I will not be reading this title - when I downloaded it I was keen to read it, but having put it off for a long time, I am less in the mood these days for distressing books and content, so I don’t feel that it is one I will ever pick up in the near future.

2022
Changing my rating to 3.5 stars. after many years, this book stuck with me, O'Neill writes abuse well, and after writing a thesis on domestic abuse and being a dumb bitch and being in the mess of a chaotic relationship, this book makes more sense to me.

2018
2.5
I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it either. It presented more like a YA trying too hard. Sarah's character would've been relatable more if she was a teenager in high school. It was all too juvenile and I expected better.

I will not be giving feedback on this book as I couldn’t really get into it but I think others may enjoy it.

This was a great book with a really compelling story and good depths of character. I would recommend to all as it kept me gripped throughout.

I would recommend this story to all thriller lovers. This book took me by surprise. It kept me interested throughout the story and I needed to see what was going to happen. I truly enjoyed the pacing of the story and the well-written characters.

I squirmed my way uncomfortably through this book. It was too authentic and held a mirror up to parts of my life that I’d rather not remember. Anyone who has ever held on too long to a dead in the water and/or toxic relationship will know what I mean.

I hated the main character, mostly because her pain flowed like toxins in to all her relationships. But I totally got her.

Big thumbs up, but don’t go in expecting a romance to swoon over. Instead get prepped for raw, real and gritty. And very addictive

What an exquisite tale. Louise's writing is to die for. I don't know how she does it. She leaves you hankering after the last page, wanting and needing more. I loved it.

There isn't a Louise O'Neill book I haven't loved, and I'm so pleased that Almost Love was no exception. It took a few tries for me to get into this, but once I was in, I was hooked. Louise's writing is taut and exceptionally deft, and her characters stand out for me every time. I adored Almost Love!

A compelling story with a complex and unlikeable protagonist in the throes of an obsessive and unhealthy relationship. A difficult but worthwhile read: the author does not shy away from her uncomfortable themes.

I find it difficult to rate this book, (I think) I know what message the author wanted to get across with the story, but it didn't have much of an impact on me.
It definitely was a quick read, the writing easy to follow and the story captivating. Though don't expect fast pace and exciting events in this story.

It's a story about relationships, it's a story about all the things we mistaken for love, it's a story about friendship and family and how being an adult doesn't mean we know what to do with our lives. It's a story about loneliness and the fear of being alone and lonely. It's also about being used and using people.
I didn't find the story very relatable, but I know it can be for many women, and besides not being able to relate much, I could still relate to the little things.
It's also worth noting that the author, often in a very subtle way, points out to important issues in today's society: misogyny, feminism, rape, racism (being a PoC in a predominantly white country), abortion rights.

Overall I can say that I enjoyed the book, though I would like to see a bit more depth, maybe psychological insight in it. I also wish there were more scenes with my favourite characters Fionn and Oonagh, but I get that it was Sarah's story, not theirs.

Almost Love is Louise O'Neill's first adult novel and follows Sarah in both past and present after she falls in love with Matthew who is 20 years older than her.0
Louise has such a nice style of writing it flows well and has a great pace.

Don’t like that the novel switches from first to third person, I found this to be a little jarring when reading and took me out of the story a bit.
I feel like the names are repeated a lot in a short space of time, where a he or she would suffice, again small things like this just take me out of it.
Very raw and a realistic look at relationships. I loved this aspect of it and although myself haven’t experienced a relationship like this I was able to relate to certain parts and it’s easy to see how a lot of women have had a very similar experience.

Overall I really did enjoy this book and think it’s quite an important read.

I am currently working on expanding our school library's senior section after years of a dismal and uninspiring selection of books that our older readers never checked out. My job has been to seek out much more diverse, gripping and modern books that will get them into reading by appealing to as broad a range of readers as possible. This really appealed to me because of its fantastic narrative and sense of atmosphere, combined with believable characterisation and its beautiful writing It's hard to get young people into reading and if the library is not stocking the kind of book that they might grow up to buy as adult readers then we are not really meeting their needs. I can imagine this provoking lots of discussion after finishing it and a long queue of people trying to reserve it as they've heard so much about it. Will definitely be buying a copy and know that it's going to be a very popular choice. An engrossing read that kept me up far too late to finish reading it. It certainly stood out from the other books that I was considering and I look forward to converting more Louise O'Neill fans in future!

I’m a huge Louise O’Neill fan. Asking For It and Only Ever Yours are stunning books, so I was really looking forward to reading her first adult novel, Almost Love. Sadly, I didn’t like it as much as her YA novels, but it’s still an excellent portrayal of a kind of love we don’t really get to see much in fiction (or I don’t anyway). Almost Love is the story of Sarah, and it switches between Sarah as a 24 year old, in an obsessive relatonship with an older man, and Sarah in the present, about 5 years later, in a different relationship. Sarah is very much not likeable. She makes appalling decisions, and her obsessiveness over Matthew, the older man she met at 24, is incredibly annoying, especially as it’s still affecting her life five years after they split up. But that’s because we see it from the outside. It’s perfectly clear to us that Matthew doesn’t love Sarah, or even want to be in a relationship with her, he just wants to use her. To Sarah, that means he wants her, and she’ll do anything to be wanted. I thought it was a compelling book, and it’s definitely worth a read.

4/5

Almost Love, the first adult novel from Louise O’Neill, is the story of Sarah and her relationships men. More accurately, it’s about how Sarah’s relationship with Matthew has affected her relationship with her boyfriend, Oisin, and her feelings about herself. Split between the past and the present, Almost Love is an unflinching look at obsessive love.

So this is the story of Sarah, her current love Oisin and her former lover Matthew. The book weaves back and forth to the heady first days of meeting Matthew at the parent's evening where she is his son's art teacher, to the start of their in-clandestine relationship, it's demise and of her current situation with Oisin. I don't know if anyone reading this could actually like Sarah, but maybe that is the point. You want to slap or shake her into waking up, into seeing that her relationship isn't what she believes it to be, to take a look around and see the damage that it is doing not only to herself but to those around her too. Only she doesn't and as a reader I could feel myself getting increasingly frustrated with her as the book progresses.

Matthew does not love Sarah, let's make that perfectly clear. He wants sex and gets off on the thrill of meeting her in a hotel room for an hour or so to get his fill as it were. Sarah spends her life looking down at her phone waiting for just a text from him whereby she will instantly drop everything and everyone in the process to be by his side. Her friendships start to fall apart because of the choices that she is making and the only person who cannot see that damage that is being done is Sarah.

Fast forward to the present day and Sarah is in a loving relationship with Oisin, living in his parent's house. His mother is a very successful artist and Sarah wants for nothing. However, in this situation money doesn't buy you happiness and Sarah is constantly thinking back to her time with Matthew to the detriment of her relationship with Oisin, because no matter what he does or doesn't do, he isn't and never will treat her in the way that Matthew did.


This is an interesting take on the way that a relationship can take over your whole being and Louise O'Neill does just that in Almost Love though it doesn't necessarily make for pleasant reading at times.

Sarah is a damaged person, it's difficult to be sympathetic when so much of the worst things that happen to her are self inflicted but also because of how her actions, and her reactions, shine a light on wrong decisions we've made ourselves. She's a girl used to getting to she wants, and doesn't know how to deal with other people who don't just want to hand it to her. Any one who's ever stared a blank page thinking about how they want to be a writer instead of writing, or eaten a fantastic meal and told themselves they'll never be that good, taken a beautiful photograph and told people they got lucky will be able to relate to Sarah's constant pushing away of her own artistic abilities, even when they don't want to. When she's been in situations where she has to prove herself, she runs away. Part of Sarah is yearning so desperately to be in a relationship that she can't see what's going on around her, the opportunuities she's taking for granted and squandering. It's a story that for me reaffirmed the importance of self love, until she learns to love herself Sarah is incapable of building those bonds with other people. It's not an easy book to read, and it's very easy to think from the comfort of the other side of the page that no one could be so stupid when Sarah makes careless mistakes but that's doing her a disservice, she is taken advantage of and it destroys her life. This book examines the reasons that led to that, and the consequences.

Louise O’Neil is a stand out name in the world of YA fiction, writing pieces I have greatly admired such as Only Ever Yours. As a columnist she tackles hard-hitting subjects with such openness, issues which were reflected in her second novel, Asking For It, dealing with the subject of rape culture. O’Neil has now taken a step into adult fiction with Almost Love. The issues veer away slightly as she subject matter is an obsessive relationship. The main character Sarah falls for the father of one of the pupils she teaches, a tycoon businessman. The novel flashes between before and after, facing the consequences of her love, devotion to him and the affect that has on her friendships and family.

Any writer who contests with obsession with their character does so knowing the character will be extremely flawed, vulnerable and slightly unbearable as they navigate their way around the new relationship. It was this aspect of the book I could never get over. The main character was detestable. She had a backstory, obviously a sad one but her vulgar nature was just too much. Sarah has a strong social circle, which she is so wasteful with. The book is surrounded with reassuring conversations and solid friends offering advice, its understandable for the characters reaction to be hesitant but her whole demeanor covered the book was so distasteful. Their never felt a moment to build any kind of sympathy, perhaps that represents more about the reviewer than the character but I found this an incredibly cold and heartless novel, never finding any kind of redemption, it left me feeling cold and a little sad and I can only hope we see more of O’Neils early work, being unafraid to tackle social issues but with a more compelling backbone.

Louise's adult debut did not disappoint. The writing is still very Louise and successful breached the bridge from YA into adult lit. The main character is often described as unlikable, however really what she is is a frank and honest look at some of the dark parts we find inside ourselves. And an honest portrayal of a woman whose life is falling apart and the decisions we sometimes make when we are lost in toxic relationships. Again Louise has struck us with some truths and once again opened the discussion on oft taboo subjects.

This is a tricky one to review, because part of me loved and another (smaller part) didn’t. It was a bit of a slow burner too, it took a while to get to the real depth of the study. But I do applaud Louise for writing books like these! I’ve read the YA books of hers, this was a great debut adult novel!
I honestly would reccomend it! Just stick with it :) It is written so that it’s enjoysble and easy to read

I'm very torn here. Louise O'Neill is a fantastic author. She does a marvellous job of writing about tricky subjects in a clear and passionate way. I'm a fan of her teen fiction and was curious to see how this, her first adult novel compared. It's just as well written, just as compelling and just as gut wrenching. I applaud her for often choosing to portray women and girls who are not 'nice', not people you would normally empathise or sympathise with, which means that you have to really think about the subjects of the novels. However, in this case, I really found it hard to love the protagonist, even when her background is gone into, even when you realise what she's gone through. I zipped through the book in no time. It's well plotted, page turning stuff, but I was so frustrated by the ending and the fact that I just did not care at all what happened to the character you're supposed to care the most about.