The Novel
FROM THE WINNER OF THE SUNDAY INDEPENDENT NEWCOMER OF THE YEAR AWARD.
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…
Asking for It is a brave, brilliant book: ‘a genuinely heartbreaking, sickening and truthful examination of society’s penchant for victim-blaming, its treatment of women and the concept of rape culture’ – The Guardian
‘Try to be brave, grown-ups. O’Neill’s second novel may be scary, but it is riveting and essential. Teenagers will recognize its difficult truth and devour it – behind your backs, if need be.’ –The New York Times