Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

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

41 reviews

bthkly's review against another edition

informative sad medium-paced

5.0

As a history teacher I sought out this book to help with subject knowledge surrounding the GCSE history course. I came away with a much more valuable reflection on the lives of women in the 19th century and the misconceptions we may hold about the past due to still present social attitudes. Opens your eyes to the reality of the case and refocuses attention on the people who should matter in the story of a killer - the victims. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Addiction, Death, Murder, Sexual assault, Alcohol, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Trafficking, Miscarriage, Child death, and Pregnancy

abby_can_read's review against another edition

informative medium-paced

4.0

🎧
I enjoyed this book. It was well research and well written. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Classism, Misogyny, Violence, Death, Physical abuse, Addiction, Alcohol, Domestic abuse, and Murder

Moderate: Grief, Child death, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Infidelity, and Sexual violence

Minor: Chronic illness and Mental illness

kb_sherman's review against another edition

informative slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Child death, Alcoholism, Death, Addiction, Murder, and Suicide

shelbyslifer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.75

This has to be the best book to date on this case that has transfixed the world for over a century. Instead of information on the crimes that are infamous by now, Rubenhold instead focuses on the LIFE of these women and bringing them the humanity that they deserve. These women deserve the truth to their stories; not just for their tragic ends to be gawked at and Rubenhold highlights this PERFECTLY. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism

Moderate: Abandonment, Miscarriage, Terminal illness, Alcohol, Murder, Sexism, Child death, Classism, Death, Misogyny, Child abuse, Addiction, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Antisemitism and Trafficking

annamorgan27's review against another edition

dark emotional informative slow-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Terminal illness, Death of parent, Infidelity, Misogyny, Addiction, Alcoholism, Alcohol, Pregnancy, Child death, Forced institutionalization, Miscarriage, Murder, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Trafficking, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Violence

jocelyn_rivas's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol

Minor: Miscarriage and Sexual assault

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

louiseisabed's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Trafficking, Death, Domestic abuse, Rape, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Addiction, and Alcohol

Moderate: Murder