If you're a girl, all that matters is that you are beautiful . . . The brilliant, bestselling first novel by Louise O'Neill, author of Asking for It

Freida and Isabel have been best friends their whole lives. Now, aged sixteen and in their final year at the School, they expect to be selected as companions - wives to wealthy and powerful men. The alternative - life as a concubine or chastity - is too horrible to contemplate. But as the intensity of the final year takes hold, the pressure to be perfect mounts. Isabel starts to self-destruct, putting her beauty - her only asset - in peril. And then into this sealed female environment the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride. Freida must fight for her future - even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known ...

Dark, gripping . . . should be mandatory reading everywhere