Reviews tagging 'Deportation'

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win WWII by Sonia Purnell

5 reviews

kobooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Torture, Deportation, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Ableism and Genocide

junglejelly's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

After hearing vaguely about Virginia Hall, I was so glad to have found this book.

It's incredibly detailed with Hall's years in occupied France, sometimes a little too detailed.

Most of the writing is incredibly captivating and Purnell does well to weave in the emotions. Other times it's quite dry.

Overall, a good read and would definitely recommend.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Torture, Blood, Violence, Death, and Police brutality

Moderate: Drug abuse

Minor: Suicide, Cancer, Deportation, and Sexism

madamenovelist's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Sexism, Police brutality, Misogyny, Mass/school shootings, Lesbophobia, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Gun violence, Grief, Genocide, Excrement, Drug use, Deportation, Death, Death of parent, Cursing, Classism, Child death, Biphobia, Ableism, Xenophobia, Racism, War, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Chronic illness, Antisemitism, Sexual content, Rape, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Colonisation, Child abuse, Body horror, Blood, Sexual assault, Murder, Medical content, and Gore

Excellent book, but do not read if you’re in a bad headspace. Extremely open and frank about WWII atrocities in France, including critiques of the approach/strategy of Allied forces. It’s very jarring in the last chapter to have a pointedly neutral tone re: CIA & US military activity in the Middle East in more recent years, after no-punches-pulled attitude to all western powers including the US during WWII itself. This inconsistency is the only thing that prevented me from giving it 5 stars.

donatio's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

As all the praise from the newspapers already said: what this woman did was incredible and just thinking about all the things which weren't documented is crazy. This book definitely shone a different light on the Second World War and underground spy/guerilla organizations. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Antisemitism, Genocide, and Deportation

dukeofkel's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Blood, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: Violence, Xenophobia, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Antisemitism, Confinement, Death, Torture, Deportation, Drug use, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault