---
product_id: 32044574
title: "Asking For It"
brand: "quercus"
price: "€ 38.43"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 4
category: "Book"
url: https://www.desertcart.fr/products/32044574-asking-for-it
store_origin: FR
region: France
---

# Asking For It

**Brand:** quercus
**Price:** € 38.43
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Asking For It by quercus
- **How much does it cost?** € 38.43 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.fr](https://www.desertcart.fr/products/32044574-asking-for-it)

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## Description

Review
        	  
        	  
        		  
        		  
	        		
						
			        		Named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book by the American Librarians Association A School Library Journal Best BookA New York Public Library Best BookA Bustle Best YA Book&quot;Try to be brave, grown-ups. O&apos;Neill&apos;s second novel may be scary, but it is riveting and essential. Teenagers will recognize its difficult truth and devour it--behind your backs, if need be . . . You may be staggered by Emma&apos;s inability to make a self-respecting decision, even as her story goes international. But you&apos;ll be lit up with pain and rage on her behalf, and grateful for the few who stand by her.&quot;&#x2015;Jeff Giles, The New York Times&quot;You won&apos;t come away from [Asking For It] feeling happy, but you will come away from it feeling angry and anger is a healthier emotion than despair. If, like me, you&apos;re a parent, I might advise you to buy it for your daughters, but actually it would do more good if I begged you to buy it for your sons. . .Young women already know what&apos;s between the pages of this book. It&apos;s the other people in that room who need to read it.&quot;&#x2015;LitReactor&quot;Who is Louise O&apos;Neill? You better brush up, because everyone&apos;s about to start talking about her . . . The feisty, funny, and feminist author . . . we&apos;ve been waiting for, that might actually change something.&quot;&#x2015;Bustle&quot;A harrowing novel on the issue of sexual consent . . . This is brave and clever writing.&quot;&#x2015;Sarah Gilmartin, Irish Times&quot;O&apos;Neill&apos;s writing infects, inches its way under your skin, assaults you with tiny, relentless pinpricks.&quot;&#x2015;The F Word&quot;Any piece of writing that deals with rape is going to be affecting. What makes Irish author Louise O&apos;Neill&apos;s latest work of fiction so traumatic and infuriating is that the writing was motivated by multiple real-life cases of sexual assault.&quot;&#x2015;Broadly, Vice&quot;A must-read in today&apos;s rape culture, this novel is a follow-up to O&apos;Neill&apos;s first (also wonderfully feminist) novel, Only Ever Yours.&quot;&#x2015;HelloGiggles&quot;After reading last year&apos;s Only Ever Yours, Louise O&apos;Neill is one of my absolute favorite new writers . . . The title enough should help you see where the story goes from there, and it&apos;s going to make you furious, but that&apos;s why it&apos;s so important.&quot;&#x2015;Bustle&quot;This harrowing examination of sex and sexual assault for teens and young adults . . . deserves the broadest possible audience, and to be widely discussed by teens, parents, and educators. With the precision of a scalpel, O&apos;Neill delicately carves out the subtlest ways Emma learns that beauty is supreme, and with equal accuracy hammers home the double standard that still applies to both women and men. The images are haunting, the topic is difficult, and the ending is frustrating yet sadly all too believable.&quot; &#x2015;Common Sense Media (5 Star Review)
						    	
					    	
						
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        	  	  About the Author
        	  
        	  
        		  
        		  
	        		
						
			        		Louise O&apos;Neill is the author of Only Ever Yours, which won the YA Book Prize, among other distinctions. She was born in west Cork in 1985. She studied English at Trinity College Dublin and has worked for the senior style director of American Elle magazine. She is currently working as a freelance journalist and YA author.
						    	
					    	
						
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## Images

![Asking For It - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51V1vWRihEL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Gut-wrenching
  

*by B***E on April 9, 2016*

Easily one of the most gut-wrenching books I've ever read. I was wiping away tears seconds before typing this. I really recommend both this book to everyone, male and female alike. Some spoilers to follow.We need to keep talking and talking and talking about sexual assault, doing our best to wipe out its scourge. Just as importantly, we need to change the conversation, to get away from the horrific victim-blaming and general rape culture that contribute to the problem of women and young girls being treated like objects rather than human beings. We need to change the conversation so that we're telling men not to rape instead of telling women how not to get raped. Yes, it may sound cliched and heavy-handed to call a book important, but this book is Important.I don't doubt that there will be reviews that mention how unsympathetic Emma is. I'm positive this was a deliberate decision. In the beginning of the book, we do see how petty and mean-spirited Emma can be, and it is hard to sympathize with her. I can make plenty of arguments about how she's a product of her culture, about how the constant emphasis on a girl's looks lead girls to focus on those looks to the exclusion of all else. I can talk about how girlhood has become the ultimate competition in which the grand prize is earning the attention and adulation of every desirable boy because, after all, don't we teach our girls that their job is to be adored, and that the only proof of their success lies in a boy's demanding their attention? Yes, Emma makes some bad choices, and yes she is often not a nice person, but in the end, none of that matters. She is a victim. No human being deserves to be treated the way she is treated, both during her assault and throughout its aftermath.There is so much in this book that O'Neill does well. She's so good at making her words brutal and devastating and unadorned. But the most disturbing part is that a lot of what she writes isn't a product of her inventive mind, it's a reflection of what's visible in society. She is holding a mirror up to what's actually going on and giving readers a chance to get on the inside. How many times do newspapers take a disturbingly sympathetic tone toward rapists, talking about how their lives are "ruined", as if the heinous truth of the acts they've committed is somehow worse than their violating their victims, robbing them of their bodily autonomy, their security, and far too often their very sense of self? Talk about a life being ruined. And yet we still have court systems in which it's deemed accessible for victims to be grilled about what they were wearing, what they drank, and peppered with questions about their sexual history and if they might have mislead their attacker. How many times have we all heard pundits debating over girls being too forward, dressing too sexily, and inciting in their victims a frenzied need to take advantage, as if men are one step above beasts, all but unable to control their own impulses? It's deplorable to me that in the 21st century, it's still so common to hear such talk.I also found it very real and raw how O'Neill handled the reactions of the people around Emma, some of whom are ready to thrust all responsibility on her until her case is investigated, giving it a sheen of authenticity that causes them to change their tune and hasten to position themselves as being on her side. There's a reason why advocates talk about the importance of bystander interventions, and this book does a stellar job of pointing them out. Emma isn't alone in worrying about appearing too shrill or too bossy or too unlikable, to each and every person's detriment. Passivity is an enabler, and while the blame for a crime always lies with the perpetrator, there's no denying that standing idly by is tantamount to aiding and abetting. We all need to learn that keeping our mouths shut is exactly the wrong thing to do.Another thing that struck me was how Emma's family personalized the experience. Of course something like this is going to affect the people close to her, but it was excruciating to watch the way her family reacted to her assault. Really, I think there's a larger point here: as a society, we're very uncomfortable with crimes like these--as well we should be--so many people seek to deal with that discomfort by sweeping the crime under the rug. By ignoring it and fooling ourselves into believing it doesn't happen, that it's not that common, that victims can somehow prevent themselves from becoming victims, we comfort ourselves with this: not in my house. It's so much easier to pretend that something that terrible could never happen to ourselves or someone we love than it is to confront the problem and do something about it. As horrified as I was by Emma's parents' reactions in particular, I didn't think they seemed unrealistic. I could buy that some parents would be unable to deal with a situation like that, that they would struggle with believing their daughter bore some responsibility.Honestly, I think books like this should be part of school curriculum, because this is a conversation that's far too important not to be had. I know the likelihood of that is low because there are far too many people who would be violently opposed, but burying our heads in the sand is not going to make this problem go away. All you need to do is spend a little time looking at dating violence and sexual assault statistics for minors and you'll have trouble ever sleeping again. This problem is real, it is happening far too often, and it is not going to go away until we actually do something about it. If a book like this can spur even one person into taking action, even it can wake one person up to things they refused to see, then this book is doing us all a great service.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Haunting and Deeply Important
  

*by B***Y on November 1, 2016*

4.5 starsFrom the Afterward: "We need to talk and talk and talk until the Emmas of this world feel supported and understood. Until they feel like they are believed."This perfectly sums up why this book is so important.This novel is deeply painful to read, and that is why it's so good.Emma begins as a highly unlikable character, paled only by her intensely hateable (new word created just for her) Mam (mother).This seems to help the reader get smacked fiercely by her horrible assault and confront the horrors with a sense of honesty that I didn't expect.Emma is so many teenagers that I know. I kept having to close the book (and my eyes) because this was so raw and awful...and true.Then, the aftermath. It's hideous and you're along for the ride of the senselessness and slut shaming and depression and lack of support....and you'll try to reach through the pages to Emma.I guess the point of this rant is, you understand the premise of this story before you even begin reading, if you've read the blurbs...and that still can't prepare you...because this book is that dark and tragic and important and well-written.Not just a book for "girls" but a book for anyone who loves a woman, especially a young woman who's learning what it means to grow up in this world.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Incredible read that is both thought provoking and heartbreaking.
  

*by T***S on July 5, 2016*

I simply could not put it down.  I have not read a book that has touched me like this book has in years.  Louise O'Neill's writing is fantastic. The main character Emma at times is  not all the likeable but the results of a night out with too much too drink, wanting to be cool and needing to be the popular one result in unthinkable consequences.  It is an emotional roller coaster of a story.  As recent debates have being aired after the case in the USA of the rape of a young girl who was intoxicated, if you go out and get drunk you expect a hangover and not to be raped.  The simple fact states that women are still blamed for being raped and not in some middle eastern country but here in the so called first world, where men and women are "equals"  She wore a short dress, she was drunk, she has a reputation for sleeping around and this book just opens your eyes to this ugly truth that if we are all a little bit honest there is that niggling thought at the back of our heads when we hear of a rape where the girl knew the man/men who attacked her.  As I mentioned early this is not a delightful read but it is most definitely a most read.

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*Product available on Desertcart France*
*Store origin: FR*
*Last updated: 2026-02-22*