Only Ever Yours Review: #Sassybooks Book Club

I was reluctant to read this when I saw it was the choice for this months Sassy Books.  If there’s one thing I am done with reading it is young adult dystopian.  After the success of The Hunger Games years ago it was everywhere and eventually they became too similar and I got bored.  Also, I know you should never judge a book by its cover but I think this one is particularly bad, it looks really cheap and dull to me, it reminds me of the covers for the Uglies series that I also dislike.  I almost skipped this month entirely but I remembered that the whole reason for joining a book club was to read books I normally wouldn’t, so I sucked it up.

And just like last month I am glad I went ahead, this book is really enjoyable.  It is one of the first books in a long time that was a genuine easy read, but that doesn’t mean it was dumbed down.  The novel itself is pretty dark, much darker than I expected.  It means not everything was wrapped up to make things happier for the reader, which kept me on my toes and most importantly set it aside from other books in this genre.  For once I didn’t predict where it was going.

This book is based in a school which has more in common with a prison, here they teach women from the age of four to fit into one of three categories, all for the pleasure of men.  Companions, essentially modern day wives, concubines and chastities.  The clues are in the names really.  Women are genetically designed to be ‘perfect’ for men and other things like menstruation are stopped by pills until they are deemed necessary.  One of the first things I noticed when reading this is that all the women’s names aren’t capitalised, just going further to show how unimportant they are in this society.

I think that real difference between this title and others in this genre is how easily it relates to modern life without being too obvious.  The difference here is in it’s subtleties.  Sure the idea that women can be used as sex objects are an obvious reflection on our own society, but importantly the emotions that the eves feel are very real in our current world.  They are thoughts and feelings that I had growing up, especially when a teenager or in any new situation when outward appearances seem vital.  For all this book seems extreme, it is grounded in something very real.

One word of warning, as a person who has dealt and everyday deals with an eating disorder, this deals with some topics and thoughts that could be triggering.  Have you read this?  What did you think?  Don’t forget you can follow my reads on Goodreads and instagram.