frieda 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 remain perfect becomes almost unbearable. isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty - her only asset - in peril.
A re-worked YA Handmaid's Tale.
Surprisingly relevant. The comparisons that I could make between O'Neill's creation and our own world are shockingly close.
'Only Ever Yours' turns a magnifying glass onto a world in which celebrity magazines draw rings around a woman who has a touch of cellulite. It satirises the waxing regimes, the plastic surgery, hair dye, laser treatments, weight loss pills, marriage traditions, fashion trends and reality shows that women find themselves sucked into. It turns a mirror on a world in which women are constantly asked "So when are you having children?" as soon as they reach their twenties.
The book also touches briefly on the idea that young men are not supposed to discuss emotions, thoughts or feelings with other people.
Dramatic, bleak and quick to read - "Only Ever Yours" is YA dystopia; a re-worked 'Handmaid's Tale' that throws up feminist issues with no holds barred.
Available at Waterstones.com
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