Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'
The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, by Kate Moore
11 reviews
alexisgarcia's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Misogyny, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Sexism, Cancer, Gaslighting, Gore, Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Terminal illness, Pregnancy, Infertility, Medical trauma, Blood, and Grief
raneyak's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Death, Gaslighting, Medical content, Medical trauma, Body horror, Cancer, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Pregnancy
fraise's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Ableism, Gaslighting, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Death of parent, Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Grief, Injury/injury detail, and Medical content
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Infertility, Miscarriage, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Pregnancy
Minor: Abortion
stellarheroics's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Medical content, Blood, Grief, Infertility, Gore, Miscarriage, Cancer, Gaslighting, Death, Misogyny, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Death of parent and Pregnancy
Minor: Domestic abuse and Child death
bad_bookworm_h's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Injury/injury detail, Medical trauma, Classism, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Gaslighting, Gore, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Miscarriage, and Misogyny
Minor: Abortion
kaiabolland's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Medical content, Terminal illness, and Death
Minor: Misogyny, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy
corriejn's review against another edition
3.5
This written accounting of that story: ....oh, no.
I can only imagine that the driver of this book's popularity is readers who hadn't before encountered this historical event and were just eager to learn about it, rather than readers actually finding this to be competent, let alone skilled or compelling, writing about said history.
The writing is stilted, like a decent high school report listing off a sequence of poorly-connected chronological details found through research, with just the *very* most awkward incorporation of quotes from historical sources. Very occasionally, this is interspersed by a brief sentence or two of quite flowery and sentimental prose that the author seemed wanting to include. For the most part, though, it's a dry recounting of chronological tidbits, in very dear need of a competent and assertive editor.
There are also a number of issues with how the material is presented, ranging from astonishingly incompetent to downright creepy.
For instance, the author heavily focuses on descriptions of each girl's/woman's physical attractiveness (and not just in context for describing the later effects of their illnesses). E.g., at one point there is mention of how a doctor "examined her elegant body," apropos of nothing other than said creepy fixation on describing the conventional/physical attractiveness of the young women in question.
There are also a number of instances of use of troublingly ableist language (not as a part of historical quotes, but in the author's writings), such as (hidden as spoilers in case you don't wish to view them)
Spoiler
describing the "crippled" women and, at another point, description of a woman who had difficulty speaking due to her injuries being "dumbly" present during a described situation.Regarding the astonishing incompetence, the author at one point stresses how very fraudulent it was for Dr. Frederick Flinn to not actually be an M.D.-- which may be a valid thing to point out, if he'd in fact represented himself as a medical doctor/allowed such confusion to continue-- but by stating "his degree was in philosophy. He was... a fraud of frauds." LOL... what? See the first part, it's valid to point out the misrepresentation, but a **PhD** is not a "degree in philosophy" 😂 (It took me all of 10 seconds of googling to ascertain that he had a PhD in industrial hygiene-- he WAS indeed a Dr.! Is the author genuinely unaware that PhDs exist, and that to represent them as "a degree in philosophy!" is at least a wildly fraudulent??)
The author also at one point described a man as having an "Irish temper" 😶😬
(Brb, changing my rating from 3.75 to 3.5, because after writing all that out, it is truly baffling to me how this book ever ended up published.)
It's really a bummer, since generally when someone writes a book on a historical situation (that is very worth being told) that is popularly and well received, it kind of shuts the door to others attempting to write books on the same topic. This is a topic, however, that deserves greatly more competent handling than Moore has given it here. What a shame.
Graphic: Gaslighting, Injury/injury detail, Blood, Chronic illness, Gore, Death, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Medical trauma, Infertility, Pregnancy, Ableism, Miscarriage, and Medical content
Minor: Domestic abuse
litalia's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Blood, Medical trauma, Terminal illness, Death, Injury/injury detail, Misogyny, Medical content, and Classism
Moderate: Cancer, Grief, and Infertility
Minor: Abortion, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy
If you're one of the people with nightmares about all your teeth randomly falling out...maybe avoid this one.handful_of_frogs's review against another edition
4.0
Moderate: Chronic illness, Death, Infertility, Injury/injury detail, Terminal illness, Gore, Body horror, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Blood, Medical content, Vomit, and Medical trauma
mandi4886's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Abortion, Alcohol, Animal death, Infertility, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War