Idol: The must read, addictive and compulsive book club thriller of the summer

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I think we have to be aware of people’s limitations … we’ve seen this over the last number of years when anything happens, like Ukraine or the Ashling Murphy case, you’ll see this expectation for influencers to come out and say something.”

Maybe that was what she was selling; the impossible promise of safety. Maybe that was all these women wanted, in the end." The story of nothing is as it seems online, that celebrity you idolise - are they really what they say they are? There will be alot in this story that will be hard to read, themes of sexual assault, #metoo ., drug use and alcohol abuse to name just a few. Samantha is an interesting character, with many issues and failings, but I really felt for her. Really well done by the author. A strange book to review and although am giving it lower marks they are good lower marks if makes sense, an unsettlingly unable to pigeon hole book that would recommend you read if you want to shake up your mind a bit!

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In the run-up to the publication of a new book – and all the attendant anxieties that brings – she is especially mindful of her mental and physical health. And we also see in Idol the truth of the adage that if you tell a lie enough times, you start to believe it yourself. On social media there’s no little room for taking your time to do the research, for changing your mind or for nuance. The protagonist is a hot mess but yet there's also something so charismatic about her that you can't peel yourself away from. Sad to say but I could relate to some of her experiences and decisions e.g. fictionalising a real-life account as a coping mechanism.

But what happens when an influencer starts to construct their own version of their ‘truth’, one that jars with what everyone else around them remembers?Electrifying. I devoured IDOL in two greedy gulps - it is so smartly and sharply observed. It's going to stay with me for a long, long time - Louise's writing is so compelling, gripping and addictive." - Daisy Buchanan I can’t say I liked many of the characters in this book but wow, I couldn’t put it down! The character development was great — Sometimes we see a different side of people when they’re pushed to, or beyond, their limits. I had to know how things would play out. Miller is earnest in a way that perhaps isn’t quite so natural to the Irish psyche. “An Irish person, I think, would take the piss out of themselves a little bit more,” says O’Neill. She’d even found that in her own life memories aren’t always what they seem. When she recently recalled her first memory to her mother, telling her about the morning of her third birthday at the family home above a butcher’s shop, her mother informed her that they weren’t even living there at the time.) Idol is Louise O’Neill’s most recent book, and her seventh to be published. At this stage, she’s a well-established Irish author, writing fearlessly from the get-go. By that I mean she doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable real life themes, develops credible characters, and unapologetically delivers stories with large dollops of complex trauma.

I think this is what makes Idol work so well for me: O’Neill spends time exploring the different angles of what it means to be a flawed social media influencer, encompassing the perspectives of Sam herself, her manager, this antagonist, Lisa, her mother, etc. There is a compelling scene later in the book where Sam is meeting with Shakti’s board of directors, mostly old, white guys. One of them is adorably “woke” because of his younger daughter’s influence. They are discussing how Sam can distance herself from Shakti, given the allegations against her, so Shakti can go public. Sam, of course, balks at the idea of stepping away from her baby when men who have similarly been accused of sexual assault haven’t fallen from grace.I think we all sort of have [the belief], ‘this is who I am as a person’. And if someone tries to destabilise that, it can actually feel dangerous. It can feel incredibly threatening. I think I am in the minority here. I struggled with this one. I very nearly gave up on it. There was little to like about this novel, but I can see why it would appeal to some. In a visceral first-person voice, this harrowing novel shows how a human being becomes objectified: she no longer feels like Emma but “a thing to be used”. Louise O’Neill conveys Emma’s self-estrangement compellingly: “My body doesn’t belong to me any more … I want to erase it.”