booktravler101's review against another edition
4.0
Biography about the victims of Jack the Ripper. A great view in to the lives of the women who’s crime of being a women in the 1880, made for easy victims.
codykung021023's review against another edition
5.0
One of the best books I've ever read that focuses entirely on the victims of Jack the Ripper instead of the killer itself. In fact, it is often the case that serial killers are the subject of focus but rarely are the victims, especially for a serial killer whose identity was never discovered. This is a powerful book filled with extensive research that brings the focus back to the status of these women during the Victorian times, to stress that they are not "just prostitutes" as people often depict them as. At the same time it is a heavy book filled with the sense of aches when recounting these women's lives. Each of them has a distinct story to tell and it's great to finally have a book that helps to restore these women's dignity. At the end of the day, they are humans and they should be presented and remembered in their true self instead of some false depiction just to satisfy people's crave for legend and myth.
sadiereadsagain's review against another edition
5.0
We all know who Jack the Ripper is, we all know what he did. Though no one knows his true identity, he is possibly the most well known figure from the Victorian era after the monarch herself. But most of us couldn't name all his victims, and likely the only thing we know about them were that they were prostitutes. I'm ashamed to say that I grew up knowing about the Ripper, was for a time quite fascinated after learning about him at the London Dungeons. But of his victims, beyond their horrible death-mask mugshots, I knew nothing. Except, obviously, that they were prostitutes.
In this book, Hallie Rubenhold does something that has been far too long in coming - she gives these women back their stories, their humanity and their voices. In the process, she also dispels the most common known "fact" banded about - very few of these women had ever sold themselves for sex, and it's likely that even the one or two who had were not soliciting when they were picked out by an absolute coward to be killed in the most horrendous ways. I am aware that whether they were selling sex or not has no bearing on how we should view their deaths, but the fact is that for many people, particularly the ones responsible with solving the Ripper case, the fact they were viewed as prostitutes shaped the effort and direction of the attempts to get justice for these women, and allowed countless people to judge and exploit these women for over one hundred years.
As Rubenhold walks us through each of these women's histories one at a time, we finally see them in full colour. We learn about the struggles they had clawed through, the heartaches that had crushed them, and the awful conditions in which they found themselves, only to be further abused and stripped of their dignity after having their lives stolen. Rubenhold does not discuss the Ripper, and she doesn't exploit the details of how these women died. This book is purely about five women who had done all they could to survive, until they couldn't.
I thought this book was incredible. Yes, it's worthy in its aim, but that isn't the only thing that makes this readable and important. A lot of assumptions and projections are made in drawing together these stories, but that is more effort than has ever been granted to these women. This book is a fascinating dive into the realities of life for working class women in Victorian England, and the ways in which even middle class lives could easily slip under the mantle of respectability to quickly tumble into the gutter. No two women had followed the same path to the dirty, dark streets of Whitechapel, but what unites them are the toxic combination of poverty, the limited scope granted to women, the poor sanitation and living conditions, and the welcoming arms of cheap alcohol. These women had such difficult lives, yet did what they could to get by. That they were killed so horrifically and then exploited for the juicy details for well over 100 years before someone thought to write their truth is incredibly sad. I'm thankful that Rubenhold decided to write this. And thankful that it was Rubenhold, with her flowing writing and sensitivity towards these women that wrote it, and not someone perpetuating their exploitation.
In this book, Hallie Rubenhold does something that has been far too long in coming - she gives these women back their stories, their humanity and their voices. In the process, she also dispels the most common known "fact" banded about - very few of these women had ever sold themselves for sex, and it's likely that even the one or two who had were not soliciting when they were picked out by an absolute coward to be killed in the most horrendous ways. I am aware that whether they were selling sex or not has no bearing on how we should view their deaths, but the fact is that for many people, particularly the ones responsible with solving the Ripper case, the fact they were viewed as prostitutes shaped the effort and direction of the attempts to get justice for these women, and allowed countless people to judge and exploit these women for over one hundred years.
As Rubenhold walks us through each of these women's histories one at a time, we finally see them in full colour. We learn about the struggles they had clawed through, the heartaches that had crushed them, and the awful conditions in which they found themselves, only to be further abused and stripped of their dignity after having their lives stolen. Rubenhold does not discuss the Ripper, and she doesn't exploit the details of how these women died. This book is purely about five women who had done all they could to survive, until they couldn't.
I thought this book was incredible. Yes, it's worthy in its aim, but that isn't the only thing that makes this readable and important. A lot of assumptions and projections are made in drawing together these stories, but that is more effort than has ever been granted to these women. This book is a fascinating dive into the realities of life for working class women in Victorian England, and the ways in which even middle class lives could easily slip under the mantle of respectability to quickly tumble into the gutter. No two women had followed the same path to the dirty, dark streets of Whitechapel, but what unites them are the toxic combination of poverty, the limited scope granted to women, the poor sanitation and living conditions, and the welcoming arms of cheap alcohol. These women had such difficult lives, yet did what they could to get by. That they were killed so horrifically and then exploited for the juicy details for well over 100 years before someone thought to write their truth is incredibly sad. I'm thankful that Rubenhold decided to write this. And thankful that it was Rubenhold, with her flowing writing and sensitivity towards these women that wrote it, and not someone perpetuating their exploitation.
a_n_n's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
A brilliant examination of the lives of the women killed by “Jack the Ripper”. I loved the focus and detail each woman was given.
adele_88's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
andrew_russell's review against another edition
2.0
The Five by Hallie Rubenhold is hard to dislike and even harder to dismiss. The strapline says it all - 'The Untold Story of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper'. And that really is the central, core purpose behind why I read this book. It offers a story that steers clear of the sensationalised musings on who the killer may or may not be, as well as the grisly details of the murders themselves. Instead, Rubenhold homes in on the individuals who lost their lives at the hands of the man who, let's face it, was a twisted and psychopathic murderer.
In doing so, the author provides us with five potted mini-biographies. On the whole these are appropriately detailed. The loves, losses, fears, relationships and financial hardships of the five women are all laid out and it's difficult not to feel a twinge of sorrow at the fact that after leading such difficult lives, they were murdered in such undignified circumstances. This is a credit to Rubenhold's authorial abilities.
On the other hand however, it's similarly hard not to feel that her work would have stood up much more strongly if it consisted simply of the unadorned stories of the women themselves. But rather than adopting this approach, Rubenhold makes no effort to hide the fact that this is a book with an agenda. And the agenda is feminism. On numerous occasions, I really felt that she was using a sledgehammer to crack a vulnerable and softened nut. It almost goes without saying that these women were unfortunate. As were an awful, awful, awful lot of people in the Victorian age, particularly those who belonged to vulnerable groups within society. Children, the disabled, the unemployed (male or female) and the vast tract of society that constituted the poor, the hard-up, the plebs, the have-nots, call them what you will but yes, those people who simply could not make ends meet (again, male or female).
Rubenhold, in the final pages of her book, goes into full-on 'preacher-mode' and swings that sledgehammer about her head like nobody's business. In one memorable statement, she states that the five victims of Jack The Ripper were condemned from birth. Hmmm....whether you are a historian or not, it isn't hard to see the lack of veracity in that statement. Several of them were drunks (a fact Rubenhold blames almost entirely on men) and more than one had previously held a far higher station in life than that held at the time of their murder. The means by which they descended into poverty is usually somewhat sketchy. Rubenhold fills the gaps in by blaming it on men.
It would be unfair of me to say that this was the defining quality of the book. The picture it paints of Victorian London, as well as those finer details of the kind of hardships faced by each of the five women, are excellent. My frustration really stems from the fact that this could have been so much more appealing....to anyone. A simple unadorned story of the five women in question. Their story. With Rubenhold's 'sledgehammer to a nut' approach, not only are the historical credentials of the book immediately called into question but it also feels as though the stories of the women themselves is diminished just a little. To understate matters, this was a bit of a shame really.
In doing so, the author provides us with five potted mini-biographies. On the whole these are appropriately detailed. The loves, losses, fears, relationships and financial hardships of the five women are all laid out and it's difficult not to feel a twinge of sorrow at the fact that after leading such difficult lives, they were murdered in such undignified circumstances. This is a credit to Rubenhold's authorial abilities.
On the other hand however, it's similarly hard not to feel that her work would have stood up much more strongly if it consisted simply of the unadorned stories of the women themselves. But rather than adopting this approach, Rubenhold makes no effort to hide the fact that this is a book with an agenda. And the agenda is feminism. On numerous occasions, I really felt that she was using a sledgehammer to crack a vulnerable and softened nut. It almost goes without saying that these women were unfortunate. As were an awful, awful, awful lot of people in the Victorian age, particularly those who belonged to vulnerable groups within society. Children, the disabled, the unemployed (male or female) and the vast tract of society that constituted the poor, the hard-up, the plebs, the have-nots, call them what you will but yes, those people who simply could not make ends meet (again, male or female).
Rubenhold, in the final pages of her book, goes into full-on 'preacher-mode' and swings that sledgehammer about her head like nobody's business. In one memorable statement, she states that the five victims of Jack The Ripper were condemned from birth. Hmmm....whether you are a historian or not, it isn't hard to see the lack of veracity in that statement. Several of them were drunks (a fact Rubenhold blames almost entirely on men) and more than one had previously held a far higher station in life than that held at the time of their murder. The means by which they descended into poverty is usually somewhat sketchy. Rubenhold fills the gaps in by blaming it on men.
It would be unfair of me to say that this was the defining quality of the book. The picture it paints of Victorian London, as well as those finer details of the kind of hardships faced by each of the five women, are excellent. My frustration really stems from the fact that this could have been so much more appealing....to anyone. A simple unadorned story of the five women in question. Their story. With Rubenhold's 'sledgehammer to a nut' approach, not only are the historical credentials of the book immediately called into question but it also feels as though the stories of the women themselves is diminished just a little. To understate matters, this was a bit of a shame really.