Reviews tagging 'Suicidal thoughts'

The Woman They Could Not Silence: one woman, her incredible fight for freedom, and the men who tried to make her disappear by Kate Moore

6 reviews

gondorgirl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Emotional abuse, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Body shaming, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

em23jjh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Torture

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

jhbandcats's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.25

This book was great. However, I really wanted to like it even more - I wanted to give it five stars. Ultimately I didn’t because occasionally it would devolve into histrionics. The story was so powerful that literary flourishes were unnecessary and distracting. 

That said, Wow. What a book. How is it that Elizabeth Packard is not a household name? She was extraordinary. Committed to an insane asylum because her husband found her outspokenness troublesome, she worked for three years to be freed, then worked the rest of her life to achieve equality for women, safety for mental patients, and the right of a mother to have custody of her children. 

The author relies on diaries, letters, newspapers, and trial transcripts. Everything she writes has been thoroughly researched. Her work here is exceptional. 

Having found Radium Girls equally important, I hope that Kate Moore continues to write. Her works are essential to understanding the history of the ordinary American in the late 18th - early 19th centuries. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Excrement, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Gaslighting, Abandonment, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

znvisser's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

3.5

This was an interesting, inspiring and infuriating story at the same time and I am thankful for Kate Moore for narrating it. I do love narrative nonfiction so I lost myself in this story very quickly, but unfortunately I did find out as quickly that the applied style of storytelling was actually not my cup of tea.

In one of the many tidbits after the actual story the author elaborates on how she intentionally added "reveals for dramatic purposes".  I wish she didn't, because those were my biggest annoyance about this book; the reveal method made me distrusting of her as a storyteller, ruining my reading experience at times. I don't mind myself a surprise or twist, but I do mind reading for tens of pages and made believe explicitly one way, only to be consequently patronized with a "the joke's on you because meanwhile everything else was different!" That's just a waste of words and there certainly are more elegant ways to achieve mystery or suspense. In fact in this case, I think the plot was entertaining enough in itself and didn't require the manipulation applied at all. 

Elizabeth was a very interesting character, both intellectually and socially, but I couldn't understand how those two things interacted. How did such a brilliant woman keep making the mistake of trusting the same villains again and again? Afterwards I'm still curious if that paradox was a narrative choice as well, or her actual character. Because I do believe Moore did her research elaborately, I may have to believe the latter. All in all, in between the manipulating I did enjoy reading this story and getting an insight in this piece of history I had no prior knowledge of. Radium Girls has also been on my radar, and I've seen reviewers with similar objections to this book appreciating that one nevertheless (but also some same complaints), so we'll see if I might still pick that up in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Forced institutionalization, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, Torture, and Excrement

Minor: Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

laurenkimoto's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

Elizabeth is a BAMF 
And we hate men

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Excrement, Dementia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, and Classism

carolynhm's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, and Gaslighting

Minor: Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, and Sexual harassment