ONLY EVER YOURS by Louise O’Neill

Welcome to the Future!

The girls, called eves, are designed in a laboratory.
“Genetic Engineers were forced to create women to ensure the survival of the human race.
And since they had the opportunity, it would have been foolish not to make necessary improvements in the new women, the eves.”

The eves study how to do their make-up and do not get fat. They are encouraged to compete with one another.
“All eves are created to be perfect but, over time, they seem to develop flaws.
Comparing yourself to your sisters is a useful way of identifying these flaws, but you must then take the necessary steps to improve yourself.
There is always room for Improvement.”

There are pills for losing weight (called kcal blockers), there are pills for beauty (called BeautyTabs = Vita, Zinc, Mag, Aloe, Flax, Chlorophyll, Q10, Multi-Omegas, Lipoic, Carnosine, Acetyl-L-Carnitine Arginate, COX-2 and 5-LOC and DHEA).

During school, the eves watch celebrities’ gossip shows, and they upload their photos on MyFace according to the standard rules:
“1.Turn partially to the camera, one foot in front of the other.
 2. Weight on the back foot.
 3. Left hand on hip.
 4. Dazzling smile.”

If the eves do not behave, they are not allowed to use MyFace, make-up, or hairdressing. This punishment is ferocious for the eves:
“The need to record my life is as fundamental as my need to breathe.
Without MyFace, I’m floating. I have nothing to anchor me down, to prove I exist.”

No eve knows what math is.

The president from the future, called Father of the Euro-Zone, is the one speaking to the eves that graduates the school at sixteen years old:
“Once again it is time to give my Public Address to the eves of final year. 
I must impress upon all of you how crucial the coming months are to your future. This is the decisive moment, the moment you have spent the last sixteen years preparing for.
It is time for you to make a contribution to the society that has created each of you, whether it be as a companion or a concubine.
Or a chastity of course. You must all play your equal part.
Remember, you may be perfectly designed, but there is always room for Improvement.”

(companion = naște băieți)
(concubine)
(chastity = devin profesoare)

The boys from the future, called Inheritants, have the right to choose one companion (she is the one giving him boys) and many concubines (the sexual education lessons are different for the concubine from the ones for the companion):
“The Inheritants will choose their favourite eve to become their companion. This will depend on how attractive you look to the Inheritants and how you perform in certain challenges and tests that will be set for you.
The men must have the right to choose. It is their future that is at stake.”

If you did good and gave birth to many boys (Future Inheritants), you can get an entire aesthetic operation:
“As a companion you’d get an Age Re-design. You might be forty, but you would only look twenty.”

But when they reach the age of forty years old, all companions are replaced with new sixteen years old eves.

Kindle, 2022