Reviews with content warning for Rape - Idol

Idol by Louise O'Neill 🤳 ad/ gifted products featured
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

🤳 The plot: Samantha Miller isn't just an influencer - she's a guru, a spiritual guide for her millions of followers, her "girls". It's no surprise to her when an article she writes about a sexual experience she had with her best friend Lisa in high school goes viral, but when Lisa contacts her for the first time in years, it shocks her to learn that she doesn't remember that night the same way Sam does. In fact, Lisa's allegations have the power to turn Sam's career and even her memories upside down...

This book took me on a JOURNEY, and I was hooked the whole way through. From the start, Sam is a magnetic character, the shiny veneer of her success as mesmerising as it is suspicious. Sure enough, each page peels back another layer of her hypocrisy, and you soon realise how deeply she is lying to herself as much as to her followers.

Central to the book is Sam's obsession with what "kind" of person she is. It blinds her to what her actions make and have made her: she is a Good Person now, she believes, so she cannot have done a Bad Thing then; she is a victim of sexual violence herself, so she cannot also be a perpetrator. She asks people, frequently throughout the book, "Do you really believe I could do something like this?" Goodness is an essential state of being to Sam, a badge she wears; to preserve her sense of self, she has to reverse-engineer her past to fit it, no matter who gets in her way.

Idol is empathic storytelling at its very best, because it shows that trying to understand why abusers do what they do is not the same thing as excusing it. Sam's actions are more monstrous the more we understand them, and the result is a brilliantly nuanced portrait of assault and trauma. It's also, I think, a very sharp illustration of the broken logic of online influence, the central lie that a complex human being could ever be as consistent as a brand.

Thank you SO much @izz.reading and @penguinukbooks for sending this my way, this is one of my favourite reads so far this year! #ThisIsIdol

🤳 Read it if you love a good villain, nuanced writing about consent and trauma, and a takedown of influencer culture.

🚫 Avoid it if you are sensitive to discussions of rape and sexual assault, eating disorders, and honestly just really abusive characters. Sam is seriously awful and if you're recovering from an abusive situation I think this might be hard to read.

Content Warnings

kellyung's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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milliesreading's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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becca_thegrimreader's review

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challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Examining influencer culture, the wellness industry, consent, and abuse of power, Louise O’Neill does not hold back. The main character of this book, Samantha Miller, is a successful woman who earns her living by telling her followers how to live their lives better. After a piece on a sexual experience with her best friend Lisa when they were teenagers her life begins to unravel. Samantha views that night as an intimate moment, Lisa remembers it as something she didn’t consent to.

This is a book that I have been thinking about for a few days since finishing. It is a dark and unflinching novel at times, and it was one that made me feel very uncomfortable at times. I think that this was due to Samantha, someone who reminds me of Alix from “Such a Fun Age.” She is manipulative and selfish, caring only about her career and her reputation. She dismisses the allegations against her almost instantly and tries to force this opinion on everyone else. Lisa is equally as unreliable, and has herself suffered through traumatic experiences. We examine their intense childhood friendship, jealousy, and bitterness. Having two women at the centre of this novel was interesting.

This was a timely novel with its focus on influencer and cancel culture. We see how tenuous it is to be an influencer, and how quickly the world can turn on them. We see how Samantha has shaped her life story so that she stands out from the other wellness influencers. When the allegations are made public we watch how everyone in the background comes out in force to save Samantha’s public image, not because they believe her but because of the money they have invested.

This is a book that will have you gripped from the first page.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK for the copy of this book. My review is honest and unbiased.

Content Warnings

ciaramreads's review

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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kimmie1405's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Idol 3.5⭐️

Brand New book from the bestselling Irish female author Louise O’Neill.
Idol starts with the character Samantha (Sam) Miller an influencer, wellness guru and recovering drug addict. She has created this online world for all her ‘girls’ to help them be like her until one day it all comes tumbling down when an allegation of sexual assault is made against Sam after she writes an essay about a lesbian experience she had as a teenager with her best friend. Except Lisa doesn’t recall the night going the same way. Who’s truth is the actual truth? Can memories be tampered with and recreated in the mind to be favourable towards ourselves? It’s not often I read a book that I hate the main character and continue reading but with Sam I had a love/hate feeling about her it became apparent to me how toxic she is and her relationships with people are. At the beginning I was outraged and couldn’t believe how easily someone’s life could be turned upside down with such an allegation but as the story continued I found myself being less sympathetic towards Sam as it seems she has remembered her teenage years differently to those she grew up with. This is a prime example of how social media influencers can create a world that we buy in to and place them on a pedestal but with Sam the higher the pedestal the greater the fall. Thoroughly enjoyed this book and all the different characters some more likeable than others. This would be a perfect summer/holiday read although rainy and cold January was my only option!

A Few TW to note:
Sexual Assault
Rape
Eating Disorder

Content Warnings

bookswithmolly's review

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4.0

Content Warnings

elj_ne's review

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challenging dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the e-ARC.

Well this was a ride. Like with all of Louise O'Neill's books I've read so far - fantastic, but I'm not sure I'd have the stomach to read it again. I devoured it in a day, and I would say this book is a mix of Thirteen (the 2003 film), Sharp Objects, Rachel Hollis, girlboss culture and some very interesting conversations around consent, misogyny and how we remember our own lives.

Sam is someone who's carefully constructed a marketable narrative for herself, a very successful white woman in what I'm going to refer to as the memoir/wellness industry, to the point where she believes that narrative herself. She's a dislikable character and an incredibly unreliable narrator but I appreciated how this book keeps you on your toes as to whether she's wrong or been wronged, what the truth really is. She believes she's a "good person", constantly makes herself the victim and never takes responsibility for her own choices, and she's also had harm done to her. The development of her character, and the portrayal of an obsessive toxic female teenage friendship, are both excellent.

Ultimately this book raises questions of fame, narrative, wrongdoing, accountability, misogyny, consent - all complex issues. I was having thoughts while reading it about the complexities of sexual assault justice and how timely this book is in terms of these themes and conversations. But also, this book is excellent and satisfying and I would very much recommend it.

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