Only Ever Yours
Author: Louise O'NeillPublished: 3 July 2014 by Quercus
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopian, Science Fiction
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Links: Goodreads
Synopsis:
frieda and isabel have been best friends their whole lives.
Now, aged sixteen and in their final year at the School, they expect to be selected as companions - wives to wealthy and powerful men. The alternative – life as a concubine – is too horrible to contemplate.
But as the intensity of the final year takes hold, the pressure to remain perfect becomes almost unbearable. isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty – her only asset – in peril.
And then, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride.
frieda must fight for her future - even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known...
Rating:
My Review:
In the space of one book, Louise O'Neill has gone from an unknown author to one of my favourites. Her books will now sit on my bookshelf in that special section that I reserve for authors whose words have truly affected me and changed my life. I rarely fangirl over anything these days, but O'Neill's Only Ever Yours is an undeniable force of nature, compelling a full-blown emotional response from anyone daring to read a book about a topic such as this one.
Only Ever Yours is set in a futuristic, dystopian-esque world where men rule the world and women are created for the sole purpose of pleasing these men. They are crafted – scientifically generated – to be absolutely perfect. They are then raised in the School as eves, where they are trained to one day enter the world primed and ready to please men. The eves are illiterate – only able to communicate verbally or visually – because academic traits are unappealing to men. The eves are emotionless, void of personality or feelings, because this is unappealing to men. The eves follow a strict regime to ensure they are at a target weight, because anything more or less is unappealing to men.
The ultimate goal is to become a companion – a wife to a man, and the bearer of his future sons (giving birth to daughters is strictly forbidden). If an eve is not selected for companionship (this society creates three times as many eves as sons born each year, so only one third will be selected as companions), she will become a concubine – a prostitute, living for the purpose of sexually pleasuring men beyond their companion. If an eve is unfit for either of these roles, she is destined to become a chastitiy – assisting in raising of eves, eternally sexually chaste, and with the role of chastising any deviant eve behaviour.
This book is not one that can be read lightly. Its subject matter is deeply confronting and extremely difficult to read at times, but it is a worthwhile read. It tackles issues such as eating disorders, body image, mental illness and suicide with a feminist poignancy that really hits home. There is nothing uplifting about this book, nothing to really make you happy. Rather, it is a book that sends a message, a warning about beauty culture and patriarchy and the future of our society if we become so obsessed with perfection that we lose our humanity. The focus of this book is on delivering this message – O'Neill doesn't care whether you like her characters or whether you approve of the world she has created – and it does so in such a beautiful, tragic way that will stay with you forever.
The characters in this book – the eves – are all vapid clones of one another. They might have different hair colours, different heights, different skin tones, but in the end they were all created to be identical in their service of pleasing men. It's impossible to like any of them, because (1) we never get to know them as individuals, and (2) they're all equally as annoying as the next one. But that's not to say that they're uninteresting. Quite the opposite. The creation of these characters, their role, the training they receive at the School is all so engrossing and fascinating that it's hard to not become invested in their story. They are pawns of men, their stories tragic and depressing, their fate unfathomable. Yet it is so easy to see ourselves in these girls, their emotions, their ways of thinking. And that's the whole point; this abhorrent dystopian world isn't so far removed from our own.
A lot of the negative reviews for Only Ever Yours stem from readers' dissatisfaction with the characters, their lack of development, and even their flatness – but I would argue that this is the whole point of the book! The eves are crafted in this world to be vapid clones of each other, no personality, nothing distinct about them. It serves as commentary on the world in which they are created, that men think this is the ideal role of women in society. I did not take a liking to any of the characters in this book, and I got confused by the amount of side characters because they were all so similar and blended together so easily. And that is the whole point! You will not like any of the characters that you come across, and you're not supposed to. These characters only serve the purpose of exposing us to this unfathomable world, and they serve their purpose wonderfully.
It is a confronting book to read, however, and if you're interested in reading a book set in a dystopian-esque world such as this one, I would recommend you pick up Uglies by Scott Westerfeld first. Uglies offers a similar critique of beauty culture, but in a significantly less confronting manner. It's one of my favourite series, and having read it first definitely helped to guide my expectations of Only Ever Yours and the way in which I approached this book.
I think this is such an important book to read. It is one that will definitely stay with me for many years to come, and I'm already looking forward to possibly re-reading it before the end of the year to go back and see what I missed my first time around. This is one that I'm sure will be classified as a modern classic one day, and one that I will forever appreciate for changing my outlook on many issues that we currently face as a society.
The ultimate goal is to become a companion – a wife to a man, and the bearer of his future sons (giving birth to daughters is strictly forbidden). If an eve is not selected for companionship (this society creates three times as many eves as sons born each year, so only one third will be selected as companions), she will become a concubine – a prostitute, living for the purpose of sexually pleasuring men beyond their companion. If an eve is unfit for either of these roles, she is destined to become a chastitiy – assisting in raising of eves, eternally sexually chaste, and with the role of chastising any deviant eve behaviour.
This book is not one that can be read lightly. Its subject matter is deeply confronting and extremely difficult to read at times, but it is a worthwhile read. It tackles issues such as eating disorders, body image, mental illness and suicide with a feminist poignancy that really hits home. There is nothing uplifting about this book, nothing to really make you happy. Rather, it is a book that sends a message, a warning about beauty culture and patriarchy and the future of our society if we become so obsessed with perfection that we lose our humanity. The focus of this book is on delivering this message – O'Neill doesn't care whether you like her characters or whether you approve of the world she has created – and it does so in such a beautiful, tragic way that will stay with you forever.
"All eves are created to be perfect, but there is always room for Improvement."
The characters in this book – the eves – are all vapid clones of one another. They might have different hair colours, different heights, different skin tones, but in the end they were all created to be identical in their service of pleasing men. It's impossible to like any of them, because (1) we never get to know them as individuals, and (2) they're all equally as annoying as the next one. But that's not to say that they're uninteresting. Quite the opposite. The creation of these characters, their role, the training they receive at the School is all so engrossing and fascinating that it's hard to not become invested in their story. They are pawns of men, their stories tragic and depressing, their fate unfathomable. Yet it is so easy to see ourselves in these girls, their emotions, their ways of thinking. And that's the whole point; this abhorrent dystopian world isn't so far removed from our own.
A lot of the negative reviews for Only Ever Yours stem from readers' dissatisfaction with the characters, their lack of development, and even their flatness – but I would argue that this is the whole point of the book! The eves are crafted in this world to be vapid clones of each other, no personality, nothing distinct about them. It serves as commentary on the world in which they are created, that men think this is the ideal role of women in society. I did not take a liking to any of the characters in this book, and I got confused by the amount of side characters because they were all so similar and blended together so easily. And that is the whole point! You will not like any of the characters that you come across, and you're not supposed to. These characters only serve the purpose of exposing us to this unfathomable world, and they serve their purpose wonderfully.
It is a confronting book to read, however, and if you're interested in reading a book set in a dystopian-esque world such as this one, I would recommend you pick up Uglies by Scott Westerfeld first. Uglies offers a similar critique of beauty culture, but in a significantly less confronting manner. It's one of my favourite series, and having read it first definitely helped to guide my expectations of Only Ever Yours and the way in which I approached this book.
I think this is such an important book to read. It is one that will definitely stay with me for many years to come, and I'm already looking forward to possibly re-reading it before the end of the year to go back and see what I missed my first time around. This is one that I'm sure will be classified as a modern classic one day, and one that I will forever appreciate for changing my outlook on many issues that we currently face as a society.
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