Reviews tagging 'Blood'

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

53 reviews

aech's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Body horror, Infertility, Miscarriage, Blood, Grief, and Classism

badger_ti_robespierre's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Should be required reading 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

lovetlr's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Really enjoyed the human element of the radium girls

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Death of parent

reg_litbytes's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

3.5

 

 TLDR: An emotional take on true historical events focusing on the humanity of the victims while still being informative. Leans a bit into the fictional. Went on a little too long and felt repetitive. I zoned out a few times.

TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic descriptions of disease
 
 THE GOOD: I truly appreciate what the author is doing in this book - focusing on giving life to the women who suffered. The stories were laid out in a way that I felt how the suffering of each were all interconnected. I could feel the hopefulness, the grief, the helplessness, and the triumph of each victim that were given the spotlight. Lives and futures were ruined and I found myself getting mad and frustrated along with the victims. I wish I could look at pictures of each of them as they were being described - before and after the exposure. The goal of the author was to humanize the victims in contrast to how the other books covering the same topic has done - more scientific. So do take note that if you intend on reading this, it can often lean into the fictional. It does this by filling in some details that the author is unlikely to have known (ex. what the victims have been thinking and feeling apart from what they themselves have written). 

THE BAD:
It went on too long that I found myself, at times, zoning out. The epilogue was proof enough that this didn't have to be as long as it is. Or maybe… it was meant more to be read on print than on audiobook? It got repetitive but understandably so because the victims all went through, more or less, the same horrors. Unfortunately, halfway through, I just couldn't wait to find out how they were able to resolve the issues and the impact on society (which the epilogue was able to cover).
 
 THE NARRATION:
The narration was mostly fine but not something I would remember in the long term. I didn't feel comfortable speeding it up to more than 1.5x; but then again I don't usually speed up audiobooks.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, and Grief

torturedreadersdept's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

aestass's review against another edition

dark informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

This is a comprehensive, historical tale that follows the radium girls of New Jersey and Ohio with detail. However, due to the length of the narrative and difficulty differentiating between the different painters, as well as the various court cases, it's hard to really connect with the victims.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

will_meringue's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring

5.0

For all the dial-painters
And those who loved them

Before reading, I knew only the most basic things about the dial-painters: they glowed; they died. This book did what narrative non-fiction does best, opening up a topic I'd not really considered and making it speak across the past, present and future. It's a harrowing read - the descriptions of their deaths are brutally visceral, and I cried multiple times - but always clear-eyed, informative, emotional and empathetic. The cruelty shown by URSC, Radium Dial and other forces in the industry would be unthinkable if it wasn't all too common under capitalism.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Murder

nrogers_1030's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

5.0

It's appalling what happened to these poor women. I felt the book could have been shorter & the narration a bit less monotone, but I still enjoyed the book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

Minor: Domestic abuse and Abortion

Some of the pictures in the book are a bit gruesome.

gondorgirl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

miistical's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring sad medium-paced

4.75

For too long the women had waited for the truth. The scales, at last, were tipping against the company. The girls had been given a death sentence; yet they had also been given the tools to fight their cause—to fight for justice.

The diagnosis, Katherine Schaub now said, "gave me hope."

"The Radium Girls" is one of the most captivating novels (nonfiction and fiction) that I have ever read. While the first third - Knowledge - dragged on a bit, I devoured the next 300 pages in a 6 hour single sitting. Vindication and righteousness boiled in my blood; it was like a predator was searching for prey, hoping that the next page would spell out a slip for me to latch onto with my teeth.

I am not normally a fan of nonfiction, but Kate Moore's sympathetic and detailed language was perfect for envisioning each tragedy and justice the Radium Girls went through. On occasion, it did seem a bit too detailed—there are many descriptions of the face, body type, and personality of every person mentioned. However, it dawned on me that these were very much real people, not just names with a D next to them. That clear visual of these women and those who helped them reminded me that these were people who deserved to be seen, not just as letters on a page.

By the end, it did truly feel as if I were there with these poor women. I watched the court proceedings, sat in Catherine Donahue's living room, roamed Ottawa and Orange and New York. I despaired and cheered and, quite literally!, cried with them. This book is a monument to injustice in all its forms, and I highly encourage everyone to read it so that they may truly know hopelessness—and to hope anyway.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Infertility, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, and Grief