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Idol

By: Louise O'Neill
Narrated by: Kate Handford
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Publisher's Summary

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 best-seller 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.

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

Critic Reviews

"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)

What listeners say about Idol

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The ending ruined it

The book was good, but the ending was lazy. It ruined the whole experience. It’s not what happened at the ending, but how the author chose to end the book that was annoying.
Unless there is a follow up book in the works.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Loved it

I flip flopped my like for the character over and over again which shows how good the writing is! I enjoyed that is was different to many other books that mention #metoo . Give it a go, you won’t be disappointed!

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Well worth a listen

If this audiobook had pages…it would be a page turner. Plenty of suspense. Highly recommend

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1 person found this helpful

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Really Compelling

I could talk about Idol for hours. The premise was enthralling and it's narrative addictive. It's strange, as I didn't really like any of these characters, yet the emotion they made me feel was powerful. This book tackles a lot of strong subjects, the impact of social media, cancel culture, consent, mental health, and way more, but it was the subject of memories and the way they evolve over years that intrigued me the most. How can we trust our memories when our brains can forget or misconstrue details years after the event? How can we remember what is real? Idol explores so much, told with a really compelling performance. This story challenged me, the author manipulated me and I loved it.

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Truely one of the worst books

A friend recommended this book and I'm so disappointed, I thought I could trust her.
Because I trusted her I persevered... For 6 hours of my life that I'll never get back.
After 6 hours of audibly responding and getting progressively angry to the ridiculous teen angst and irritating auditor I had to quit.

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Could not hear this painful book out!

Just a terrible long winded story. I had to return it after I was about half way through it. It just never got any better. Narrator did the best possible job she could with a terrible story line. Hard for me to describe why this was so bad, but it was really painful.

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