Asking For It by Louise O’Neill – Review

Happy Friday everyone!

At the beginning of September, I read Asking For It by Louise O’Neill. This is a distressing book that tackles today’s rape culture and victim-blaming with a ruthless honesty that almost makes you want to stop reading. This book didn’t leave me with a belief in justification and that things can change but with a feeling of despair and injustice. Here is my review of Asking For It by Louise O’Neill

Asking For It
Louise O’Neill
346 pages
My rating ★★★★

Synopsis from Goodreads
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…

This was a very different and new, kind of read for me, in more ways than one. One of the reasons being the main character Emma. Let me just say it as it is – Emma is not a likeable character. No, she is actually quite a bitch. She is not very nice to people around her. No matter if they are her friends or not. I actually believe that this is the first time I have read a book with a first-person narrator that I disliked. This is not a bad thing most definitely not. No this was actually a great change and it serves a great purpose through the book.

The purpose of the reader disliking Emma emerges through the assault she is the victim of. It is through this assault, and let us just call it what it is(and I don’t believe it to be a spoiler when I say) rape, that the critique and debate about rape and victim-blaming are targeted. What comes after this is just awful as well. I don’t think I will come across it. But I would still like to comment on the structure of the book.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part is about before the rape and shortly after. The second part begins almost a year after the rape. The two parts are quite diverse. While the first part is rather fast-paced and action-packed, the second part is painfully slow. Nothing happens to the point where it is almost boring. I believe this is O’Neill’s way of showing Emma’s coping and I think it is quite cleverly done.

In Asking For It Louise O’Neill also deals with the objectification of women. Emma is a beautiful girl. She knows this because she can take a look in the mirror but also because she is told by people all the time. Emma is being validated by her friends and family through her looks and not as a whole person. Beauty becomes a kind of currency. Emma is constantly looking for compliments and validation from her surroundings to the point of absurdity.

I believe this is a genius book from Louise O’Neill. So well thought through with regards to characters, plot, setting and the structure of the book. This is a tough read but it is worth it. It may not leave you with a belief that things can change but it will leave you with a belief that things MUST change. But you will still feel rather in despair when you have read it though. I did anyway.
Unfortunately what happens in this book is the reality. The reality is hard to face just as I believe this book is, but we need to acknowledge the truth (some more than others) and then call for justice and change.