Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear by Kate Moore

23 reviews

isleofwoman's review against another edition

challenging dark inspiring sad slow-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, Confinement, Gaslighting, Mental illness, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Torture

Minor: Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Self harm

emilyferrise's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective tense slow-paced

3.0

I’m trying to read more nonfiction, so my rating could be a reflection of this book not being in one of my preferred genres. However, I loved the content of this book- the history of women’s rights and how mental illness diagnoses were handled in the mid 1800s. The subject, Mrs. Packard, is very likeable and the author does a great job presenting the story. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement and Mental illness

Moderate: Physical abuse and Emotional abuse

Minor: Suicide

megnut's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

4.25

An incredible story... but (as warning) with many warnings of the sexism & misogyny that controlled women's lives then and still affect us today. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexism, Violence, Misogyny, Bullying, Confinement, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Grief, and Torture

Moderate: Suicide

ocoury23's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

*Review based on experiencing the book as an audiobook 

This book was incredible to listen to and learn from, but also was incredibly long. Elizabeth Packard was a name I had never heard before, but her story is inspiring and I would highly recommend this for book for any adult-level readers (due to the sensitive content that is discussed). Truthfully, my main drawback to this was the length - I’m not sure if I would be able to work my way through this again without taking my time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Physical abuse, Blood, Mental illness, Torture, and Violence

Moderate: Excrement and Suicide

cmbohn's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Ableism, Confinement, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, and Forced institutionalization

Minor: Slavery, Eating disorder, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Excrement

lydiatheobald's review against another edition

informative inspiring medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse

Minor: Forced institutionalization and Suicide

racheldallaire's review against another edition

emotional informative medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Physical abuse, Mental illness, and Suicide

fkshg8465's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0

I feel like everyone needs to read this book. We owe so much to this woman. I am both inspired and buoyed by this woman and appalled and disgusted even further by weak men. The amount of research the author must’ve done is impressive, but even more so is the way she wrote this story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Grief, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Abandonment, Bullying, Confinement, Dysphoria, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Mental illness, Eating disorder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual harassment, Slavery, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Torture

kilonshele's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Mental illness, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Bullying, Emotional abuse, Classism, Chronic illness, and Torture

Minor: Suicide

znvisser's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

3.5

This was an interesting, inspiring and infuriating story at the same time and I am thankful for Kate Moore for narrating it. I do love narrative nonfiction so I lost myself in this story very quickly, but unfortunately I did find out as quickly that the applied style of storytelling was actually not my cup of tea.

In one of the many tidbits after the actual story the author elaborates on how she intentionally added "reveals for dramatic purposes".  I wish she didn't, because those were my biggest annoyance about this book; the reveal method made me distrusting of her as a storyteller, ruining my reading experience at times. I don't mind myself a surprise or twist, but I do mind reading for tens of pages and made believe explicitly one way, only to be consequently patronized with a "the joke's on you because meanwhile everything else was different!" That's just a waste of words and there certainly are more elegant ways to achieve mystery or suspense. In fact in this case, I think the plot was entertaining enough in itself and didn't require the manipulation applied at all. 

Elizabeth was a very interesting character, both intellectually and socially, but I couldn't understand how those two things interacted. How did such a brilliant woman keep making the mistake of trusting the same villains again and again? Afterwards I'm still curious if that paradox was a narrative choice as well, or her actual character. Because I do believe Moore did her research elaborately, I may have to believe the latter. All in all, in between the manipulating I did enjoy reading this story and getting an insight in this piece of history I had no prior knowledge of. Radium Girls has also been on my radar, and I've seen reviewers with similar objections to this book appreciating that one nevertheless (but also some same complaints), so we'll see if I might still pick that up in the future.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Confinement, Mental illness, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Misogyny, and Religious bigotry

Moderate: Excrement, Physical abuse, Racism, Slavery, and Torture

Minor: Death, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide