Review: The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill

The Surface Breaks by Louise O'Neill (proof) - Deep beneath the sea, off the cold Irish coast, Gaia is a young mermaid who dreams of freedom from her controlling father. On her first swim to the surface, she is drawn towards a human boy. She longs to join his carefree world, but how much will she have to sacrifice? What will it take for the little mermaid to find her voice? Hans Christian Andersen's original fairy tale is reimagined through a searing feminist lens, with the stunning, scalpel-sharp writing and world building that has won Louise her legions of devoted fans. A book with the darkest of undercurrents, full of rage and rallying cries: storytelling at its most spellbinding. From Goodreads.

I was sent this proof for free by Scholastic for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Trigger Warning: This book features sexual assault, sexual violence, suicide, female genital mutilation, homophobia; though we don't get to see any of these things on page, they are discussed. This book also features an on-page attempted rape.

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Five Books That Changed My Life

As a blogger, I have read more books than I would ever like to try and calculate. Because of this, some books get forgotten or become a vague memory of enjoyment. But there are also those that will always stick out in my memory, not just because of how good they, but because of how they have affected me. Lucy of Queen of Contemporary did it. Then Gracie of Almost Amazing Grace did it. So I thought I'd join them, and talk you through five books that changed my life. Without these books, I wouldn't be who I am today, or be doing the things I do.


Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Yes, Twilight. It gets a whole lot of grief, but I really enjoyed this series. Not just that, but it opened my eyes to both urban fantasy/paranormal romance, and to YA.

Before Twilight, I was reading high fantasy exclusively. You wouldn't catch me reading anything else. But when I took a module in Young Adult Fictions at uni, Twilight was one of the books on our recommending reading list. I read it, and fell in love. Maybe a bit too in love, because I bought the next two books in the series, New Moon and Eclipse, and for a several months, they were the only things I read, over and over.

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Sex in Teen Lit Month II - Discussion: Paul & Emma's Scene in Asking For It by Louise O'Neill

WARNING! There is a scene in Asking For It by Louise O'Neill that I am going to discuss in some detail. If you have yet to read the book and don't want it spoilt for you, please read no further.

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Sex in Teen Lit Month II: Interview with Louise O'Neill

Today, we are extremely lucky to have the completely brilliant Louise O'Neill stopping by, who has been incredibly busy lately (she's been at events in Ireland, the UK, the US, and Canada, all in a matter of months!) due to the success of her two novels. She's here to discuss her latest novel Asking For It and to talk about rape culture.

Asking For It is such a deeply affecting and eye-opening novel. What prompted you to write it?

There were a few different reasons. I was finishing Only Ever Yours in 2012 when Todd Aiken, a politician who was running for senate in the US, made a comment about how the female body had ways of ‘shutting down’ a pregnancy if it was a ‘legitimate rape.’ I wanted to include that idea of ‘legitimate rape’ or ‘rape rape’ in Only Ever Yours but it seemed too important an issue to shoe-horn in to the narrative.

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Sex in Teen Lit Month II - Alice Nuttall: Companions, Concubines and Chastities: Weaponised Sexuality in Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours

Today I have the wonderful Alice Nuttall stopping by with a fantastic guest post about sexuality in one of my favourite YA novels, Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill.

A little warning just as a heads up, there are some minor spoilers in Alice's post. I don't think there's anything that would spoil the enjoyment of the story overall, but if you have yet to read Only Ever Yours and you'd rather not have anything spoilt for you, maybe skip this post. If you have, read on, because it's brilliant!

Companions, Concubines and Chastities: Weaponised sexuality in Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours

Louise O’Neill’s debut novel describes a dystopian future that’s scarily close to our present. Teenage girls are brought up in a claustrophobic society with an obsessive focus on their looks and an infinitesimally narrow band of what is deemed acceptable behaviour. All right, the girls in question have been genetically engineered for maximum attractiveness, and they are raised in a nightmarish boarding school that is set up as The Handmaid’s Tale-meets-reality TV, but despite the alien setting, the constant emphasis on prettiness, compliance and conformity is frighteningly familiar.

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A Novel Cover Up: Kate Gaughran on Asking For It by Louise O'Neill

A Novel Cover Up is a semi-regular feature that looks at how covers are made. Thanks to Quercus, I have been fortunate enough to interview freelance designer Kate Gaughran about how she designed the cover for Asking For It by Louise O'Neill. Other than the cover, all images in this post are copyrighted to Kate Gaughran and used with permission. They can be clicked to be enlarged.

Can you tell us about the cover for Asking For It? What do you hope it tells readers about the story?

In the story 18-year old Emma, the protagonist, is taken advantage of at a party, and becomes the subject of victim blaming. She is treated badly by everyone and becomes caught in a media storm after images of the incident are widely shared on social media. With the cover I was trying to capture how she has been stripped bare physically and emotionally, and is treated almost like a rag doll. I wanted to create a cover that suggested a cold, clinical, and de-humanising situation, something that tries to reflect both how Emma feels and is treated in the story.

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Review: Asking For It by Louise O'Neill

Asking For It by Louise O'Neill (proof) - It's the beginning of the summer in a small town in Ireland. Emma O'Donovan is eighteen years old, beautiful, happy, confident. One night, there's a party. Everyone is there. All eyes are on Emma.

The next morning, she wakes on the front porch of her house. She can't remember what happened, she doesn't know how she got there. She doesn't know why she's in pain. But everyone else does.

Photographs taken at the party show, in explicit detail, what happened to Emma that night. But sometimes people don't want to believe what is right in front of them, especially when the truth concerns the town's heroes... From Goodreads.

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YA Book Prize 2015: And The Winner Is...

The inaugural YA Book Prize 2015 awards ceremony happened tonight! This is not an event report, because I'm bad at them, but I need to talk about it!

Fortunately for me, the awards ceremony was happening at my Foyles branch. Unfortunately for me, I was working the late shift, and so couldn't attend. However, my amazing boss, Jo, who is also one of the judges for the prize, spoke to our supervisors to see if it was possible that I could pop in for a short while, and they said yes! Using my break, I had 45 mins to spend in our events space, seeing all the lovely authors have their photos taken before the winner was announced.


Sorry, best of a bad bunch!
And then the winner was announced! And it was...

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Review: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill (ARC) - In a world in which baby girls are no longer born naturally, women are bred in schools, trained in the arts of pleasing men until they are ready for the outside world. At graduation, the most highly rated girls become "companions", permitted to live with their husbands and breed sons until they are no longer useful.

For the girls left behind, the future – as a concubine or a teacher – is grim.

Best friends freida and isabel are sure they’ll be chosen as companions – they are among the most highly rated girls in their year.

But as the intensity of final year takes hold, Isabel does the unthinkable and starts to put on weight...

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... From Goodreads

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