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.

In an interview Louise gave to the Guardian children’s books site about feminism and Only Ever Yours, she said: “I wrote it because I felt tired. I wrote it because I felt intrinsically ashamed of the parts of myself that made me female. I wrote it because I felt a bit broken. I wrote it because I wanted to start a conversation about how we see and treat women.”



According to Charlotte Eyre, children’s editor of the Bookseller: “The book is a fierce, timely feminist tale that should be read by everyone, not just young adults, and it was the favourite of both our teen and industry judges.”

Erin Minogue, the teen judge on the panel said: “Only Ever Yours is not only a fast-paced and terrifying story but also a beautifully written and important book that everyone needs to read, regardless of age or gender.”

Guardian children’s books site member ABitCrazy agrees in her five star review of the book: “Only Ever Yours is one of the most unique and original books I’ve ever read”.

Only Ever Yours beat off nine other shortlisted titles to take the prize, which is the first in the UK and Ireland to specifically focus on fiction for young adults.

The nine other shortlisted books were:

Goose by Dawn O’Porter (Hot Key Books)

Salvage by Keren David (Atom/Little, Brown)

Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill (Quercus)

Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Sedgwick (Orion)

Trouble by Non Pratt (Walker)

Lobsters by Lucy Ivison and Tom Ellen (Chicken House)

Finding a Voice by Kim Hood (O’Brien Press)

Say Her Name by James Dawson (Hot Key Books)

A Song for Ella Grey by David Almond (Hodder Children’s Books)

Half Bad by Sally Green (Penguin)

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