Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments: Intimate Histories of Social Upheaval by Saidiya Hartman

17 reviews

akaspiderlily's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

The most brilliant testimony and love letter to unsung black women and black queer folk I have ever read to date. I found myself in the chorus that crafts this story with the author, my history in its texts, my life in-the small corridors and poor dwellings- the loud, wayward habits of rebellious girls - the collective recounting of unmitigated assaults that have been distributed on our bodies and our identities. I loved it thoroughly, appreciated it even moreso.

---

Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape, Gun violence, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Grief, Murder, Sexism, Misogyny, Homophobia, Torture, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, Sexual content, Incest, Hate crime, Abandonment, Addiction, Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Medical trauma, and Lesbophobia

hxcpanda's review against another edition

challenging dark informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Racial slurs, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Hate crime, Transphobia, Sexual violence, Classism, Rape, and Lesbophobia

gunnerct's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective slow-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Misogyny

Moderate: Sexual violence, Racial slurs, and Sexual assault

Minor: Slavery

slinkmalink's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

While this was an excellent history book, describing it only as a history book doesn't do it justice, I thought it was absolutely beautiful
It felt almost anonymous in the way that it sweeps through such different lives and ones that we don't hear about much and treats each of their dreams and lives as just one in thousands of both different and shared dreams, examples of individuals in a chorus, and yet also deeply personal in its treatment of all the women it looked at. 
I just thought it really brought to life in such a poetic way the people behind the limited (perspective wise and quantity wise) sources we have about black women after emancipation and I'm very glad I picked it up

---

Content Warnings

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Racism, Police brutality, Slavery, Racial slurs, Physical abuse, Pedophilia, and Forced institutionalization

stevia333k's review

As I got into the book I lost context on whether these were biographies & nonfiction, or if they were just fictional stories using photos in the past as prompts. I was using the audiobook, so the photos weren't included either. -- anyways, it felt upsetting because I wanted to know history of tgnciq women of color, and what i got was something the kind of fiction written when queer & antiracist people are gatekept out of the history/nonfiction field. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence

meganpbell's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

This intense, experimental history weaves together biography, archival record, period photographs, and a kind of radical act of imagination to tell the stories of Black and queer women in Philadelphia and NYC at the turn of the century—their experiments in love, living, sex, family, gender, autonomy, and more—all while under severe legal, societal, and police oppression. This is a challenging read—it’s easy to get lost, but it’s a worthwhile part of being “wayward.”

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Homophobia, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Classism, Confinement, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Sexism, Grief, Transphobia, Torture, Slavery, Sexual violence, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Police brutality, Emotional abuse, and Child abuse

historicalmaterialgirl's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring slow-paced

4.75

Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments takes such a moving and humanizing approach to telling the history of Black women at the turn of the 19th century. Where the archive sometimes provides little information, Hartman fills in the gaps with speculation that reveals and reaffirms the complexity, the personhood, the resistance, the desires, and the freedom dreams and actions of whoever she is focusing on in that chapter. This is a blend of history, theory and imagination (it feels wrong to call this fictional!) that tells these women's stories with them, not the researcher or the audience, at the center. This was amazing, one of the best I have read this year. A new way of thinking about history is unlocked in my brain!

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual violence, and Police brutality

Moderate: Homophobia

itsbumley's review against another edition

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Child abuse, Rape, and Sexual violence

gsher002's review against another edition

challenging hopeful informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.75

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Murder, Child abuse, Sexual violence, Racial slurs, Rape, Police brutality, and Physical abuse

cassandrapaige's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Sexual violence, Rape, and Sexual assault