Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

98 reviews

megfly's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

A steady and comprehensive examination of the Troubles by those who lived it told from multiple perspectives including the civilian victims and members of the provisional IRA. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder, Gun violence, Violence, and War

Moderate: Religious bigotry

Minor: Sexual violence

etbliss's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Torture, and Murder

Moderate: Child abuse and Eating disorder

curlywiggles's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense

5.0

This is a brilliant piece of narrative non fiction. It's well researched and well written. It uses the 'disappearance' of Jean McConville as a framing device to tell a wider picture of the Provos involvement during The Troubles. It you are looking for more on the loyalists or on Britain's involvement, then you'd need to do some wider reading. 

The book also delves into the Belfast Project, or the Boston Tapes which is fascinating.

In the beginning it takes a while to get your head around the different 'chatacters' and the book moves back and forth in time, but you get to grips with it so bear with it. 

This was a real eye opener, and really interesting. But very dark. I needed to take breaks from it and I'd recommend checking the content warnings. Having said that, I still read it in a week as it does read like a thriller. 

I appreciated that the narrator was Northern Irish, and for the most part he's very good. But in the later part of the book he starts taking weird pauses. Not for effect, but in the middle of sentences. It's a bit random and distracting. 

I know this is a 5 start read for me as I keep thinking about it and wanting to talk about it with people. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Torture, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Murder, and War

Moderate: Addiction, Drug abuse, and Death of parent

Minor: Child abuse and Mental illness

tiff__dawg's review against another edition

dark emotional informative mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

katrinaburch's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

4.5

This book is one that should be on anyone's list who has an interest in the Troubles. It is well researched and well written. I was a teenager when the Good Friday Agreement was signed and while I knew a little at the point that was going on, I have since learned more through books like Edward Rutherfurd's Dublin and Morgan Llywellen's The Irish Century series. But those are both fiction, this is narrative non-fiction. Yes, the author does state that it doesn't begin to cover all that is needed to know about one of the most complex conflicts in the world, but it's a start. 

I did have to knock it down a star for the author not using footnotes and ONLY using endnotes. As a historian, this drives me nuts. Endnotes are for your sources, footnotes are for extra information!

Overall, it's a very good book and should be read. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Religious bigotry, Murder, Gaslighting, and Classism

Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicide, Torture, Excrement, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

emmapaigereads's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence and Violence

sporadic_user's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

4.0

A powerful book about awful acts of violence, in a seemingly unending cycle of retribution. Keefe masterfully conveys the inner worlds and fierce beliefs of a suprisingly small cast actors in the troubles, illustrating the many changes throughout it's beginnings, height and end.

For those normally turned off by acciuntings of history, Keefes writing style will be a welcome, gripping narrative rendition of events.

In particular, the inner motivations of the depicted are so well articulated that it can become hard hold on to an objective view oneself. Much like these real people, you can get caught up in their personal views and their cycles of violence. You can get insight into how the peace process could be reviled by the very people who wanted to stop fighting themselves. You might even find yourself condemning the very people who ended the conflict, only to realize that this exact thinking is what kept the conflict alive.

This book can be hard to read because of its subject matter, but it thoroughly demystifies the origins, staying power and legacy of the troubles.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, War, and Classism

Moderate: Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicide, Forced institutionalization, and Suicide attempt

chomiczeq's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

The book is fantastic, for me it is the perfect nonfiction – absorbing, detailed, nuanced, and based on solid, reliable sources. You can see the author's enormous work to recreate the events as best as possible, present key figures, their motives, stories, often difficult to understand actions and moral dilemmas. Another advantage of the book is its extensive bibliography and 100 pages of footnotes, which are really worth looking at, because the author adds many additional things there.

For me, the last part of the book, devoted to the issue of settling with the past and remembering these events, was particularly interesting. How key activists – Brendan Hughes, Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Adams and others – referred to their actions after many years – or how they denied them, how they were affected by the crimes they committed, the hunger strikes they went on, their participation in planning attacks or kidnappings. Also how the families of victims, such as the aforementioned McConville children, dealt with the past. The author based his work on interviews, archives and recordings of interviews with participants in the conflict, and collaborated with researchers and journalists. The result is a reliable, nuanced and multidimensional work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, and War

sunflower_13's review against another edition

challenging dark informative medium-paced

4.75

Great narrator and even better storytelling of true events. I think this is a book I’ll read the physical version as well as there apparently are several notes which aren’t included in the audiobook.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Eating disorder, Gun violence, Torture, Violence, Death of parent, and Murder

Minor: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Rape, and Suicide

akswhy's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense slow-paced

3.5

A wildly comprehensive book on a notoriously difficult to tackle subject. I learned TONS, but I think the book was too long. It could have been trimmed down. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Colonisation, and War

Moderate: Eating disorder and Misogyny

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Rape, Dementia, and Alcohol