Reviews tagging 'Gore'

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

6 reviews

misskatya13's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, Gore, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Violence, Blood, Trafficking, Medical trauma, Murder, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

bookshelfhannah's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, and Classism

siobhanward's review against another edition

dark informative medium-paced

4.0

I had this on my TBR years ago and then dropped it because I didn't like the writing style. I remember there being a lot more conversations in the book (i.e. "so and so woke up and said x to her mother"), but that was not something in the book at all. Everything was either cited from primary sources (either specific to the women or general for the time), or was posed as a hypothetical ("she likely..." or "it's possible.."), so I have no idea what I was thinking?

Anyway, I'm glad I wound up trying this again because it was a great and informative read. I loved how Rubenhold told the women's stories, focusing on their lives rather than their deaths. It was a new angle for the Jack the Ripper story and it was well done. I'm really glad I didn't miss out on this one in the end!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Miscarriage, Violence, and Murder

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, and Gore

Minor: Death of parent

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

vixenreader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

It is good to see the victims of Jack the Ripper as human beings instead of faceless statistics to be gawked at. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body shaming, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Murder, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Gun violence, Infidelity, Rape, Forced institutionalization, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Gore, Racism, and Xenophobia

There is a lot of talk about the abuse within the workhouses and dissolving of familial dynamics.

erinjulia's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Violence