Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell

11 reviews

kobooks's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Sexism, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Medical content, Medical trauma, Torture, Deportation, Sexual violence, and Sexual assault

Moderate: Ableism and Genocide

junglejelly's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

After hearing vaguely about Virginia Hall, I was so glad to have found this book.

It's incredibly detailed with Hall's years in occupied France, sometimes a little too detailed.

Most of the writing is incredibly captivating and Purnell does well to weave in the emotions. Other times it's quite dry.

Overall, a good read and would definitely recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Torture, Blood, Violence, Death, and Police brutality

Moderate: Drug abuse

Minor: Suicide, Cancer, Deportation, and Sexism

madamenovelist's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Homophobia, Forced institutionalization, Animal cruelty, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Trafficking, Sexual violence, Sexism, Police brutality, Misogyny, Mass/school shootings, Lesbophobia, Kidnapping, Hate crime, Gun violence, Grief, Genocide, Excrement, Drug use, Deportation, Death, Death of parent, Cursing, Classism, Child death, Biphobia, Ableism, Xenophobia, Racism, War, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual harassment, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Chronic illness, Antisemitism, Sexual content, Rape, Physical abuse, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Gaslighting, Domestic abuse, Colonisation, Child abuse, Body horror, Blood, Sexual assault, Murder, Medical content, and Gore

Excellent book, but do not read if you’re in a bad headspace. Extremely open and frank about WWII atrocities in France, including critiques of the approach/strategy of Allied forces. It’s very jarring in the last chapter to have a pointedly neutral tone re: CIA & US military activity in the Middle East in more recent years, after no-punches-pulled attitude to all western powers including the US during WWII itself. This inconsistency is the only thing that prevented me from giving it 5 stars.

clarabooksit's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Genocide, Gun violence, Medical trauma, Misogyny, Confinement, Murder, Sexism, Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and War

Moderate: Rape, Sexual violence, Torture, Grief, and Death of parent

oceanwriter's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

Being a woman in the early 20th century was no picnic, especially when it came to getting a job. Add a disability to the mix and getting someone to hire you was near impossible. Virginia Hall broke down barriers and excelled over her able-bodied male counterparts. At the start of World War II, Virginia was hired as a spy and was deployed to France. As the war carried on, Virginia (under a number of aliases) became a touchstone for people under occupation and fellow resistance workers.

The more her reputation grew, the more the Nazis wanted her captured. Despite several warnings and close calls, Virginia was reluctant to leave her post in France where so many people had come to rely on her. When staying was no longer an option, she continued to prove her strength both mentally and physically — achieving things that most people without a prosthetic leg couldn't. She continued to do what she could for the war effort no matter where she had to go.

There seems to be no end to the fascinating figures of WWII. Virginia Hall is now among my favorites. The book flowed wonderfully. Nothing dragged and there was always something interesting going on. I appreciated that it went in a linear timeline. I've noticed a lot of non-fiction books like to jump around even if it's following a chain of events. A must-read for WWII buffs.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and War

Moderate: Sexism, Misogyny, and Genocide

Minor: Drug use, Rape, and Racism

henrismum's review against another edition

adventurous informative inspiring slow-paced

3.0

Non-fiction
Audiobook (All of my entries on The Story Graph are audiobooks.)
Why I added this book to my TBR pile: I seem to read a lot on the subject of women and spies WWII. This book was probably suggested as a result of those books.
Will I read more by the author or about the subject? Probably Not Maybe Likely Most Likely Definitely
I have at least two more books on this subject in my list - Madame Fourcade's Secret War & They Fought Alone: The True Story of the Starr Brothers, British Secret Agents in Nazi-Occupied France.
The narrator was Juliet Stevenson. She has a pleasant voice, but the British take on the American accent is always funny to me; probably as funny as the American take on the British accent is when the British listen to an American audiobook.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Antisemitism, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Sexism, Genocide, War, and Violence

dukeofkel's review

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War

Moderate: Blood, Misogyny, and Sexism

Minor: Violence, Xenophobia, Gun violence, Hate crime, Racism, Antisemitism, Confinement, Death, Torture, Deportation, Drug use, Gaslighting, Genocide, Grief, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicide, Police brutality, Religious bigotry, and Sexual assault

kbusemeyer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring tense slow-paced

3.5

This was a really interesting book and the author clearly did a lot of research on this. There were parts that I was truly like how did they find out or know that that happened, who wrote that down?

I think Virginia’s experiences were laid out pretty well and in an engaging manner. I was always on the edge of my seat and always wondering what more there could possibly be because it felt like she had already done so much at every point.

There were a lot of people mentioned in this book and between the code names and French, sometimes it was hard to keep track. This was definitely apparent in the end of the book when the author talked about what happened to a lot of people and I had a hard time remembering who was who and what they did.

The end of the book was also the slowest part to get through for me. It was the post-war, getting to the end of her life era so it makes sense it was slower paced. At times, though, it did feel like the author was just throwing all the facts that they had found out into these chapters, regardless of how necessary it was. 

Overall a very interesting book, I learned a lot. Definitely could use some trigger warnings about the nature of the Nazi’s torture though.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Sexism and Torture

Minor: Death

bookbrig's review against another edition

adventurous informative tense medium-paced

4.0

Apparently I'm on a WWII book kick lately, and I liked this quite a bit. It's just as interesting as Madame Fourcade's Secret War and In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, and if you're curious about an American perspective it would be a good place to start. I also found it interesting, if infuriating, to read about how all of her amazing accomplishments continued to be swept aside after the war by men unwilling to give her the credit she was due. The one heads up I would give is that there is slightly more detail about torture in this book than I'm used to as I normally read YA. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture and Sexism

srm's review

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

3.75

This story is utterly fascinating. I get that a lot about Virginia Hall has been classified for a long time, but how is everyone not talking about the 35 year-old female American amputee who was one of the most important spies of WWII? She's amazing.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Sexism

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Torture, and War

Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, Drug use, and Genocide