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• Wow, the world that Louise O'Neill creates puts even The Handmaid's Tale to shame. It was scary and creepy and so disturbing. Freida lives in a world where women are appreciated for beauty and nothing else. These women are created in labs. They are then are raised in schools and taught how to please a man. They are raised to be either a companion or a concubine A companion is the wife of a "Inheritant" and her only duty is to give birth to sons until the age of 40, at which point she has a "termination date" so her beauty is always preserved. A concubine lives with many other women and never has children, but is there solely for the sexual pleasure of men. The girls in the school all have eating disorders because they are told repeatedly that "fat woman must be obsolete." These girls are so mean to each other. They put each other down if they are too fat and they put each other down if they are too skinny These women are told repeatedly that men didn't like women who cried, men didn't like women who were angry or showed emotion of any kind, men don't like women who are academic, etc. I felt equal parts frustrated and sad for Frieda. She would make these decisions that would make me want to scream at her. But I could also relate to her. I don't live in the kind of world Frieda does (thank goodness) and yet, I think all the same ugly things about myself that Frieda does. It's sad. Towards the end, when she was striving so hard to become a companion I could feel her desperation so strongly. The ending left me just as frustrated as the entire book. It is not the kind of book that leads to a satisfying resolution, much like The Handmaid's Tale. But this is a book that you need to read. This book will stay with me for a very long time. I received the ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review

• Libro davvero interessante che fa riflettere sulla visione del femminile nella nostra società, rappresenta un modo distopico i cui però è bene evidente la critica al nostro sistema di valori moderno, specialmente a quello collegato ai ruoli di genere

• very frightening and painful but it represent the truth of modern world. It represent how people are psychologically caged. Good to understand political manipulation also.

• The comparisons can’t be avoided, but the two novels are utterly different. The darkness is utterly in your face in this novel. Every time you start hoping frieda will reach out and become more, she succumbs to be just what she was designed for. There is no redemption for her, just immense sadness at her fate. This is a dark, twisted, and utterly unblinking mirror held to the Instagram, tiktok, brutal battle to be noticed and deemed worthy. It’s worth a reread at some point, but not for a while.

• I picked this book up and before I knew it, I was halfway through. The very next day I stayed up late to finish it. I could not put it down. Set in a dystopian future where the world as we know it is gone (along with all the inessential things like animals and organised religion)and women only exist to look beautiful and serve men. The story focusses on frieda (no capital letters for any of the female characters in the book - they're not important enough) and her best friend isabel, who have grown up together in the cloistered atmosphere of a school (not unlike a convent, with chastity sisters dressed in black and with shaved heads ruling over them). They're in their final year before their ceremony to determine whether they'll become a high-ranking companion, a concubine, or a chastity sister themselves and isabel is falling apart before frieda's eyes. Told entirely from frieda's point of view, the tension sizzles off the page as the bitchiness between the girls steps up in their competitiveness to win the few men there are to become companions. I loved this book - I'm not sure how the author did it - the tension is unbearable in places - but it's a compulsive read. When the main male character was introduced (I won't say "hero" because there is no heroic behaviour from any of the male characters in this novel), I thought, "Oh, here we go, another YA romance with a million sequels to follow whilst frieda escapes the repressive system with muscly Darwin hanging off her arm" - but this couldn't be further from the truth - thank God. There are no sequels here - just an ending with no room for redemption for anyone. The obsessiveness about appearances is a thinly veiled commentary on the shallowness of our own society - the way the girls are with their weight, their looks, their make-up, is all horribly familiar - as is their dependence on "myface" (a social media site) which they use as a tool for bullying, enhancing their power and just to anchor themselves (as frieda says, it's as if she doesn't exist without updating her status all the time). This is a darkly chilling fable for contemporary times - if you've ever obsessed about your own weight/appearance - definitely, definitely read this book.

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