Emma O’ Donovan is Queen Bee of her small Irish town. She’s popular and pretty but she can also be mean and petty. One day, Emma goes to a party and she’s horrified to learn afterwards that terrible things were done to her at the hands of some of the well-known boys in town. Now Emma has to deal with what has happened to her, while protesting her innocence as the fingers of blame seem to point at her rather than the boys who raped her.

This was a really, really tough book to read but so very powerful and important. Emma is not a nice person. She’s pretty but no-one is allowed to be prettier, or skinnier or wear better clothes. She lies and steals and well, I just would not want to be her friend. However, this doesn’t mean that Emma deserved to be gang-raped by a group of men she knew, be vomited and urinated on and utterly, disgustingly violated and have those photos put online for everyone to see.

I found myself having some anxiety reading this book. I could feel it every time I went to the pick the book up but once i was reading, i got into the story and was okay. I’ve never been sexually assaulted, thank god, but I just feel so lucky that I am one of the lucky ones and how easy it would have been for something to happen to me walking from the bus at night, taking a taxi home or even, god forbid, at a house party like Emma, with a group of boys I went to school with. And if this book was triggering for me, I couldn’t even believe how hard it must be for those who have actually been through such an ordeal.

This book brings up so many great things about victim blaming. It seems, to me, that Emma had never been completely consensual with any of the sexual acts she had done in the past and this one was just the icing on the cake. But just because she’d had sex in the past and had drank and taken a pill doesn’t mean she deserved to be probed and prodded the way she was. Ugh. I hate this boys will be boys thing and it comes across so well in this book. The lads are more or less free to walk about town afterwards while Emma can’t even leave the house. She’s the Ballinatoom Girl but they’re not the Ballinatoom Boys.

Emma had pretty rotten luck with her family and friends - her friends who didn’t even stand by her really afterwards, her family who talk about her behind her back and seem to actually blame her in a way (except her brother). I really liked that the book didn’t just show Emma immediately after the rape occurred but one year on when things were even worse, the media had talked, the discussions had taken place on the radio and everyone had shared their opinion, while Emma had to continue and try and live her life.

Emma’s disconnection and repulsive of her body afterwards was done really well and the way she described her being ‘stamped’ by the boys who had committed the rape. She seemed to reject everything about herself when she has once been able to love and appreciate her beauty. She even found it hard to shower because she couldn’t stand the sight or touch of her naked body.

This is a powerful, must-read book that I think really needs to be read by everyone.