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Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
23 reviews
jessi_lou95's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Murder, and Sexism
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Grief, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy
Minor: Chronic illness, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Infidelity, Terminal illness, and Trafficking
jhbandcats's review against another edition
5.0
The author focuses on the women, only referring to Jack the Ripper as their murderer. She has done extensive research to find out who these women were and what their lives were like, such that they ended up dead in the gutter. All these women came from working class families but because they were born female, the deck was stacked against them. The smallest setback could literally ruin someone’s life.
By viewing these women with compassion instead of condemnation, we can see who they really were.
Graphic: Child death, Grief, Classism, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, and Murder
abi_sarah's review against another edition
4.0
Hallie Rubenhold really sets the scene of Victorian London and effortlessly introduces each of the victims with the societal norms and prejudices which forced them - in most cases - to live largely unhappy lives. She describes what it’s like to live in workhouses and what little privacy there is for those who live in them - perhaps explaining why now we value privacy so much as a society.
Graphic: Murder and Addiction
Moderate: Alcohol, Drug abuse, Alcoholism, and Drug use
Minor: Physical abuse, Rape, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Chronic illness, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Sexual assault, and Grief
tlholmes's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Child death, Domestic abuse, Police brutality, Trafficking, Classism, Death, Grief, Sexism, Chronic illness, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Violence, Pregnancy, Murder, Death of parent, Misogyny, and Alcoholism
thinkingcatss's review against another edition
5.0
Moderate: Chronic illness, Toxic relationship, Classism, Alcoholism, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Sexual content, Rape, Forced institutionalization, Sexism, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Trafficking, Death, Drug use, Pandemic/Epidemic, Miscarriage, Medical content, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Child death, Alcohol, Grief, Sexual violence, Suicide, and Violence
tiernanhunter's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Medical content, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Violence, Abandonment, Abortion, Child abuse, Child death, Infertility, Kidnapping, Death of parent, Murder, Trafficking, Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, War, Classism, Death, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Sexual harassment, Blood, Grief, Infidelity, Addiction, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Terminal illness, and Mental illness
jacs63's review against another edition
5.0
It gives a face, a name and a voice, to the 5 victims of JtR.
We so often only hear about the perpetrator, and not the victims.
The book discusses the fact that thru the falsehood and misinformation spread by the Metropolitan Police and journalists at the time, it was convenient for us all to think that JtR only killed prostitutes.
Only 2 of the 5 were actually known to be sex workers.
There is no evidence that the other 3 were sex workers at all, but I for one believed the misinformation that was spread.
One thing that all 5 women shared was that they are all alcoholics.
I wonder why??
Maybe because cheap alcohol was the only thing that dulled the pain, if only for a while, of the poverty; the hunger; the homelessness; the early death of family members, including their own spouses or their own babies/ children; the death sentence that they were given if their spouse died and left them, and their children, destitute; their treatment as a woman with no legal rights; the living hell that was the 'Workhouse'; the lack of education for woman; the disease; the filth and vermin; the lack of medicines; the lack of clean water and sanitation; the violence; the lack of hope, respect and dignity etc etc etc.
Basically the treatment of women/girls in the 1800's.
It's full of interesting and informative historical facts about what life, and death, was like, for women in particular, in the Victorian 1800's.
It's sad and horrific and devastating. It's a book that won't leave me for a while, I don't think.
Probably not a book to read if you are depressed or feeling melancholic.
We will never know who JtR was.
But we can know who his victims were.
These women were daughters; sisters; wives; lovers; mothers; friends.
May they never be forgotten.
RIP and love, Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate and Mary Jane.
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Child death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Blood, Chronic illness, Death, Physical abuse, Excrement, Misogyny, Medical content, Alcohol, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Stalking, Terminal illness, Violence, Murder, and Pandemic/Epidemic
pedanther's review against another edition
4.5
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Classism
Moderate: Murder, Alcoholism, Suicide, Child death, Domestic abuse, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Trafficking, Physical abuse, Grief, and Infidelity
Minor: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Antisemitism, Mental illness, Abandonment, Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Terminal illness
abby_can_read's review against another edition
4.0
I enjoyed this book. It was well research and well written.
Graphic: Alcoholism, Classism, Misogyny, Violence, Death, Physical abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, and Murder
Moderate: Grief, Child death, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, and Sexual violence
Minor: Chronic illness and Mental illness
geraldinerowe's review against another edition
5.0
I've read two criticisms of this book. Firstly that it's all conjecture. It's not, it's just very well researched. I suspect much of the detail comes from newspaper reports of the character witnesses' statements at the victims' inquests (I'm afraid I'm not a great reader of footnotes, but the author does reference her sources in detail). Newspaper coverage of trials and the like were very detailed at that time and reported almost word for word (although the author must have had a job filtering out the more sensational reporting). The other criticism I've heard is that, by putting so much emphasis on the fact that most of the victims, contrary to popular belief, were not prostitutes, the author was part of that section of society which believes sex workers' lives are less valuable or not worthy of saving. I agree that most of the book does have this feel, but it's clearly not what the author believes, as her conclusion makes clear.
This is THE book to read about the Whitechapel Murders (unless, of course, you just want to get off on reading about violence against women, which most Ripper books seem to pander to). Looking at the victims not only gives them the much overdue respect they deserve, but also shows us that their murderer was far more likely to have been one of the frequenters of the doss houses in the Flower and Dean Street area than a royal, a surgeon or a mysterious American.
I don't believe in an afterlife, but if I'm wrong I hope the five unfortunate women we meet in this book are finally finding some comfort by having their stories told so sympathetically. Five stars.
Moderate: Alcoholism
Minor: Trafficking, Physical abuse, Murder, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Death, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Child death, and Misogyny