I just finished this book and I'm just...what is my life anymore.
It is 11:10 and I need to write down all my feeling in an hour so that I don't miss a BEDIA day, so let us begin!
(I will start with a non-spoiler section)
So, while we were at YALC, we went to the "Morally Complicated YA" panel (with Louise O'Neill (the author of this book (who we also met after)), Emerald Fennel, Melvin Burgess and Manuela Salvi). All of these authors are seen as "controversial" and now I can see why.
Only Ever Yours is a YA/NA novel which covers topics such as Feminism (well...anti-feminism), drug addiction, eating disorders and many, many more! It mainly focuses on the oppression of women and how controlled they are. This book really shows how far we've come but also how far we still need to go because, although it's cut to the "extreme", there are some things in this book which I personally recognised from my daily life. This really surprised me as I was expecting to not relate in ways that I did.
It is in a Fantasy world where females are created in labs and genetically modified to be "perfect". They go through 16 years of schooling and then after learning all these horrible things like fat-shaming others, comparing others to themselves and being taught that you do whatever men want you to do (sexually etc), they are either chosen to be a companion by an Inheritant (man), a concubine (prostitute) or a chastitiy (nun).
That is all I'm going to say because I don't want to give too much away. Please go and pick this book up and read it and beware...it is weird and it will DESTROY you.
I REALLY enjoyed this book and recommend it to everyone (however, if you get triggered easily or are anxious/ have any mental illness to do with weight then I would warn you that this might not be a great book for you :-/
BYE BYE TO EVERYONE WHO HASN'T READ THE BOOK!
Spoilery section ;-)
So first I'm going to talk about how DARK this book is. The themes behind this book are shocking. Females are treated like objects but because of how it's told, it makes it almost feel like a normality. It's super weird. O'Neill also doesn't capitalise the letters of the girl's names which is really smart and an idea I would never have thought of.
I didn't really like frieda. I feel like she made really stupid decisions, she was really needy and also was really disloyal and rude. But then I also have sympathy for her because I feel like we would all be like that if we lived in that kind of horrible world. I'm not totally sure what t make of her actually.
I really hated megan. She was the typical bitch. Sort of like the bitches in my school who are little shits to me to be honest-that hit close to home.
Anyway, I'm running out of time so I'm just going to talk about the but that was the biggest shock to the system. I feel like the end happened pretty much all at once and that's what really overwhelmed me with emotion.
Finding out that isabel had hung herself was crazy. I did not expect that in the slightest. She was going to go and like a fab life with the Father of everything and be the most honoured woman n the world but no, that didn't happen.
The other thing was the last page. I was like WTAF IS HAPPENING when she got to the lab and was injected and everything. I was really confused but also just numb with emotion.
My overall rating is:
I'm going to post this so I don't fail BEDIA but I will probably write more and update it tomorrow because i'm stupidly tired and really should be in bed and am finding it really difficult to type.
Happy Reading,
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