Skip to main content

Book Review: Asking For It, Louise O'Neill

Asking For It

Title: Asking For It
Author: Louise O'Neill
Published: 14/07/2016, riverrun
Pages: 344
Source: Netgalley
Format: Ebook
Rating: 4.5/5
FROM THE WINNER OF THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER AWARD OF THE YEAR. 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...

Asking For It is most definitely one of the hardest books I have ever read. It is absolutely horrific and is definitely not a fun, light-hearted read. It is brutal. But, of course, rape is horrific. This is not an enjoyable read, but it is a must-read.

I'm ashamed to say that Asking For It feels all too real. It is far too common place for people to blame the victim purely because of the way they dress, or act, or even how they treat other people. And Emma is not a likable character. She was popular, sure, but the furthest from likable I could think of. And, unfortunately, she ticks all the boxes which lead to her whole hometown blaming her for being raped.

To be honest, Asking For It is riddled with unlikable characters - it's not just Emma. Everyone is just so shallow. And so quick to blame even when they've seen all the evidence supporting Emma.

Throughout the whole book I can think of only one character that I actually liked. That's Bryan, Emma's brother. He is the only one who wholeheartedly supports and believes Emma. I honestly think he would walk to the ends of the earth to get Emma justice. However, I also think he feels quite guilty as he was supposed to be "watching" Emma at the time of her attack.

Asking For It is told from Emma's perspective bother around the time of her attack and then a year later. This is a fantastic way of showing how such an awful ordeal affects someone both physically and mentally.

I wouldn't say Asking For It is a predictable story per se, but you can guess what might happen. However, there is no way of really knowing how such a horrific experience will affect someone as I suspect everyone would have different coping mechanisms (if that makes sense?). It's unthinkable.

The ending left me frustrated to say the least. But it's realistic and, therefore, I can't fault it. There is no happy ending for girls like Emma. They have to live with their ordeal for the rest of their lives and the majority of the time there is no closure.

I cannot recommend Asking For It highly enough. True, it's a horrific story, but it's just so relevant and needs to be read. Will I ever read it again? Definitely not. I don't think I could put myself through such a difficult read again. But I will definitely be reading more by Louise O'Neill.




Follow me via GoodreadsTwitterBloglovin, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Feel free to leave a comment.

Comments

  1. I read Louise O'Neill's Only Ever Yours and absolutely loved it, so I am so glad to hear that you enjoyed this one too. It sounds like such an important and emotional story, and I am definitely going to have to give it a try. Thanks for sharing and, as always, fabulous review! <3

    ~ Zoe @ Stories on Stage

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feature and Follow (29 May)

The Feature & Follow is hosted by TWO hosts, Parajunkee of  Parajunkee’s View  and Alison of  Alison Can Read . Each host will have their own Feature Blog and this way it’ll allow us to show off more new blogs! I'm one of the featured blogs this week! Along with Amanda of  The Darling Bookworm . This week’s Question: How many books have you got on your TBR list? I recently had a bit of a cull of my TBR list so now it is sitting at 269. I'm trying my hardest to get it below 200 by the end of the year but I really don't see it happening. I'd currently be happy if I managed to get it below 225. However, I did recently have a look through my TBR on Goodreads and deleted a few books that I don't think I will actually ever read - I'm not even to sure how they got there anyway. Follow me via  Goodreads ,  Facebook ,  Bloglovin  and  Pinterest  and also via email to myexpandingbookshelf@gmail.com.  Feel free to leave a comment.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Wouldn't Mind Santa Leaving Me

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by  The Broke and The Bookish . This week's topic is ten books I wouldn't mind Santa leaving under my tree.

Book Beginnings, The Friday 56 and Feature and Follow (3 April)

Book Beginnings is a meme hosted every Friday by  Rose City Reader  where you share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.  Please remember to include the title of the book and the author’s name.