I really like that Louise O'Neill's books are all different but all tackle important issues.

Idol is an examination of the life of influencer Samantha as she tries to stop herself being cancelled after a serious accusation from her old friend.

The story really pulled me in as you go back and forth feeling sympathetic towards the different characters as more and more of the 'truth' is revealed through flashbacks to the past.

I feel the ending isn't as conclusive as I'd like - instead leaving you with a little doubt over what really happened but I'm some people will enjoy having their own interpretation of it.

I've not seen or read anything else like this. A thought provoking and interesting read that will have you hooked!

Many thanks for the ARC!

This was slightly different to my usual genre of reading- there was a real darkness to Sam’s character and I was guessing all the way through who might be behind the online attacks.
It was absolutely realistic though and you could imagine it actually happening in the social media/wellness obsessed world that we live in.
I enjoyed reading about Sam and Lisa’s relationship and it was so interesting to explore how differently they remembered their youth.
An enjoyable and unusual story, would definitely recommend.

When I started to read Idol I wasn’t sure if I would continue, but the high quality of narrative and story telling made sure that I stuck with it and I’m so glad I did - definitely a novel with characters who will remain with me for a long while.

Quite brilliant actually.

Many thanks to all concerned for letting me read and review this terrific novel.

Imagine being worshiped by millions, having teenage girls hang off your every word and follow every practice that you recommend to them. This is the life of Samantha Miller. Her whole world is built around her image and her girls. At the peak of it all she writes an essay about an intense sexual experience she had with her best friend. Her friend remembers it differently and Samantha's world is threatened. What would she do to save it?

This book is fantastic. It's a stark insight into the world of influences and how they manage their image. It's more than that though it looks at friendships, the role your parents play in shaping you and how your adolescents really is a stepping stone towards the adult you will become. The writing is brilliant, ending every chapter on a cliff hanger which made me read way passed my bedtime. I started the book feeling sympathy for Sam and actually once I learnt more I still felt that for her but for different reasons.

This is going to be the book of summer 2022 I'm sure!

I don't think I have a big enough vocabulary to accurately convey how good this book actually is. It is without doubt a thought evoking story - not only illustrating the subjectivity of memory, but also highlighting how we interact with others and how social media affects our lives. The story also covers sexual abuse, drug abuse, toxic friendships, envy and more besides. With this book covering such contemporary topics, it is easy to see how a diverse range of people would benefit from the content - there is definitely a lesson to be learned about the power of social media in this day and age.

This is a fast paced novel which I could not put down and it is without doubt one of the best books I have read in the last 12 months. I hope it does exceptionally well when it is published on May 12th - I would most certainly recommend buying a copy and I can't thank NetGallery and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers enough for allowing me an advanced copy. This is the first book I have read from Louise O'Neill, but I will be checking out her others for my next read .....

Really enjoyed this by Louise O'Neill, an interesting take on influencer culture and the #MeToo movement. Also interesting themes of wellness, and how people's memories of events can differ or be warped. The main character was not likeable, but I feel as though that was intentional!

Samantha has made it to the top. With approaching 3,000,000 followers on social media, from a small town, Samantha is now living in the city, running her own business as a health guru, promoting a vegan lifestyle and preaching self-belief to her adoring fans.
At the launch of her latest book an email arrives with accusations about Sam’s past life, allegations which, if made public, go completely against everything Sam’s company advocates. Sam must try to deflect the charges and so returns to her childhood home town and faces demons she had tried to forget.
Sam appears to have it all but is so clearly still carrying baggage from her teen years, which she can’t even be honest about to herself. She could be forgiven, but at the risk of loosing followers, and what is most important to Sam?
A comment on our vacuous 21st century lives where clickbait and social media likes are deemed more important than integrity. But behind all this, there are damaged people needing help and love.

A highly successful social influencer believes her curated narrative and denies her past. But her former best friend may have the power to destroy her. Good for fans of thrillers on the topical issues of sexual consent and the power of social media. With thanks to the author, publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.

Gripping, fascinating, couldn't put it down. It starts out as a satirical social commentary on the power of Influencers but has many layers, regarding self-harm, assault and delusion. Samantha Miller has made a career telling young girls how to live their best life. She has 3 million followers, sold a few bestsellers, and her events are fully booked. She is the guru in her sphere. She is on top of the world, and shares her "sexual awakening" as a teenager with the world, when her ex-best friend contacts her, accusing her of sexual assault, threatening to bring her world down.

Samantha is a magnetic character, full of charm and confidence and self belief. She can achieve anything. In comparison, her best friend Lisa is broken, a shell of her teenage self. What happened to both these woman and how did each end up like they have when they were once the closest of friends? The characters are all believable and the story takes the reader on a roller-coaster of emotions - empathy, compassion, pity, disbelief and perspective. There are two sides to every story and then there is the truth. Its impossible to put this book down until you know the truth.

A very relevant story that illustrates the cancel culture as well as the dependence and obsession with social media. Full of deceit and selfish acts, the characters are deliciously flawed. Thoroughly engaging throughout.

Samantha Miller has it all.
She is a mentor to a large population of young women, her “girls”, she is the face of a brand, Shakti, author of best-selling self-help books, has countless followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. She has “people” to arrange every part of her life.
But then, her world falls apart when she is accused of sexual assault by a childhood friend.

Despite the fact that Sam is in her early forties, and this accusation was from 20 years previously, she comes across as a petulant teenager who is so used to getting her own way, she finds it difficult to have any empathy for any other view.

When she returns to her hometown to address the problem, it becomes very clear that her “truth” is maybe not the way other people remember things.

This book is a salutary lesson in what happens if you believe in your own publicity, and how fickle public opinion can be.
It should be a must-read for all “influencers”!

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK for the opportunity to read this book.

At the centre of ‘Idol’ is so-called feminist wellness guru, Samantha Miller. She’s a 40-year-old well-educated single white woman who has become extremely successful in peddling her view of the world through her online presence, book deals and personal appearances. And she’s toxic. As ever, Louise O’Neill doesn’t shy away from exploring challenging subjects and, after reading this novel, many readers may be prompted to ponder why they are attracted to this sort of online presence, and whether or not these people really are inspiring role models.
However, I’m not sure that the narrative goes beyond pointing out that this sort of presence is often facile and sometimes dangerous. It would have been interesting to have seen just why Samantha behaves as she does from her early teens onwards. Because she’s an unreliable narrator, it’s difficult to truly believe that her family life has been particularly problematic. I’m not sure, either, why she has such a fixation on her childhood friend, Lisa. What is clear is that she is determined on self-promotion above all else, not least the truth. As she explains to her mother, ‘…I needed a story in the beginning. The publicity team at Glass House kept asking how I was different to all the other privileged, white women writing their memoirs, how was I going to differentiate myself?’
O’Neill certainly shows the reader that female lifestyle gurus do nothing to help or support their audiences. The latter buy into quick fix mantras and sponsored products which are never going to empower in the way that they promise to. Of her proselytising, the protagonist claims, ‘…this is my truth … you have to respect that.’ O’Neill demonstrates categorically why we shouldn’t. However, ‘Idol’ would have been a more thought-provoking read had the author explored why it is that so many become captivated by Samantha Miller types.
My thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Bantam Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This was a fantastic novel, unputdownable. Sam is the idol of the Wellness movement and New Age Movement and the members of both those gruops mostly adore her, and she has published books, of which the latest is 'Chaste'. Then she feels brave enough to share a sexual encounter in an essay, that she had with her best friend, Lisa, when they were both young. The only problem is that Lisa does not remember that it happened as Sam says. How is Sam going to fix things? Does she fix things at all? I will not give an answer to that question. The reader will just have to read it for themselves, or I would be giving out spoilers. The reader will, in my opinion, probably love this book, as much as I did. Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for giving me a copy of the book.

I have so much respect for Louise O'Neill's fearlessness. Not only is she effortlessly moving between genres over the span of her career but she also isn't afraid to take on the most probing of topics. And her wry observations are almost always on point.

In this, her third adult novel, Louise tackles the subjects of wellness and influencer culture, abuse of power, sexuality, consent and the Me Too movement, trial by social media and cancel culture. Idol's damaged but successful protagonist, Samantha Miller, has made her fortune telling young girls how to live better on the internet. She has amassed three million followers and a platform to say whatever she believes to be true, until her childhood best friend Lisa gets in touch to challenge a piece Sam wrote about a sexual experience they shared as teenagers. While Sam recalls an intimate moment of sexual awakening she can now utilise to promote her newfound chastity, Lisa remembers it as something she didn't consent to. As her public profile disintegrates, with reporters contacting old friends and flames for dirt, Sam travels back to her hometown to confront Lisa and attempt to keep her life on the rails.

Idol - like all of Louise's books - is a timely and incisive take on important socio-cultural issues. As always, her commentary is searing and her writing scalpel-sharp. Essentially this is a story about the subjectivity of memory and the curation and manipulation of the past to spin a suitable narrative. This is also a book about friendship and envy, and although this book is set in New York and Connecticut, the story throbs with the bitterness of Irish begrudgery.

A gripping, piercing and murky read and one that, no doubt, will amass its own large following on publication. And Louise deserves the readership. 3.5 stars.

There is so much to love about this book, and so much to hate. Samantha is possibly one of the most unlikeable characters out there, and yet she is entirely recognisable, familiar even, in that her darkest and deepest acts come from a desire to be loved. To be seen, and still to be loved.

Touching on highly relevant topics such as influencers, cancel culture, feminism, and rape accusations, Idol is one of those books that doesn't pull any punches. It raises the very important, nuanced question: at what point can we forgive the past? Where is the line between accountability and so-called cancel culture? I had no idea what direction the author would take, but the ending was superb.

Samantha is not just any old influencer - she's an influencer at the top of her game. Known for always speaking her truth, even when it's about something horrific like her experience of sexual assault, she has three million followers hanging on her every word, a book deal, and the envy of almost everyone she meets. But what happens when Samantha's truth doesn't align with someone else's? To generate publicity for her new book, Samantha writes a candid essay about her one night of teenage sexual abandon with her best friend Lisa. Only then the essay goes viral, and the long-estranged Lisa comes forward to say that that night wasn't the night of consensual enjoyment Samantha remembers.

Is one of the women lying or can two truths be completely different? As Samantha's carefully constructed world begins to fall apart, she realises she will do anything to keep the life she has built for herself. Even if that means going back to her childhood home and confronting the truth in a way she never has before...

I loved this book from the get-go. Louise O'Neill is such an engaging writer, and is so deft at character development. I loved that the whole novel was a gradual unravelling, both of the truth and of Samantha's world, and I also loved that Samantha in particular was so well written that you could find yourself rooting for her even as you were horrified by her behaviour - in lesser hands she would have been a villainous caricature, but as it was, she was so nuanced that you ended up wanting her to pull though despite all of her flaws.

I won't say much more so I don't spoil anything, but this is definitely one for those who enjoy their thrillers well-paced, beautifully written, and with a narrator who is as unreliable as they come...or is she?

Thank you to both Netgalley and to the publisher, who gave me a free ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is such a superb book I didn’t want it to end. It follows an influencer who has built her own brand. She writes a piece on an encounter with her best friend at high school but fast forward many years later and her friend said it wasn’t consensual.
This story has me gripped! I’m hoping there will be another book about what happens next. Wow! Excellent book.

Wow! Louise O’Neill is never afraid to approach difficult subjects and her latest book is no different.

Samantha is a ‘love, light, positivity’ guru with adoring fans, and rape survivor, She has an essay published regarding a sexual encounter but then her manager gets an email from the girl in the story saying Samantha assaulted her.

As Samantha tries to find out why her friend is lying about such a thing, it seems no one’s memory is accurate.

This is just amazing. I can see this being on a university reading list in the future, discussing how reliable the characters are and if they should be believed.

Thank you so much to Netgalley for this ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Social media as a phenomenon in society and in personal lived experience is asokething that we need authors to tackle and Louise O'Neil has done a great job in ctprafting a deeply immersive and page turning novel around the life of social media lifestyle guru Samantha and her cult following of young girls. The book kept me enthralled as we watched her life spiral out of control and we the readers were faced with seeking the truth through a variety of perspectives, the characters are gradually revealed through words and actions, through social media posts and descriptive narrative.
This is an excellent noevl that will rightfully attract many many readers and which asks important questions about consent and abuse. And the climate of cancel cultureUltimately though I found the issues unresolved although one must acknowledge how difficult they are to resolve too.
I was ultimately left slightly disappointed though I commend the author's attempt.

Provocative incredibly interesting. This story of dual narratives in the social media sphere was impeccably written. I was intrigued from the first page and couldn’t wait to finish. Highly recommend!