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Idol
Idol
Dec 3, 2025 12:11 AM

Author:Louise O'Neill

Idol

'Totally addictive' JUNO DAWSON

'Completely riveting' FABULOUS

'Glamorous, surprising' MARIAN KEYES

'Utterly gripping. Unsettling' LUCY FOLEY

'An absolute page turner' CECILIA AHERN

******

Samantha Miller is everything her fans want to be. Her three million followers hang on her every word - she's an oracle, telling them how to be their best, true selves.

To promote her new number-one bestseller, she's written an essay about her sexual awakening as a teenager with her best friend, Lisa. She's never told a soul, now she's telling the world.

But Lisa's memory of that night is far darker.

It's Sam's word against Lisa's - so whose 'truth' is really a lie?

******

'Darkly delicious' ELIZABETH DAY

'Compulsive, brilliant' ABIGAIL DEAN

'Utterly compelling' HOLLY BOURNE

'Clever and beautifully crafted' OBSERVER

Reviews

An absolute page turner; addictive and refreshingly twisted.

—— Cecelia Ahern

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.

—— Lucy Foley

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.

—— Elizabeth Day

Louise O'Neill steps into areas that lesser writers are daunted by. She is a pioneer.

—— Marian Keyes

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.

—— Kiran Millwood Hargrave

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.

—— Holly Bourne

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.

—— Juno Dawson

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.

—— Sarah Vaughan

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.

—— Angela Scanlon

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.

—— Daisy Buchanan, Sunday Times bestselling author of INSATIABLE

As an author I am envious of the incredible achievement IDOL is, but as a reader I am so thankful for the three days of page-turning reading it provided. Sophisticated, gripping and compulsive, I couldn't tear through the pages fast enough. I was just so desperate to find out what happened! I'd even go as far to say that IDOL is my book of the year. This is going to be massive.

—— Laura Jane Williams

IDOL is such a cleverly constructed novel, taking a scalpel to the superficiality of social media and the wellness industry. O'Neill writes so perceptively about adolescent friendships, toxic relationships, and how our personal truths can be littered with self-delusion. It's a timely story - a morality tale for the Instagram generation - and all the more compelling for it.

—— Hannah Beckerman

I don't think I've ever enjoyed hating a character as much as I hated Samantha Miller. This fierce tale of toxic female friendship is unlike anything I have read. Highly original, unflinching and with a devilishly dark conclusion, I loved every page of it.

—— Liz Nugent

Idol is sharp, unflinching and timely, and made me question what's real in a world where likes and clicks matter more than ever. It's a book that dazzles and mesmerises, and will linger in your thoughts long after you finish reading.

—— Cressida McLaughlin

I'm completely in awe of what Louise O'Neill has done with this brilliant and riveting book. Idol is absolutely astonishing. It's one of those rare novels you desperately want to eke out - to make it last forever - but then can't help yourself rushing through, staying up all night to finish. It's so well-written and pacy, I was literally breathless for the last 100 pages.

—— Lucy Vine

IDOL is that rare combination of thought-provoking and page-turning - the very definition of a novel for our times

—— Hush

IDOL is Louise O'Neill at the very top of her game. This is a clever, zeitgiesty read, which will play with your emotions as if they were scrabble tiles and give you characters that you love then hate on the turn of a page but you won't be able to stop reading. This is going to be one of the most talked about books of the year

—— Sarra Manning

Brutal, compulsive, brilliant. Louise O'Neill exposes the contradictions and quandaries of influencer culture with her usual perceptiveness.

—— Abigail Dean

'An absolute must for your book club, with so many issues up for discussion'

—— Prima

A tinder box of a book... smart, sparky, and packed full of combustible emotions.

—— Daily Express

Incredibly readable

—— The Scotsman

A whip-smart read which you'll love

—— Fabulous

Utterly compelling... 5 stars

—— Heat

A smart, addictive page-turner

—— Stylist

O'Neill's darkly compelling thriller asks disturbing questions about memory, truth and the power of social media to destroy its own idols

—— Daily Mail

Lyrical and excoriating

—— Guardian, *Books of the Year*

Each of the muses had an extraordinary story to tell... I was utterly absorbed from beginning to end.

—— Annie Kirby, author of The Hollow Sea

Smart, sophisticated and fun

—— OPRAH DAILY

Delightful. The woman narrating ROMANTIC COMEDY is hyper-aware of the conventions of romantic comedy, and she knows full well that real life is no fairytale. But could it be this time?

—— WASHINGTON POST

Sittenfeld's latest takes a shot of SNL and makes sparks fly

—— ELLE

Hilarious, heartwarming

—— HARPER'S BAZAAR

If you're looking for a romance with edge, this book is for you. The writing is as intelligent and funny as you'd expect from the author of classics such as American Wife and it's a properly swoonsome love story

—— GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

Cancel plans and dive into bestselling author Sittenfeld's hilarious take on the classic will-they-won't-they storyline

—— ELLE

Written by one of the very best out there, Romantic Comedy is a novel that you won't want to put down and one you'll want to recommend to everyone you know

—— GLAMOUR

An enthralling, humorous and subversive tale set in the world of a live TV comedy show

—— STYLIST

Whip-smart, funny and a fascinating look behind the scenes of a sketch show. Curtis Sittenfeld has penned another exquisitely written novel

—— WOMAN'S WEEKLY

A piercing look at the genre of Romcom set against the backdrop of a Saturday Night Live-esque TV show - a rollercoaster of modern love and dating

—— STYLIST

I ate it up whole. Joyful

—— EVA WISEMAN, OBSERVER

Get lost in a modern romantic fantasy

—— DAILY RECORD

A humorous take on Hollywood romcoms

—— BBC BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Sexy, funny, thought-provoking and everything I hoped it would be. Her best novel since American Wife.

—— RED, Best Books of the Year

Romantic Comedy combines humour with poignancy and a lot of heart.

—— GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, Best romance books to read

Sittenfeld's novel continues her wider project of exploring the possibility for a kind of redemptive idealism within our flawed world

—— GUARDIAN

Sittenfeld has penned another exquisitely written novel

—— WOMAN MAGAZINE

A fizzy love letter to the prototypical romcom

—— NEW YORK TIMES, Editor's Choice

So much of Sittenfeld's work exists in the dissection and comprehension of female desire

—— NEW YORK TIMES

Flirting with the tropes of its namesake genre, this playful novel follows Sally, a writer on an "S.N.L."-like show called "Night Owls," who falls in love with one of its guest hosts. Their relationship develops via e-mail in the post-grocery-wiping, pre-vaccine days of covid-19. When Sally decides to visit her beloved in L.A., their time together in his Topanga mansion requires her to navigate incredulity, insecurity, and an offer that she feels is an "affront to my independence." The novel is preoccupied with the instinctual nature of self-sabotage, and with the fulfillment that can come from defying ingrained impulses

—— NEW YORKER

Insightful romcom sparkles with real wit and wisdom

—— SUNDAY INDEPENDENT

Whip smart and really funny

—— BUSINESS POST

Scores big on giving readers an insight into the machinations of a TV writers-room

—— CRACK

Full of dazzling banter and sizzling chemistry

—— PEOPLE MAGAZINE

If you ever wanted a backstage pass to Saturday Night Live, this book is for you

—— GOOD MORNING AMERICA

Excellent

—— MAIL ON SUNDAY

Both a brilliant portrait of the comedy world and a witty grown-up love story. Lives up to its name

—— IRISH TIMES
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