Reviews tagging 'Sexism'

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women by Kate Moore

33 reviews

jamsca21's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

This was both the first audiobook and non-fiction book I had read and in a long time respectively. I loved this book. The content was interesting. Morbid history has been a fascination of mine so I enjoyed this. But also above all the author made sure to focus on the people. The young girls who were youthful and had their whole lives stripped from them due to the greed of corporate companies.  It followed the stories of the girls intimately so much so I think there were times the audiobook reader sounded like they were holding back tears. You followed these girls barely teenagers into employment

then watch in horror as they are lied to by the system saying that they were in a safe healthy environment when their body clearly were saying otherwise. You watch as scientist and doctors are either lying or helpless to help. Then you watch as they fall sicker and sicker so much so people put it together and its obvious but the companies lie and cheat and do terrible things to prevent justce and these poor lower class women go to court.. Anyway it's a lot to go into. and you wanna read this but I will say one thing.  JAWBONES FALLING OUT OF MOUTHS!!! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Medical content, Medical trauma, War, and Classism

mmccombs's review against another edition

dark informative sad medium-paced

4.0

This almost felt like reading a horror novel, it was absolutely harrowing. I thought this was very propulsive and I loved that this was mostly told from the direct perspectives of the women and families involved. Sometimes the writing felt a bit cheesy and repetitive, but on the whole I couldn’t put this book down. The descriptions of each woman’s slow and painful deaths were sometimes a bit much but did capture just how bonkers it is that these people were literally dissolving and somehow these corporations were still able to wriggle out of responsibility. Absolutely maddening, describing how profit and capitalism will always take precedence over the wellbeing of workers, clearly showing how labor rights are disability rights and vice versa. If you want to be equally upset and informed, this is the book for you!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Death, Sexism, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Injury/Injury detail

badger_ti_robespierre's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Should be required reading 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Bullying, Cancer, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Infertility, Miscarriage, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

lovetlr's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Really enjoyed the human element of the radium girls

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Child death, Infertility, Miscarriage, and Death of parent

reg_litbytes's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

3.5

 

 TLDR: An emotional take on true historical events focusing on the humanity of the victims while still being informative. Leans a bit into the fictional. Went on a little too long and felt repetitive. I zoned out a few times.

TRIGGER WARNING: Graphic descriptions of disease
 
 THE GOOD: I truly appreciate what the author is doing in this book - focusing on giving life to the women who suffered. The stories were laid out in a way that I felt how the suffering of each were all interconnected. I could feel the hopefulness, the grief, the helplessness, and the triumph of each victim that were given the spotlight. Lives and futures were ruined and I found myself getting mad and frustrated along with the victims. I wish I could look at pictures of each of them as they were being described - before and after the exposure. The goal of the author was to humanize the victims in contrast to how the other books covering the same topic has done - more scientific. So do take note that if you intend on reading this, it can often lean into the fictional. It does this by filling in some details that the author is unlikely to have known (ex. what the victims have been thinking and feeling apart from what they themselves have written). 

THE BAD:
It went on too long that I found myself, at times, zoning out. The epilogue was proof enough that this didn't have to be as long as it is. Or maybe… it was meant more to be read on print than on audiobook? It got repetitive but understandably so because the victims all went through, more or less, the same horrors. Unfortunately, halfway through, I just couldn't wait to find out how they were able to resolve the issues and the impact on society (which the epilogue was able to cover).
 
 THE NARRATION:
The narration was mostly fine but not something I would remember in the long term. I didn't feel comfortable speeding it up to more than 1.5x; but then again I don't usually speed up audiobooks.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Blood, Medical content, and Grief

abz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

This book is a moving story of the radium girls of the 1920s and 30s. It was written in such a way that it read like a story more than true facts but it was true. Although I already knew the high-level story of this book, there were many shocking moments. I did annotate this book and I think that allowed me to move slower through the book and hopefully absorb more of the information. It was an insane read. And I would recommend it to anyone that has any inkling that this topic might be interesting to them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cancer, Chronic illness, Miscarriage, and Sexism

rachelhilary's review

emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cancer, Chronic illness, Death, Sexism, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Medical trauma

Minor: Infertility, Miscarriage, Grief, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

katie0528's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad medium-paced

4.75

This story follows the lives, careers, court battles, and deaths of "the Radium Girls," women who used radium to paint watches, clocks, and equipment starting just before World War I, and moving into World War II. Constantly lied to about the dangers of radium by the companies they worked for, countless women were poisoned by the radioactive material. A tragic tale of young women fighting for answers and justice, this book focuses on the women themselves, not just their battles in court, but the personal hardships so many of them had to endure.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Moderate: Gaslighting

Minor: Infertility, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and War

leweylibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative sad slow-paced

5.0

This was a reread because IDK this book has just been on my mind a lot lately? Idk why not it was just as good as I remember. I still can't believe--but also very much can believe--the absolute HELL  that these women went through all in the name of capitalism and all while the people who made them suffer so much did their damnedest to obfuscate and deny everything about it. And how the law was just absolutely against them for so much of the way just because this was a novel type of poisoning and it happened to women. The research on this book is so thorough, but the author also does a great job of letting you get to know these women, the lives they led, and their personalities. It makes it all that much more real and gutting to read their stories. Fuck capitalism. That's all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Terminal illness, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Gaslighting, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicide

Minor: Miscarriage and Pregnancy

tea_at_mole_end's review against another edition

dark inspiring sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Chronic illness, Terminal illness, Medical content, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Cancer, Death, Miscarriage, Sexism, and Grief

Minor: Alcoholism, Child death, Infertility, Suicidal thoughts, Abortion, Pregnancy, War, and Classism