Asking For It - Book Review

O’Neill, L. (2016). Asking for it. NY: Quercus

Emma O’Donavan is a beautiful 18 year old in Ireland, who is very aware of the popularity and attention her beauty brings.  Although she has a circle of friends, Emma is not a friend herself.  She is rude, coincided, self-absorbent, arrogant, and sometimes just hateful.  Emma arrives to school one day with her group of friends furious with her and accusing her of stealing boyfriends and sleeping around.  Emma is a little confused about these accusations, and it gets even worse when the entire school is laughing at her, whispering about her, and won’t let her sit with anyone at lunch.  It isn’t until Emma’s brother calls to tell her to look at Facebook that she sees what her friends and the entire school must have been talking about.  A few nights before, Emma consumed too much alcohol and drugs at a party, and was gang raped by several guys who took explicit photos of Emma and posted them on social media.  The only thing Emma remembers is waking up on her doorstep.  As Emma scrolls through the nightmare online, she cannot believe she is the girl in the photos.  The pictures also show one guy throwing up on her and another peeing on her head.  A teacher confronts Emma about the entire situation and introduces the reality to Emma of being raped that night.  Emma is now an outcast and is being blamed for what happened to her.  People are saying that Emma was “asking for it” with her behavior and the way she dresses.  To make things even more complicated for her, Emma somewhat willingly had sexual relations with one of the boys in the photos just before the incident.  Emma lacks the support of her parents as charges are pressed.  She eventually drops all charges with the assumption that she will not win.

The story of Emma O’Donovan is extremely frustrating and gut wrenching to read.  Readers are frustrated with her decision making leading up to the party and incident that resulted in this nightmare.  O’Neill does not hold back in describing the photos that were posted online of Emma.  It was all too real.  I found it very interesting to create a character for this story to be one readers would not like.  Emma is not one readers would be rooting for, however that does not make what happened to her right.  I think the scene that most upset me through it all was the end, when her parents did not fight for Emma to keep fighting.  Emma longed for them to encourage her and they did nothing.  Her mother even said that those boys really were nice kids, just made bad decisions which crushed Emma.  This was a well written novel with a frustrating plot and ending.

To find more information on author Louise O’Neill, go to this website:  https://www.quercusbooks.co.uk/Quercus/Authors/Louise+ONeill.page

Here you may find her Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more information.