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Idol

The must read, addictive book club thriller

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

'Follow your heart and speak your truth.'

For Samantha Miller's young fans - her 'girls' - she's everything they want to be. She's an oracle, telling them how to live their lives, how to be happy, how to find and honour their 'truth'.

And her career is booming: she's just hit three million followers, her new book Chaste has gone straight to the top of the bestseller lists and she's appearing at sell-out events.

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 female 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 at all. 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?

'You put yourself on that pedestal, Samantha. You only have yourself to blame.'

Riveting, compulsive and bold, IDOL 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. And it asks us to consider how two memories of the same event can differ, and how effortlessly we choose which stories to believe.

'IDOL is fresh, glamorous, and surprising, taking an issue we all care about and with a deft twist, recalibrating our position. It dazzles us before revealing the darkness at its heart.' Marian Keyes

'A literary tour de force' Irish Independent

'A vital and necessary presence in contemporary literature' Sarah Perry

© Louise O'Neill 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

 City Life Coming of Age Fiction Friendship Genre Fiction Small Town & Rural Urban Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

An absolute page turner; addictive and refreshingly twisted.
By turns utterly gripping and unsettling, this gorgeously written novel is a fascinating look at the ills of influencer culture. A book for our times.
IDOL is darkly delicious and asks important questions of fame, influence, self-help and what it really means when we click "follow". Louise O'Neill is one of those rare authors whose writing grips you from the first page, but who also makes you think. I will read anything she writes.
Louise O'Neill steps into areas that lesser writers are daunted by. She is a pioneer.
O'Neill continues to push at the murk around contemporary taboos, shining a compassionate and compelling light on what drives our appearance-obsessed society, marking us all as complicit. IDOL is a gripping, shocking read I could not put down.
IDOL is utterly compelling and totally fearless. I literally had to ban myself from reading it after 8pm as I couldn't sleep otherwise. Louise isn't afraid to grasp nettles and IDOL is a confronting exploration of toxic female friendships, consent, and the gross hypocrisy of influencer culture. Destined to be rightly huge. It will take a long time to get these characters out of my head.
Compulsive, disturbing and totally addictive, I couldn't put IDOL down. No-one writes the dark extremes of womanhood like Louise O'Neill and I think this might be her best novel yet.
Sharp and sharply plotted, muscular, propulsive, visceral. So good on illusion and self-delusion; the lies we tell ourselves and each other; the damage of toxic friendships, and the legacy of betrayal or imagined betrayal. There were phrases that stopped me in my tracks, they resonated so hard. I hope it flies far higher than Samantha Miller.
I read it in one sitting! Louise has a way of making her characters deliciously, unapologetically human and gloriously messy. Sometimes you want to look away but it's impossible. IDOL is her best yet.
Electrifying. I devoured IDOL in two greedy gulps - it is so smartly and sharply observed. It's going to stay with me for a long, long time - Louise's writing is so compelling, gripping and addictive.
All stars
Most relevant
I loved this! I was on the edge of my seat throughout and it's one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read. I've never read anything like it - fascinating topic. Narration was also excellent.

Best Book I've Read This Year

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I enjoyed this so much, that I chose it as our next book club pick & also bought a copy for my friend for her birthday.

Loved this book!

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This book was ok, I kinda liked the story, the issue for me was I just didn’t like ANY of the characters! I don’t think we’re supposed to like Sam but surely we should like or relate to someone??? It was an ok listen but I found it dragged at times, and due to the narcissism of some of the character it was a bit painful to listen to at times. My review is “it was ok”

Painful at times

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What an intriguing story that entralls you to feeling all the emotions. I listened to it in my car and would be giving out along to Sam the way

Infuriatingly addiditive!

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Even COVID-19 is referenced in this. It is a thriller on bitchiness more than on violence. The perfect victims only and twitter mob themes are really clearly explored.

gripping and.credible novel, right up to date

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