A debut novel that satirises the way young women are scrutinised for their looks has won a new young adult (YA) book prize set up by book trade magazine the Bookseller.
Louise O’Neill’s Only Ever Yours is set in a boarding school in a dystopian future in which women are bred in schools, trained in the arts of pleasing men until they are ready for the outside world. At graduation, the most highly rated girls become “companions”, permitted to live with their husbands and breed sons until they are no longer useful. For the girls left behind, the future – as a concubine or a teacher – is grim. The novel focuses on two best friends, Freida and Isabel, who are sure they’ll both be chosen as companions when the boys arrive to choose their brides. But, in the final year, it all starts to unravel.
Continue reading at The Guardian.
Image source The Guardian.
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