Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

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

18 reviews

eve81's review

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Content Warnings

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

tiernanhunter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Violence, Abandonment, Abortion, Child abuse, Child death, Infertility, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Trafficking, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, War, Classism, Death, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Sexual harassment, Blood, Grief, Infidelity, Addiction, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Terminal illness, and Mental illness

greatexpectations77's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

4.25

I really appreciate how intensively this was researched, and I think it's a really important idea. I could definitely see revisiting this and reading it again in small pieces. It tells such an interesting story about just women in general during this time period in England, and I think it's fascinating how so many ideas that were standard then are still hanging on today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Addiction, Alcohol, Abandonment, Classism, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Death, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Domestic abuse, Murder, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Sexual content, and Sexual violence

Minor: Blood and Child death

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

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Incest

saida_mc's review against another edition

dark informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Abandonment, Classism, Physical abuse, and Misogyny

pedanther's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Classism

Moderate: Murder, Alcoholism, Suicide, Child death, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Trafficking, Physical abuse, Grief, and Infidelity

Minor: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Antisemitism, Mental illness, Abandonment, Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Terminal illness

crabbytaco's review against another edition

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Abandonment

Moderate: Murder and Child death

shelbyslifer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.75

This has to be the best book to date on this case that has transfixed the world for over a century. Instead of information on the crimes that are infamous by now, Rubenhold instead focuses on the LIFE of these women and bringing them the humanity that they deserve. These women deserve the truth to their stories; not just for their tragic ends to be gawked at and Rubenhold highlights this PERFECTLY. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism

Moderate: Abandonment, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Murder, Sexism, Child death, Classism, Death, Misogyny, Child abuse, Addiction, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Antisemitism and Trafficking

revived_reading's review

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

The way Hallie Rubenhold writes, you can feel every single emotion she tries to convey. From dread to a bit of hope to powerless. 

This book opens your eyes not only to the lives of these 5 women, but to the lives of many, many women in the Victorian era. 

Hallie Rubenhold truly gave back these women their stories and their lives. She gave them the respect they were never given. She gave them justice. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Grief, Medical content, Pregnancy, and Abandonment

Moderate: Terminal illness, Suicide, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Infidelity, Child death, and Domestic abuse

lavenderlilacs1912's review

informative sad tense fast-paced

4.75

A new, refreshing look into the Jack the Ripper case, one that doesn't focus on the elusive, and still unidentified killer, but on his victims and their stories. Indeed, the author doesn't even focus or even mention the grisly details of their murders, but on their lives and the circumstances that led them to the now infamous Whitechapel district. The care and respect she shows for Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine "Kate" Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly gives them back their dignity and their humanity with all their strengths and weaknesses and I felt for them in a way no other account of the Ripper murders ever inspired. 

Central to Rubenhold's book is the argument that the cultural depictions of these five murdered women as "prostitutes" is mistaken and even downright false. Indeed, she argues that of the five women, only two were had ever conclusively engaged in prostitution. Throughout the book, she paints portraits of women who struggled with abuse, addiction, illness, and above all poverty. That poverty, and it's resulting homelessness led to their misclassifications, because in the morally unforgiving and strict Victorian era, the police, media, and the mostly middle to upper class public they catered to could not possibly have conceived them to be anything else. 

It's a compelling argument. I'm inclined to agree with it, although I would have liked to see a better organization of the book's thesis. Above all, it's a moving and sad account of the lives of Mary Ann, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane; daughters, wives, mothers, friends, and above all human beings, who did not deserve to be murdered regardless of their circumstances. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Addiction, Alcoholism, Abandonment, and Death

Minor: Trafficking