Friday 8 September 2017

Asking for it - Louisa O'Neill

Emma O'Donovan is eighteen, beautiful, and fearless. It's the beginning of summer in a quiet Irish town and tonight she and her friends have dressed to impress. Everyone is at the party, and all eyes are on Emma. The next morning Emma's parents discover her collapsed on the doorstop of their home, unconscious. She is disheveled, bleeding, and disoriented, looking as if she had been dumped there. To her distress, Emma can't remember what happened the night before. All she knows is that none of her friends will respond to her texts. At school, people turn away from her and whisper under their breath. Her mind may be a blank as far as the events of the previous evening, but someone has posted photos of it on Facebook under a fake account, "Easy Emma"-photos she will never be able to forget. As the photos go viral and a criminal investigation is launched, the community is thrown into tumult. The media descends, neighbors chose sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Everyone has something to say about Emma. Contains mature themes.


My thoughts:
This one was brutal listening to. You were in her head a lot of the time and could her those thoughts go on and on...slut, skank, whore...pink flesh...slut skank whore...do not think of that word, do not think of that word. It felt so near, it felt too near. As she felt like nothingness, I felt like nothingness and I wanted to cry at times.

Emma is beautiful, and she knows it. Yes she has slept around a bit and lied about it. Yes she is bitchy towards her friends (that was the hardest thing to forgive.) She is both really nice to people and catty. She likes to dress and show off her assets. She is totally asking for it.

I so want to say the right things, but most of all I just want to go to that town and shout at everyone to stop being such effing assholes! She was drunk, dressed in a short dress, but that does not mean she was asking for it, that anyone is asking for it. What is wrong with the people taking the boys/men's side and calling her a slut, skank, whore. Why are they the victims!? Why are their lives ruined? Why is she the slut? Why are they not the evil ones who raped someone who was clearly unconscious and then took pictures and posted them online? And the horrible thing is that you read stories like this all the time. How people take sides and never the girl's side. How girls are stoned for getting raped. How...and on it goes.

I braced myself while listening, I knew it would happen and then it happens. Then she slips into that nothingness and just wants to cut out parts of herself. How she starts to hate her body, how she loses her will to go on. How her father avoids her and her mother drinks. How the only one trying is her brother and how everyone turns away. She is tainted. A liar. She was asking for it.

The ending...I did not like it. But it was sadly realistic...

I can not stop thinking about this book when I finished it. I could not stop thinking about it when I read it. If a woman wants to be nekkid and be drunk out of her mind then let her.  If she wants to kiss a million men that night. Let her. No one has to be afraid to get raped. No, she was not asking for it. If she can not say no does not mean she says yes. oh, I feel this book should be read in school, higher classes of course cos it does deal with a lot. It should be discussed. Then maybe we can stop saying boys will be boys. That she was asking for it.

Conclusion:
Yes listen to it.

Narrator Aiofe McMahon
She did a great job. I really was in Emma's head. I can't say a lot more. She made it real, too real.

Check out a audio clip

Audio CD, 9 h
Published August 22nd 2017 by Tantor Audio (first published September 3rd 2015)
YA/Fiction
Given to me in exchange for an honest review

26 comments:

  1. I can't imagine how tough it was listening to this.

    And that it happens so often...

    For What It's Worth

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow Blodeuedd this does sound brutal. Thanks for the share

    ReplyDelete
  3. This sounds like a tough listen. I think I would do better with it in print.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am sure that is easier, but at the same time it was just so much more real this way

      Delete
  4. I agree, I think this would be too hard for me to listen to. We had a local rape case a few years ago that involved a football players. The town was a circus for months and made the national news. At least for the most part people did blame the boys, just thought they should get off too easy, in my opinion.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AT least the boys were blamed. It's so sad when you read stories and the victim gets most of the heat

      Delete
  5. I think if a book leaves its mark on you that you are thinking about it after you've read it, then it's probably a good one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That is true, it is not a book I will forget that easily

      Delete
  6. This sounds so horrible because it's so true. How awful for the girls and women who are victimized not once but over and over again after the fact like this...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And her family is ostracized while the boys and men continued with their lives

      Delete
  7. Sounds like a tough but important read. It's terrible that women are treated this way, that their life is picked apart and criticized when the crime was committed against them. Shameful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And she is told that the conviction rate for rape is 1% there...like why even bother. I sure hope it is higher here

      Delete
  8. I think this wouldn't be a good fit for me, but I'm glad it worked for you! <333

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is new to me, and I love how it got in your head and stays with you.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yeah this would be tough to listen to. Especially since it happens. I don't care what she's wearing, why do people blame the victims?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I do hate that, what was she wearing? Why does that matter?!

      Delete
  11. This story sounds brutal and violently realistic. Even with your review I hear overtones of so much that is happening in society these days. Poor Emma. I'm curious how it ended.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Woah. This one sounds intense!

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wow! This sounds like a really powerful book.

    ReplyDelete

Contributors

Copyright © 2008-2020 Book Girl of Mur-y-Castell All Rights Reserved. Proudly powered by Blogger

  © Blogger template Starry by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008 Modified by Lea

Back to TOP