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Reviews tagging 'Murder'
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
100 reviews
jacs63's review
5.0
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.
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
greatexpectations77's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Classism
Moderate: Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, and Pregnancy
Minor: Child death and Blood
emilo's review
5.0
Graphic: Alcoholism and Sexism
Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
Minor: Slavery, Violence, Murder, and Sexual harassment
oceanwriter's review against another edition
4.0
Each section of the book discusses each woman: Polly, Annie, Elisabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane. We learn about their lives leading up to their murders rather than the murder themselves. Along with the story of their lives, the author provides a detailed history of life in England at the time.
I was initially surprised by the fact Jack the Ripper was hardly mentioned, but I think I ultimately enjoyed the book more because of it. It was incredibly insightful and put a lot of things in perspective. I will say that this was about 60% general history and 40% the five women. While interesting, this did cause the narration to drag at times. It’s worth wading through the slow bits. There is a lot to take in.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Murder, and Alcohol
Moderate: Child death, Domestic abuse, Infertility, and Miscarriage
Minor: Trafficking
pedanther's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Misogyny, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Suicide, Trafficking, Grief, Murder, and Pregnancy
Minor: Chronic illness, Mental illness, Rape, Terminal illness, Forced institutionalization, Antisemitism, Death of parent, and Abandonment
carlaah1984's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, and Murder
Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Gaslighting
A well-researched and engaging look at working-class women in victorian times, highly informative about the lives and realities of the victims and the humanizing storytelling they all deserved—great conclusion to tie into modernity.ange_reads18's review against another edition
Moderate: Sexual assault and Murder
staceyinthesticks's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Death
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Murder, and Pregnancy
Minor: Drug use and Death of parent
isleofwoman's review
4.0
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Sexism, and Murder
Minor: Trafficking
jesshindes's review
5.0
Rubenhold's book inverts that balance - she isn't interested in the Ripper, doesn't believe it's possible to identify him, and more fundamentally questions why we are so ghoulishly entertained by him in the first place. These are issues that are being addressed more frequently now since the boom in true crime podcasts etc and I think they're very applicable here - but what's more interesting is all the original research that underpins The Five, and the detailed portraits that Rubenhold is able to paint of each of its subjects.
One of the book's primary innovations is to show that only one of the women killed - Mary Jane Kelly - was a prostitute, in the sense of this being her primary occupation. Elizabeth Stride may have participated in sex work towards the end of her life and there's no evidence that any of the other three did so at all. It's not that there's anything wrong with being a sex worker but the fact that the murders are framed as targeting prostitutes when this is evidently inaccurate does show the degree to which these women have been sidelined in the story of their own deaths. Rather than being linked by prostutution, then, what Rubenhold shows is that all five women were linked by destitution and particularly insecure housing; four of the five were killed as they slept on the Whitechapel streets. The Five is therefore largely a series of stories about descending into poverty; falling from security, even the relative and contingent security of the working class, into a position where you might wake up each morning unsure of where you'd spend that night. The causes are so simple and so painful: the breakdown of domestic partnerships. Alcoholism. A lack of access to contraception. Disease. The loss of employment. Every one of these stories is different but the common factors are telling. Rubenhold shows you these women, illustrates their problems, and in doing so makes a wider point about how easy it was to drop out of the bottom of Victorian society - especially as a woman, whose labour was worth less than a man's and whose sexual virtue was treated as both more important and more fragile.
It's no secret that I am super interested in the Victorian period but I really loved this book and would recommend it to anybody interested in women's history but also working class history. As much as anything else, it shows you the importance of the welfare state that the government is presently doing its best to dismantle 🙃 We shouldn't forget these women or the thousands like them, eaten up and spat out by the hardships of the nineteenth century.
Moderate: Alcoholism, Child death, Terminal illness, and Murder