Asking For It

by Louise O'Neill

[Kait ✨]

trigger warning: rape

wow, what a hard book to rate/review. it chronicles the experience of eighteen-year-old emma o’donovan, who is raped at a party. it’s not a spectacularly well-written book (though o’neill does some interesting things with the narrative voice) or a particularly well-plotted book (though it’s not one of those books where “nothing happens”). i think a lot of people will/do take issue with this book because the emma o’donovan we meet at the beginning of the book is, to be frank, a real “mean girl”—she’s cruel, judgemental, selfish, and rude. emma’s promiscuous, does drugs and drinks a lot of alcohol, and doesn’t respond to being raped in the way that society expects; in this sense, o’neill really gets into the issues that are so hotly debated about rape and rape culture. for this reason, i do think it’s an incredibly important book because it brings up an issue that desperately needs to be discussed more openly.

in an afterword, louise o’neill writes, “we need to talk about rape. we need to talk about consent. we need to talk about victim blaming and slut shaming and the double standards we place upon our young men and women. we need to talk and talk and talk until the emmas of this world feel supported and understood. until they feel like they are believed.”

this book is so incredibly difficult to read, but that’s why you should read it. i can’t speak from experience, thankfully, but to me, asking for it seems to be a brutally honest portrayal of what it’s like to cope with this kind of trauma in circumstances that are, unfortunately, all too common. (for me, it brought to mind the recent jian ghomeshi case and the stanford rape case o’neill might not get everything right, but she is one of very few people in the world taking a public, vocal stance on this.

i read this book based on the recommendation of two youtube videos, one by rosianna halse rojas, and one by hannah witton, leena normington and lucy moon. their videos are intelligent and thought-provoking, and you should watch them, too, if you’re so inclined.