Reviews tagging 'Pandemic/Epidemic'

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

4 reviews

thinkingcatss's review

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Classism, and Pandemic/Epidemic

eve81's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Infidelity, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Murder, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Pandemic/Epidemic

jacs63's review

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This is a stunning book for so many reasons. 
It gives a face, a name and a voice, to the 5 victims of JtR. 
We so often only hear about the perpetrator, and not the victims. 
The book discusses the fact that thru the falsehood and misinformation spread by the Metropolitan Police and journalists at the time, it was convenient for us all to think that JtR only killed prostitutes. 
Only 2 of the 5 were actually known to be sex workers. 
There is no evidence that the other 3 were sex workers at all, but I for one believed the misinformation that was spread. 
One thing that all 5 women shared was that they are all alcoholics. 
I wonder why?? 
Maybe because cheap alcohol was the only thing that dulled the pain, if only for a while, of the poverty; the hunger; the homelessness; the early death of family members, including their own spouses or their own babies/ children; the death sentence that they were given if their spouse died and left them, and their children, destitute; their treatment as a woman with no legal rights; the living hell that was the 'Workhouse'; the lack of education for woman; the disease; the filth and vermin; the lack of medicines; the lack of clean water and sanitation; the violence; the lack of hope, respect and dignity etc etc etc. 
Basically the treatment of women/girls in the 1800's. 

It's full of interesting and informative historical facts about what life, and death, was like, for women in particular, in the Victorian 1800's. 

It's sad and horrific and devastating. It's a book that won't leave me for a while, I don't think. 
Probably not a book to read if you are depressed or feeling melancholic.

We will never know who JtR was. 
But we can know who his victims were. 
These women were daughters; sisters; wives; lovers; mothers; friends. 
May they never be forgotten. 
RIP and love, Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate and Mary Jane.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Pandemic/Epidemic

librarymouse's review against another edition

challenging informative sad medium-paced

4.5

This is a sincere and well-researched account of the lives of the five women killed by Jack the ripper. Hallie Rubenhold ensures their legacies with her diligent research and her focus on the lives of the women, over their gruesome and mythologized deaths. In contextualizing the sexual climate of the Victorian era, Rubenhold offers a vivid image of the nuanced worlds these women lived in, often so different from the straight laced Victorian England canonized today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Police brutality, Dementia, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Pandemic/Epidemic

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Incest