Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

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

27 reviews

vixenreader's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

It is good to see the victims of Jack the Ripper as human beings instead of faceless statistics to be gawked at. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Miscarriage, Murder, Physical abuse, Alcoholism, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Violence, Addiction, Alcohol, Body shaming, Mental illness, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Child death, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Grief, Trafficking, Gun violence, Infidelity, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and Rape

Minor: Racism, Gore, and Xenophobia

There is a lot of talk about the abuse within the workhouses and dissolving of familial dynamics.

frantically's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

2.25

First; the few positive aspects: While I'm well versed in English royal history from the middle ages to the present, I've rarely spent a lot of time on the working class. This book showed me all the gruesome and mainly sad details that life in the 1880s had to offer, even worse for the women. If this had been the sole topic of the book, I would've given it 5 stars. 

But it wasn't — it was about the victims of Jack the Ripper. To some degree, I understand what the author was trying to argue. Women's history, no matter their social standing is a hard historical field to work in, with so much history being written by and from men. I should know — it's what I focus most of my uni research on. I think it's important to recognize that only two of the Ripper's canonical five victims ever worked as prostitutes, as a murderer is defined by his victims and thus, it is just plain wrong to call him "a murderer of prostitutes". 

Way too often, though, the entire argumentation was built on the premise that the five weren't "just prostitutes". That they were daughters, mothers, sisters, who'd fallen on hard times, who'd had lives that were more than their murder. But the thing is this — no woman, no person for that matter, no matter how morally corrupt they were, deserves to be brutally murdered. Rubenhold often paraphrases quotes of the time, calling prostitutes "whores", and doesn't clearly state that she views them any differently. 

When describing Annie, she states that "[c]ontrary to romanticized images of the Ripper’s victims, she never 'walked the streets' in a low-cut bodice and rouged cheeks, casting provocative glances beneath the gas lamps.", even after she had made clear that most of the women who worked as prostitutes had horrible lives that were filled with terror and that it wasn't seen as a last resource for these women. 

In the conclusion the author says that through clinging to the mythology of The Ripper, "we enforce the notion that 'bad women' deserve punishment and that 'prostitutes' are a subspecies of female.", which just feels like a bad joke. Putting the blame on us, her readership, doesn't erase the fact that throughout the entire book, the author herself contributes to defining prostitutes as a subspecies of women. 

After all, the five victims were never "just prostitutes". If they were, maybe this book would've never been written. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Child death, Alcohol, Physical abuse, Trafficking, Toxic relationship, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Murder and Death of parent

walkie_check's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Classism, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Violence, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Infidelity, Forced institutionalization, Trafficking, Religious bigotry, Miscarriage, Kidnapping, and Child death

gattolinos_nerdy_nook's review against another edition

informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

I love learning about history, and listening to this book is no exception. 
I found myself lost in the past listening to each woman's life and how much hardship she had to go through, and at the same time getting a glimpse into the 19th century London.
Learning more about the everyday living of the working class, opposed to the high society that has been better documented and preserved over the years, was a new outlook on what the 19th century expected of society and what support was offered to them.

I found myself talking to anyone who would listen to me about this book, and would recommend it to anyone who likes learning about the 19th century history.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism and Alcohol

Moderate: Sexual content, Death, Pregnancy, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Infertility, Physical abuse, Grief, Miscarriage, and Murder

cleina241's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Alcoholism, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, and Miscarriage

bryonymarianne's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Miscarriage, Murder, Violence, Suicide, Toxic relationship, and Death

katievh's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Misogyny, and Sexism

Moderate: Abandonment, Child death, Violence, Domestic abuse, Trafficking, Sexual assault, Miscarriage, Chronic illness, Death, Grief, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Murder, Death of parent, Infidelity, Infertility, and Terminal illness

odrib's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Infertility, Medical content, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Suicide, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexism, and Misogyny

rosalind's review against another edition

challenging dark informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Hardgoing in places and I can’t lie, I’m glad I’ve finished it at last. But I have to give it 4 stars rather than 3 on the strength of the conclusion alone. It feels like a really significant piece of work, a powerful exercise in empathy and, as Rubenhold puts it in the interview included at the back, ‘alchemy or reimagination.’ I hope the Five spirits feel honoured; God rest them, and God forgive us.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Death, Forced institutionalization, Hate crime, Police brutality, Sexism, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Death of parent, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Religious bigotry, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Violence, and Toxic relationship

victoria29's review against another edition

dark informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Sexism, Rape, Murder, Domestic abuse, Death of parent, and Death