
When women are created for the pleasure of men, beauty is the first duty of every girl.
Freida and Isabel have been best friends their whole lives. Now, aged sixteen and in their final year at the School, they expect to be selected as companions - wives to wealthy and powerful men.
The alternative - life as a concubine - is too horrible to contemplate.
But as the intensity of the final year takes hold, the pressure to be perfect mounts. Isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty - her only asset - in peril.
And then into this sealed female environment, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride.
Freida must fight for her future - even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known...
Pathetic messages are taught in these schools. Things like 'Being pretty is all that matters', 'Personality does not matter', 'Good girls don't cry', 'I always do as I am told'... They also attend classes called Comparison Studies, Calorie Calculations, and the super creepy Organized Recreation Space. Truly awful things that are supposed to prepare them for the man-pleasing Zones they will enter after the Ceremony, where their only purpose will be to satisfy men either as wives or whores.
Wow. This book is powerful. It's also infuriating. Terrifying. Bleak. Bitchy. Horrible. And amazing! It's hard to make one story so magnificent and horrid at the same time, but Louise O'Neill has definitely managed to do just that. This frightening little book reveals a morbid vision of the future, where women are nothing more than tools used to please men.
The most terrifying thing about this book might be the realisation that there are probably men in this world who would love to have a society like this one.
*shivers*
*gags*
*cringes*
Asides from the obvious theme of female control, there's also a very strong story about friendship.
freida and megan have been friends for a very long time but megan has been hiding a huge secret from her friend, one that freida mistakes for pushing her away. When in fact, it's the opposite. megan might be referred to as special by the chastities and the other girls, but she considers herself far from that. Her fate was sealed at creation and she loved her friend so much that she wanted to make sure she didn't get caught up in it. But in turn, she unknowingly pushes freida to become friends with a mean girl--megan--who ultimately manipulates freida into ruining every chance her real friend fought to get her.
The toxic environment in which these children are raised creates such a brutal arena breeding deception, betrayal, and self-acceptance seen through the eyes of false compliments. Until the narrator of this story only cares about being liked by others to the point of almost losing her mind. Not to mention what happens when a man--the only reason they were created in the first place--rejects her.
This is such a sad story.
From the outside it seems as if freida ultimately betrays her best friend. But in the end, I believe she actually ends up betraying herself.
If you're looking for a HEA, don't look here. Either way, I really (really) enjoyed this book.
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