SHEmazing!
follow us
more
 

Bestselling Irish book Only Ever Yours is heading for the big screen

by

Young Adult author Louise O’Neil has been called “an heir to Margret Atwood” and it does seem that her work will follow in the footsteps of one the literary world’s favourite female writers.

Variety have reported that Killer Content has acquired the rights to Louise’s novel Only Ever Yours. There are supposedly plans to develop the property as a film and TV series.

Her debut novel was originally released in 2014 and landed Louise the unofficial title of “the best YA fiction writer alive today” from The Guardian.

The dystopian novel follows the story of the young women of The School. This is a world where women exist solely for the pleasure of men and must fight to ensure their place in the top 16 rankings before they ‘graduate’ in order to ensure they don’t end up living as a concubine or a “chaste”.

Adrienne Becker of Killer Content said of the novel:

“Only Ever Yours, while dystopian in genre, may be closer to today’s reality than adults recognize. Today’s young people struggle to define themselves on their own terms under the harsh glare of the information age Klieg lights.”

Louise, a native of West Cork, announced the news on twitter yesterday, joking that someone was throwing her a party on a yacht to celebrate.

Only Ever Yours won the Best Newcomer Award at the Irish Book Awards last year and this last week O’Neil celebrated the release of her latest novel, the much-discussed Asking For It.

The novel examines rape culture in a small town in Ireland which Louise says she started thinking about in 2012 when a story from a small American town caught her attention.

“I started to think about what would have happened if this case had occurred in an Irish context, in a small community in which the football team were local gods, where boys will be boys but where girls are expected to safeguard their virginity.”

Trending