that matters. However the focus of this novel is much more about the relationships between the girls, the impact of living in such a pressured environment and the horrifying consequences of a single minded focus on physical beauty.

O’Neill does an excellent job of creating a frightening, claustrophobic environment for freida and the rest of the eves in the school. Weigh-ins are a part of daily life, food intakes are carefully watched and controlled and the dining room has a room specifically for being sick attached. Clothes and looks are the main topic of conversation both in the girls down time and in their so called education. One lesson involves two classmates being scrutinised and criticised by their peers whilst facilitated by a teacher. Emotions are discouraged and crying is banned. Medication is rife. Aging is to be avoided at all costs – women are killed at 40. The contradiction of remaining pure to become a wife in a world where men are all powerful exists.

“We have never had a class on how to say no to men while simultaneously never saying no to them”

The world is rich in horrifying detail.

The narrator, freida, is not an easy person to like. She makes consistently terrible decisions, whether they relate to herself, her relationship with her only real friend and ultimately the boy she is hoping to attract. She does all of this with a level of self-awareness that makes her actions even more frustrating. In one scene she is alone in bed worrying about the lack of relationship and engagement she has had recently with her friend isobel, the next she is joining in with the ‘mean girls’ in criticising her. Infuriating yes, but also familiar to anyone who has been a teenage girl. The fact our main characters are living in an incredibly claustrophobic, challenging environment makes this all feel very believable.

There were things I did not appreciate however. Whilst the School is a well created environment it sits in a less compelling world. I struggled at times not to question some of the gaps – with apparently such a small population the number of professions open to the men seemed vast. Why did they get rid of the animals? If the girls can’t read and don’t understand maths how do, they calorie count and engage on social media? If the doctors have been able to make all the women so pretty then why are the boys so mixed in terms of looks and brains? I appreciate why the girls were the focus of this story but I would have appreciated more of the back story for the boys – insights from their lives are limited and more might have helped flesh out the wider world more effectively.

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LibraryThing member kk1

This is both the 2nd book billed as the next Handmaid's Tale and the 2nd Louise O'Neil book that I have read and struggled to find sympathy with the characters. I'm not sure I understand her/their angle.
Although I am maybe not of the right generation to read it. It seems like a riff on the selfie

generation and the obsession with diet and appearance.

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LibraryThing member HeatherLINC

Well, this ended up being a dark and depressing read. It is a sad indictment on society's view of women and, although It was quite repetitive at times, it was a compelling story of young girls being bred and groomed just to please the opposite sex. However, if you're a reader who likes happy

ever-afters, do NOT read this book!

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LibraryThing member amandanan

I fear for when society ends up like this.

LibraryThing member burritapal

Terribly triggering.
The narrator's voice explains how their world came to be zones:
" there was relief at first, the hope that they had found an organic solution to the population crisis, but that soon turned to fear. The remaining people moving inward and inward and inward, until the zones were

formed to protect the remaining few from the scalding sun and the rising waters. The Noah project. 2x2 the humans entered, all marching forward to create a new world. They got rid of anything we would not need, like animals, and organized religion. They got rid of anything that would weigh us down. "
They had the amer zone, they had the chindia zone, and they had the Euro zone. This story takes place in the euro zone. There are three occupations for women: chastities, who take care of and teach the girls from four till 16. Then there are the concubines, who serve the men who want to have nastier sex than what they have with their companions. The companions are the third occupation, who Marry and give their husbands since.. There is bitter competition, strife, for first place. The top 10 girls, at the age of 16, will compete for the top 10 inheritors. Boys who are sons of so-called important men.

They have a social media called my face, I guess a cross between Myspace and facebook. Rolling eyeballs

The saddest character is isabel, who early on was chosen by "the father," He is the dictator. He got tired of his companion, and wanted Isabel for his next one. When they get tired of their companions, they throw them on the pyre. The father tried out Isabel when she was 16, and hurt her badly, so she tried getting fat to see if he would dislike her. They wouldn't allow her to do that though, they took over with meds and 24-hour surveillance. So then she tried to kill herself by not eating anything. So they put a feeding tube in her. in the end, she had to go with the father, but she hung herself to escape. I'm getting ahead of myself though.

There's a nasty show on TV called Botched Redesigns, something like that. One time Freida is watching it, and there's a woman named natasha. She wanted to have her vagina redesigned,
"He looks at her unsmilingly over the thin wire frames of his glasses and she cringes. 'As I was saying, natasha, there were a few complications.' he beckons her to the corner of the office, gesturing at her to stand on a raised wooden block in front of a full-length mirror. He pulls her skirt up around her waist and unravels the thick bandages swaddling her like a new-design's diaper. I blink once, twice, wondering if I am going crazy.
'These things happen unfortunately.' the re-designer shrugs.
The camera zooms in on Natasha as she leans closer to the mirror searching for something that she will never find again. A hint of forbidden tears freezes over her pale green eyes, the fine lines and wrinkles becoming more pronounced as her face crumples with the effort to control her emotions. I turn it off. She's 37, I tell myself. 37. She is only 3 years away from her termination date anyway."
Yes, they kill women when they're 40. On to the pyre they go.

Frida likes an inheritor named Darwin, who is the number one ranked inheritor. The girls get sessions with the inheritors when it becomes close to the date of the ceremony where they'll be chosen for their occupations. Darwin is the son of the judge of the Eurozone, a cruel man who beats his son. Freida will do anything to make Darwin like her, including liking music that he chooses for her:
"He begins to bring presents with him more frequently. a thick cuff with a faceted Amber Stone in the center follows the earrings. The download of an album by an obscure indie band from the Americas that I have never heard of.
'I love their music,' I lie, and his eyes light up in excitement. 'Especially their earlier stuff.' We sit in the cupboard, sharing one set of earbuds, their "best song ever" threatening to split my eardrums in half. He bobs his head in time to the noise, stuffing his hands into the pouch at the front of yet another hooded sweatshirt."
When Darwin starts losing interest in Freida, she gives him sex to try to make him like her. this was one of the most triggering parts of the book. she gave him her virginity, and he just used her and then threw her away.

So many innocent girls do this, because of lack of guidance, with nobody to look out for them, and because of our social mores, that says it's fine for boys and men to be sluts, to have sex with as many girls and women as possible, to ruin their innocence, to make them pregnant, to throw them away.

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