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torturedreadersdept's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Medical content, Murder, Chronic illness, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Terminal illness, Body horror, Cancer, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Ableism, Blood, and Infertility
nrogers_1030's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent, Grief, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Ableism, Infertility, Pregnancy, and Miscarriage
Minor: Abortion and Domestic abuse
Some of the pictures in the book are a bit gruesome.gondorgirl's review against another edition
5.0
Moderate: Infertility, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Cancer, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Gore, Ableism, Medical content, Terminal illness, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, and Death
diannaphantomfiction's review against another edition
4.75
Otherwise, it has been a long time since I read a story that made me feel all the emotions possible, from disgust to hope. This was an absolutely wonderful read.
Graphic: Medical trauma, Chronic illness, Ableism, Death, Classism, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Sexism, Body horror, and Cancer
Moderate: Infertility, Body horror, Gore, and Miscarriage
Minor: Domestic abuse
This is all true, so it will feel fairly heavy at times, but all of this present, sometimes in graphic detaildanimacuk's review against another edition
3.25
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Chronic illness, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Ableism, Death, Medical content, Misogyny, and Sexism
fraise's review against another edition
3.75
Graphic: Ableism, Gaslighting, Gore, Terminal illness, Blood, Death of parent, Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Classism, Death, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Medical content
Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Infertility, Miscarriage, Child death, Domestic abuse, and Pregnancy
Minor: Abortion
cadence99's review against another edition
3.5
Graphic: Gore, Medical content, Ableism, and Medical trauma
valereads's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Cancer, Medical content, Terminal illness, Ableism, and Death
Moderate: Chronic illness, Infertility, Miscarriage, Grief, Sexism, Gaslighting, Death of parent, and Misogyny
Minor: War
corriejn's review against another edition
3.0
This written accounting of that story: ....oh, no.
I can only imagine that the driver of this book's popularity is readers who hadn't before encountered this historical event and were just eager to learn about it, rather than readers actually finding this to be competent, let alone skilled or compelling, writing about said history.
The writing is stilted, like a decent high school report listing off a sequence of poorly-connected chronological details found through research, with just the *very* most awkward incorporation of quotes from historical sources. Very occasionally, this is interspersed by a brief sentence or two of quite flowery and sentimental prose that the author seemed wanting to include. For the most part, though, it's a dry recounting of chronological tidbits, in very dear need of a competent and assertive editor.
There are also a number of issues with how the material is presented, ranging from astonishingly incompetent to downright creepy.
For instance, the author heavily focuses on descriptions of each girl's/woman's physical attractiveness (and not just in context for describing the later effects of their illnesses). E.g., at one point there is mention of how a doctor "examined her elegant body," apropos of nothing other than said creepy fixation on describing the conventional/physical attractiveness of the young women in question.
There are also a number of instances of use of troublingly ableist language (not as a part of historical quotes, but in the author's writings), such as (hidden as spoilers in case you don't wish to view them)
Regarding the astonishing incompetence, the author at one point stresses how very fraudulent it was for Dr. Frederick Flinn to not actually be an M.D.-- which may be a valid thing to point out, if he'd in fact represented himself as a medical doctor/allowed such confusion to continue-- but by stating "his degree was in philosophy. He was... a fraud of frauds." LOL... what? See the first part, it's valid to point out the misrepresentation, but a **PhD** is not a "degree in philosophy" π (It took me all of 10 seconds of googling to ascertain that he had a PhD in industrial hygiene-- he WAS indeed a Dr.! Is the author genuinely unaware that PhDs exist, and that to represent them as "a degree in philosophy!" is at least a wildly fraudulent??)
The author also at one point described a man as having an "Irish temper" πΆπ¬
(Brb, downgrading my initial rating, because after writing all that out, it is truly baffling to me how this book ever ended up published.)
It's really a bummer, since generally when someone writes a book on a historical situation (that is very worth being told) that is popularly and well received, it kind of shuts the door to others attempting to write books on the same topic. This is a topic, however, that deserves greatly more competent handling than Moore has given it here. What a shame.
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Terminal illness, and Chronic illness
Moderate: Ableism, Medical content, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Infertility, and Medical trauma
Minor: Domestic abuse
mandi4886's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Chronic illness, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Terminal illness
Moderate: Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Child death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Sexism, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Abortion, Alcohol, Animal death, Infertility, Stalking, Toxic relationship, Violence, and War