Audiobook8 hours
Asking For It
Written by Louise O'Neill
Narrated by Aoife McMahon
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this audiobook
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 choose sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Everyone has something to say about Emma.
Contains mature themes.
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 choose sides, and people from all over the world want to talk about her story. Everyone has something to say about Emma.
Contains mature themes.
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Reviews for Asking For It
Rating: 3.815789451754386 out of 5 stars
4/5
114 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is an exceptional look into the mind of a rape survivor that is forced to relive her sexual assault over and over again. This is a work of fiction, however, the sad truth is that something like this could happen in real life and it could happen anywhere. This book is heavy and will stay with you for awhile. You will feel the weight of it and I think that is the point.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Simply devastating. I would have given 5 stars but I thought the parents reaction was off. Maybe I just can't conceive of what kind of parents would react the way they did to their daughter's gang rape. O'Neill captures perfectly the thoughts and emotions of a rape victim. Emma O'Donovan is not a character to root for; she is vain, shallow, and a mean girl to her friends. She certainly did not deserve what happened. O'Neill packs in all of the points of contention surrounding rape: binge drinking and drugs, sexual history, the victim's clothing, blaming the victim, societal reactions and attitudes,etc.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Showing the horrible impact that sexual assault has is important but intentions aside I hated this book. If you are going to show all the horror in graphic detail but without any light at the end of the tunnel then whats the fucking point? Doesnt work as a story (characters arent memorable or particularly interesting) and doesnt work as social commentary either. Not enough insight into why the protagonist is feeling the way she does just her repeated self criticism. Reading her internal dialogue full of internalized hate made me feel like crap and I learned nothing. Also I know this does happen but her friends and families reactions were overblown awful.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The first part was so clever and insightful, and I thought I would really end up loving it. But the 'incident' seemed a little bit over the top (for so many to still take the other side), and then there was a long painful slog that would have been worth it if there had been a sliver of hope in the end, but as it was I felt sort of blindsided when the audiobook just stopped where it did. If a few things had been tweaked about the rape and aftermath I would have found it more believable. If she had appeared at least conscious in the photos (it's really unlikely that her brother, who seems very decent otherwise, would leap straight to assuming she had done it all for fun when she appeared to be *passed out* in all the photos), if the photos had been just passed around the students rather than posting them to Facebook (which doesn't allow pornographic images anyway), if there had been less photographic evidence in general so that it was more her word against theirs, if we had seen some secret animosity from the men toward her prior to that night (they apparently all grew up together but then like half a dozen different men were all totally cool with raping their unconscious classmate and then stood by while one peed on her?? And then shared photos of themselves doing all those things?? Most people aren't so straight up villainous. Either they hate the person and hurt them on purpose, or they convince themselves that their actions aren't that bad, that she was into it or something, but didn't leave much room for either). I can believe that townspeople would side with rapists, not wanting to believe them capable of doing something so awful, etc., but I find it really hard to believe that the entire town could look at such terribly disturbing photos and still all seem to consider them very nice men. There just needed to be more wiggle room in general (in the men, in the potential trial, and in everyone who chose a side), to be realistically debatable. This one didn't quite work for me overall, but I would still be interested in reading another from this author.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tricky to begin, but after adapting to the writing style, it seemed perfect for capturing the thoughts, feelings and experiences of our teenage protagonist, Emma.
And Emma's experiences are very confronting, as are her thoughts and feelings.
Readers have complained about the ending but it's appropriate.
For girls and women in Emma's situation there is no real tangible ending, so why would a story about a brutal and disturbing gang rape, all on the record for Facebook fans to peruse, have one? - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I found this to be a fine work by a young Irish author who seems to me to be very much in touch with the younger generation of Irish people, especially women & girls. Of course, this is a presumption on my part - I am not young, female or Irish, but the writing has a real verisimilitude for me. "Crime" my librarian labelled this book, but that it really an understatement of the complexity of what O'Neill is describing. It's a sad view of the world which I'm afraid is probably true. There's very little hope in this story.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I found this book quite hard to read - as well as teenage talk and behaviour feeling quite alienating, none of the characters are that likeable. It felt that even the author wasn't on her side - she slips in a little comment about half remembering.Party girl Emma is gang raped - unconscious, out of it, not participating, drugged and there are photos all over social media, complete with poisonous comments and eventually as we approach the trial actual T-shirts supporting the rapists. When does this become a thing? Do we have to blame Deirdre Barlow, Nelson Mandela.It is profoundly depressing, just shows human behaviour at its worst and women being ground down by the world.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hard-hitting recounting of teen girl's rape. Emma is not a "nice" girl: she's a queen b (in every sense of that letter!) smart, popular and beautiful --and she knows it. She drinks, sleeps around, and does light drugs. She has a large circle of followers but only a handful of real friends (because she herself is not a friend). This lack of support comes into play when she is raped at a party. She blacks out (hints that she was given the date rape drug). She is raped by 4 local boys and pictures and videos are posted on social media. Initially, she says she was not raped; later, when pressed, she decides to press charges. She becomes a social pariah. Her family comes unhinged. She is suicidal. Finally, (spoiler alert!) she reneges on her story. This is the graphic, modern version of SPEAK. Hard to read, hard to talk about, but essential to any discussion on female teenage sexuality.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Should be required reading for all. Excellent.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I was really excited to read this book after having read and loved O'Neill's first book. As I did with her debut novel, I had a hard time putting it down. I'm giving it 3/5 stars because I'm still not sure how I feel about the main character.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hands down the most brutal and honest look at teenage rape in our modern era of social media. Louise O'Neill does a great job bringing Emma to life, she's flawed and she's bitchy but was she really asking for it? Leading up to "the night," Emma is the most beloved, admired, and beautiful girl in her grade. She always turns heads and she can have any boy she wants. The night of the rape(s) becomes a turning point, the boys didn't mean it, they were her friends, but then the pictures showed up online and all her friends turn against. She shouldn't have been wearing that outfit. She shouldn't have drank that much. She shouldn't have been such a flirt. She becomes shamed and ostracized, she's ruining these poor boy's lives. The hate never ends and all she wants to do is disappear. The story is not sugar coated and the ending pulls a massive punch. So often we gloss over sexual violence side with the young accused men and shame the girls, but in literature there is always a happy ending. This young adult novel tells the real heart-wrenching story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Boys boasting their sexual exploits is sadly nothing new. Unfortunately social media is a means to do this now. It is the same old double standard where the girl is the slapper and the boy gets slaps on the back. The story highlights social attitudes to rape, and the devastating impact it has on the victim and her family. Emma is beautiful, flirtatious and sexually active. Her immodest dress, drugs and alcohol, an ill- chosen sexual liaison are huge mistakes and they cost her dearly. Mistakes never justify rape. The humiliation of being depicted so explicitly on Facebook, the cruel comments, the snubbing, the violation all take its toll. Such a heartbreaking story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I'm filled with admiration for this author. She is a young girl, writing about what can happen when things go wrong at a party. A book that both young and old people should read.