Her first novel, Only Ever Yours, was released in 2014 and won the Sunday Independent Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards, the Eilís Dillon Award for a First Book and the Bookseller's inaugural YA Book Prize.

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. I think this is what makes Idol work so well for me: O’Neill spends time exploring the different angles of what it means to be a flawed social media influencer, encompassing the perspectives of Sam herself, her manager, this antagonist, Lisa, her mother, etc. Louise's first novel for adults, Almost Love, was published in 2018, followed shortly by The Surface Breaks, her feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid.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. Using flashbacks, her friendship with Lisa is portrayed through Samantha’s eyes with a sense of foreboding, a sense that something is amiss. Louise’s first novel for adults, Almost Love, was published in 2018, followed shortly by The Surface Breaks, her feminist re-imagining of The Little Mermaid. I read Asking For It by Louise O’Neill many years ago (in my School Librarian days) and still think about it.

Well, I dare say if you plonk yourself at the top of a brand success pedestal at some point you’ll fall off. I've lived in this city long enough to know that the only thing these people can't forgive is poverty. Her second novel for adults, After the Silence, was published in 2020 and was an instant bestseller in Ireland. Her obvious and violent struggles with her mental illnesses are used for shock value and to make her an abuser who doesn't know she is one. I caught on early to the true nature of our protagonist, though I don't know if that's down to the writing, or me having spent a few years behind the curtain in YouTube event green rooms.I also enjoy some contemporary fiction, literary fiction and romance with a smattering of non-fiction.