Idolatry

by Mary O'Connor

Clare Nolan is art. A masterpiece of her own making; clever, charming, funny, and beautiful. At seventeen, Clare’s life is exactly how she’s always wanted it to be. She’s learned how to breeze through it, flask in hand, doing everything she wants to do and nothing that she doesn’t. She has a close-knit group of friends and an endless stream of male adulation. She is the girl in every song, every movie, every poem ever written by a man. But this is Clare’s story, told by Clare herself, and not some boy using all the wrong words.

Then there’s the story that Clare can’t narrate. Steeped in the film, literary, and television influences from which she has molded her personality, Clare may be irresistibly charming and magnetic, but she is also deeply, sometimes unforgivably, flawed. An arrogant, self-aggrandizing, deeply broken child, who loves her little “found family” deeply, loyally, but with an aching desperation sure to leave marks. The reality of her world is frequently messier, more complicated, more dangerous, and more painful than Clare is willing to own.

Idolatry is an intensely chaotic love story. Between Clare and an unlikely boy, between Clare and her friends, and, above all else, between Clare and herself.

441 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 30, 2025

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Idolatry is a beautifully chaotic exploration of adolescence, identity, and emotional intensity. Mary O'Connor's writing captures the urgency of being a teenage girl trying to define herself while dealing with family dysfunction, religious repression, and the importance of friendship and first loves.

Clare is magnetic, manipulative, vulnerable and painfully relatable. Her journey through love, loss, and self-discovery is layered, raw, honest, and at times humorous. The author doesn’t shy away from depicting Clare’s worst impulses but instead lets her be as complicated and contradictory as real people are.

Idolatry captures the internal tug-of-war between craving attention and rejecting it, between romanticizing life and running from reality. The journey of being broken down only to rebuild yourself is as heartbreaking as it is cathartic.

A resonant portrayal of the messiness of girlhood, the book leaves you with a sense of bruised affection—for Clare, and for your own younger self.

[Jill Spinelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clare’s story is one we don’t hear often enough. Coming of age as a young woman in the modern world. Female sexual awakening, finding and losing a first love, making and losing the idea of yourself… an homage to teenage girls who break the rules and forge their own path. This isn’t just a woman written by a woman- it’s a full spectrum of the arc from girlhood to womanhood written from and in the perspective of feminine energy. I loved every moment of this read and wish something like it had existed when I was younger.