Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

26 reviews

will_cat_books's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Child abuse, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Addiction, Child death, Murder, Classism, Death, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Trafficking

mahmabaer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense slow-paced

4.0

I enjoyed it for the most part and the author's basic theory

that all the women were not prostitutes

, does give one something to consider.  I do wish she hadn't been so heavyhanded in her attempt to find no blame towards the women themselves, as it makes it come across as if she is less interested in telling the stories of the five victims and more interested in proving her point.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Drug abuse, Forced institutionalization, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Death, Emotional abuse, Dementia, Bullying, Death of parent, Addiction, Grief, Mental illness, Religious bigotry, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Murder, Rape, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Violence

jhbandcats's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

5.0

What a tragic and depressing, albeit illuminating, book about the horrors of poverty in the late 19th C. We’ve all been told that Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes. This study shows how these morally superior judgments have come to inform everything we know about the case. 

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. 

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Content Warnings

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

dark emotional reflective slow-paced

4.0

An expertly written documentary of the lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper. The amount of research that went into writing this book is clear from the offset and the writing is engaging, emotional and empathetic. You really start to grow attached to the women and feel a profound sadness and heartfelt sympathies for the way society dictated that they lived their lives and subsequently the end that met them. 

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.

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Content Warnings

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

thinkingcatss's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

msbedelia's review against another edition

dark informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Addiction, Alcoholism, Classism, Misogyny, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Toxic friendship, and Toxic relationship

caribbeangirlreading's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Classism, and Sexism

Moderate: Alcoholism, Pregnancy, and Alcohol

Minor: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Domestic abuse, Death, Murder, and Trafficking

booksandlattesaddict's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism, Addiction, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, and Murder

librarymouse's review against another edition

challenging informative sad medium-paced

4.5

This is a sincere and well-researched account of the lives of the five women killed by Jack the ripper. Hallie Rubenhold ensures their legacies with her diligent research and her focus on the lives of the women, over their gruesome and mythologized deaths. In contextualizing the sexual climate of the Victorian era, Rubenhold offers a vivid image of the nuanced worlds these women lived in, often so different from the straight laced Victorian England canonized today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Kidnapping, Pregnancy, Dementia, Miscarriage, Sexism, Abandonment, Abortion, Addiction, Grief, Infidelity, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Pandemic/Epidemic, Police brutality, Alcoholism, Trafficking, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Forced institutionalization

Minor: Incest

angelanoelle's review against another edition

Just not what I felt like reading at the moment! 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexual assault and Murder