Reviews tagging 'Violence'

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

124 reviews

kbratty's review against another edition

dark informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence and Murder

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. 

---

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

kys831's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Violence, and War

ellayeeles's review against another edition

challenging dark informative fast-paced

4.5

Reads like fiction, the way the author finds the human story within the the Troubles is fantastic and makes for a fast paced and informative read. I loved every bit and recommend it to people who want to find out more about Ireland in the 20th century.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Kidnapping, Death of parent, and Murder

emmapaigereads's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

4.0

---

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.

---

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.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Suicide, Violence, and War

lizzi_thebooksquid's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective fast-paced

5.0

Through gripping narrative this book exposes the neglect of our history curriculum. Readers will be skillfully taken through the Troubles, the major events that made and contributed to the conflict and the lives that were irreperably changed. If you lived through this period or were born after it, everyone in the UK should read this.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Violence and War

Minor: Torture

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.

---

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. 

---

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