Thanks to a surfeit of alcohol and drugs, gorgeous, 18-year-old Emma can't remember what happened that Saturday night, but everyone else knows when photographs start appearing on the Internet showing her being sexually abused and humiliated by a group of her male friends. Yet try though she might, Emma still can't remember that evening. Nevertheless, the boys are charged with rape, and, as a result, Emma becomes a pariah in her small Irish hometown, her Facebook page filled with hate messages calling her slut, bitch, whore, and worse. Meanwhile, her case has become an international cause célèbre when it is made the subject of a popular radio program. As her family begins to break apart, Emma becomes ever more self-hating and self-blaming. The words "my fault" become a mantra for her. But is it her fault? Emma seems never to consider that question, insisting to herself, instead, that she has ruined the boys' lives. As her own life becomes increasingly bleak, the novel veers dangerously close to melodrama. Nevertheless, it is a powerful cautionary tale that will appeal to older teens as well as to adult readers.

Gr 10 Up-Emma O'Donovan is an 18-year-old living in a small Irish town. She's beautiful but all too aware of it and loves but is in constant competition with her best friends. But when she is raped by four popular "good" guys at a party, Emma becomes an object of rumor, hatred, and resistance. O'Neill's writing is ruthless in its exploration of rape culture but full of subtlety and understanding. A complex and essential look at how society so often treats and views survivors of rape.