An astute narrative that explores and highlights the modern concepts of social media gurus, trends such as ‘wellness’, and the culture of celebrity alongside the ageless and universal concepts of truth, friendship, jealousy, power struggles and growing apart. A sometimes difficult to read story as the reader’s own prejudices are examined and called out.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to review this book.

We included this title in our article “22 books to look out for in 2022” on Caboodle, the rewards programme from National Book Tokens.

“ Idol is a riveting, compulsive and bold thriller that interrogates our relationship with our heroes and explores the world of online influencers, asking how well we can ever really know those whose carefully curated profiles we follow online.”

I absolutely inhaled this book. Samantha Miller is such a complex character, and with every twist, every reveal I grew more certain of the eventual outcome. But I was completely wrong! O’Neill takes the traditional thriller setting of a small town riddled with secrets and deftly explores the implications of an event that occurred 22 years before, and how it has effected the characters decades later. I didn’t know who to believe. If anyone was lying, or if they all believed they were telling the truth. Doubt is so carefully woven through this story, it’ll leave you questioning each character and their motivation until the end. Unmissable!

Idol by Louise O'Neill is her latest book due out in May and I can see it becoming an essential pool side read over the summer months.

Sam Miller is an self-made wellness guru and influencer with legions of followers who she encourage to live their truth. Her latest book Chaste has hit the New York bestseller lists and in an effort to live her own truth shares the story of her own sexual awakening with her high school best friend Lisa which goes viral. Lisa, though doesn't see it the same way and feels she was assaulted. Sam goes back to her hometown to try and iron things out before her world comes crashing down. We then get to find out whose story is the truth and how our memories can be entirely different.

Sam Miller is an absolutely toxic character who really sums all that is wrong with social influencers and online personas. It is this unlikeable factor that drives the narrative and forces you to turn the next page - how much more dirt is going to come out and how will she manipulate everything to fit her narrative.

It's a pacy thriller and Louise O'Neill does a wonderful job creating a flawed protagonist who is willing to do all to save her image!
I envisage this being the summer 2022 blockbuster!

Huge thanks to @netgalley and @randomhouseuk for an ARC in exchange for an honest review

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this ARC. I audibly squealed when I saw I had been given access to Louise O'Neill's latest book early and lucky for me Idol lived up to my high expectations. Part of what makes a O'Neill's books so brilliant is that she seems to relish making the reader feel deeply uncomfortable and I honestly can't think of another novel that has made me feel as uncomfortable as this one. The more I read the more I felt sick to my stomach at what I was watching unfold before me and yet I was physically incapable of putting it down. The book centres around Samantha, a lifestyle guru and influencer at the top of her game. Sam has thriving wellness brand, a cult-like following of female fans and a brand new book out that has rocketed to the top of the bestsellers list. Determined to 'speak her truth' and be vulnerable with her followers, Samantha writes an essay in which she recounts a sexual experience with her teenage best friend Lisa. Sam hasn't spoken to Lisa in years but once the essay goes viral, Lisa reaches out to say that she doesn't remember that night as a sexual awakening. She remembers it as a sexual assault. Thrown into damage control mode, Sam rushes back to her hometown to convince Lisa not to go public with her false accusation. But is the accusation false? Who gets to tell this story? And whose 'truth' is really the truth of what happened that night? O'Neill doesn't offer any black and white resolutions to these questions but instead embraces all of the shades of grey. This is a timely and challenging book that I will be recommending to all of my friends because I am desperate for other people to read it so they can talk about it with me!

Idol is really interesting thought-provoking book with an incredibly interesting lead in the form of Samantha, a social media wellness guru - she's messy and complex. Throughout you're constantly questioning whether you feel sorry for her, believe her, love to hate her, or just in fact hate her - a testament to O'Neill's brilliant storytelling and character development.
I devoured this in a couple of days, 4 stars.

I am a massive fan of Louise O’Neill’s work, so when I got approved for this ARC I was beyond excited. The premise will show you why:

Samantha Miller is everything her fans, her “girls”, want to be. She tells them how to live their lives, how to be happy and how to live their “truth”. She has just hit 3 million followers and her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the bestsellers list. Determined to speak her truth and bare all to her adoring fans, she's written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager, with her best friend, Lisa. She's never told a soul but now she's telling the world. The essay goes viral. But then, years since they last spoke, Lisa gets in touch to say that she doesn't remember it that way. Her memory of that night is far darker. It's Sam's word against Lisa's - so who gets to tell the story? Whose 'truth' is really a lie?

When I say I was gripped by this book, I was truly gripped by this book. This is unlike anything O’Neill has written before. Samantha Miller is one of the most unlikeable characters I have ever read, but that is what makes this a page-turner. It is full of twists and turns with shocking revelations. She is so toxic and, normally, I struggle to be in the head of an unlikeable character for too long but O’Neill did such an incredible job of making me want to turn the page and learn more about her.

O’Neill hits on so many issues from consent to our relationships with people online to sexuality to mainstream white-feminism to EDs, among more. What O’Neill does best is hit on important topics while creating a plot that genuinely has you on the edge of your seat. It makes you question why we put people on pedestals and whether they deserve to be there.

I don’t want to say any more because I don’t want to give the plot away. But honestly it’s one I haven’t stopped thinking about since I read it. This is without a doubt O’Neill’s best work. I can’t wait until this book is out and everyone is talking about it.
Dazzling. Nail-biting. Truly brilliant.

Thank you to NetGalley, the Author and the Publisher with providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book covered a really relevant topic to today's world, and I love how this author is able to discuss complex things that are going on in reality through a fictional lens. The main character is a really unlikeable character, but the beautiful way in which the author writes makes you become invested in her story and want to see how it ends.

The key plot points of the book are quite dark, so please do look up content warnings. However, this author handles these difficult topics incredibly well.

All in all, this was a gripping read from start to finish!

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC of this book.

One thing I admire most about Louise O'Neills writing is how she writes such captivating and complicated characters while they are also incredibly unlikeable throughout. it's fascinating to me how a character so unlikeable and eyerollingly self centred can still be interesting enough that you can't help but have to keep reading.
Samantha Miller is a character you love to hate. So focused on her own success that she comes across as incredibly arrogant.
This book is a really interesting perspective on trauma and cancel culture. How a person can use their own trauma as a way to defend how they've possibly inflicted that same trauma on to others. Such a fresh take on the 'trial by social media' we see so much of.

While you may spend a lot of the book disliking Samantha, there's a sense of compassion for her while learning about her past, until it feels like she may be gaslighting everybody. The manipulation to make herself out to be the victim is infuriating but it's something that draws you in completely.

As soon as Sam is accused of something horrendous by an old school friend, her main concern is her image. A shallow and all too well known concern, it seems, of many people in the public eye. What a rare and curious perspective to be confronted with head on, no holds barred.

Louise always seems to hit the nail on the head while writing these timely storylines. How relevant this book is in the current day with social media being so dominant in the majority of our lives, really makes the reader question the falsities of social media. Social media is fake. We know that's a fact. But being confronted with that head on in a book like this is incredibly poignant and leaves you kind of feeling shattered in a way.

Louise O'Neill has done it again. I don't think there is a genre where she does not excel. Idol is her best book yet, she just gets better and better! Samantha is the kind of person you hate but can't help yourself from checking her instagram. The deeper I got into this book the more I hated her but I couldn't look away. I was rolling my eyes at almost everything this character was saying, she was so irratating I could see why no one in her life loved or cared about her. She's the embodiment of everything I hate about social media. 

I devoured this book, the more the story unraveled the more I needed to know. Louise O'Neill has the power of grabbing your attention from the first page and you won't be satisfied until you're at the end.

This book stayed with me for a few days after reading it, and I think it was mainly because of the exploration of teen friendships beyond the teen years and how we we can all have different memories of things that happened to us in the past. The book tries to tackle a lot of issues and is more successful at some than others. The main character, Sam is very unlikeable and watching her unravel is uncomfortable more than something that would raise sympathy. It's an interesting and very topical idea of this wellness guru so I think this will get a lot of interest when it's published. Plus, the reach of social media is really unsettling. For me, I felt Samantha came across as quite young for 40 and has quite teen/ early 20's reactions. I found myself drawn more to the peripheral characters, such as Sam's mother, who was very well done and much more invested in Lisa than Sam. It's worth reading but I think would work better as a YA book than adult.

A unique book, this focuses on motivational speaker/lifestyle guru Samantha following an accusation of sexual assault. This is a thrilling read, keeping you guessing throughout but dealing with its subject sensitively and tactfully.

I've really enjoyed Louse O'Neills earlier books, especially After The Silence, so I was excited to get a copy of Idol.
I think the first thing that stood out to me was that this book was set in the US. As an Irish author, two of O'Neill's earlier books were set in Ireland, and I think that was something that drew me to them, being from Ireland myself.
I had expected the same from this book, and actually thought it would be an interesting setting for this theme, and something that hadn't really been done before.
Setting this in the US made sense in terms of dealing with celebrity, fame and social media - given so much of the media we consume is US-centric. However, I think it also meant that the story lost an edge it could have had. Maybe this was O'Neill's intent, or she wanted to move away from having too many books set in Ireland. In any case, I think it added a layer of homogenisation that meant the story was harder to connect with in my view.

I have devoured every book that Louise O’Neill has published and Idol was no exception. This book helped me out of a reading slump, with perfect pacing and a gripping story, revealing events of the plot at the exact moment to draw me in and keep my interest. Louise is a master of her craft and firmly cemented at the top of my must-buy list. Idol was an excellent read about the darker side of influencer and wellness culture, with O’Neill’s classic content themes spotted throughout. I dropped a star because I found the plot a little predictable (both in terms of the themes covered and the specifics of how the story played out) but it was still a very enjoyable read with three dimensional characters with real depth. I definite recommendation for anyone who is comfortable reading about the subjects covered.

CW: bullying, eating disorder, sexual assault, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts.
Samantha is an author, influencer, a social media personality. While promoting her new book, an essay she wrote about a sexual experience with her best friend during their teens is not seen in the same light by her friend.
This novel deals with issues around consent, #MeToo, the role of social media and memory perception.
The toxic friendship between Sam and Lisa has carried over to their adult lives. I read this novel in two sittings. Enjoyable and pacy.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC

Now this book is going to be a big one in 2022!! So lucky to read this in advance as I’d already seen some glowing reviews popping up. It’s such a page Turner, and an insight into the world of social media for some!

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.

Daring. Gripping. Explosive. Just phenomenal!

I absolutely adored ‘Idol’. I was utterly gripped from page one and could not put this one down. There were some absolutely brilliant unlikable characters and the writing was perfection.

This was my first Louise O’Neill and will definitely not be my last!

Idol follows Samantha Miller, the wellness guru of the moment (think Gwyneth Paltrow Goop-esque) but when allegations start to come out about her you’re left wondering if she really is who she says she is.

That’s as much of the plot as I want to disclose as I really think it’s one to discover while reading but be warned it does cover some pretty triggering subjects such as EDs, addiction and sexual assault.

It explores themes of cancel culture, the issues with white feminism (Samantha reminded me a lot of Alix from Such a Fun Age), toxic friendships and mother/daughter relationships. A really great intoxicating read which I devoured in just a few days.

I saw Marian Keyes raving about this book, so was delighted to receive this arc in exchange for an honest review. I couldn’t put it down. So many important themes: the role of social media in today’s society, the idea of wellness gurus telling us what is good for us, cancel culture, me too, the reliability of memory, the differing perspectives people can have about the same event. Despite the serious themes, this had a great story at its centre and I was absolutely gripped – loved it and looking forward to reading more of Louise O’Neill!
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review.