Reviews tagging 'Torture'

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

4 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.

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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

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.”

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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

laurareads87's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

Absolutely incredible -- Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments is absolutely one of the best books rooted in archival research that I've ever read.  In recognizing "the revolutionary ideals that animated ordinary lives" [xv] Hartman works with the goal of learning from Black women who experimented with new ways of living and community-building and connecting that resisted the racist and patriarchal criminalization, pathologization, and violence surrounding them.  The argument: that "young black women were radical thinkers who tirelessly imagined other ways to live and never failed to consider how the world might be otherwise" [xv].  In working with fragments - arrest records, photos, case files - Hartman speculates on what has been lost, what these women might've been thinking and feeling, the text "marked by the errantry that it describes" [xiv].  Highly, highly recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Racial slurs, Police brutality, and Confinement

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Torture, and Sexual violence

Minor: Gun violence

adesinabrown's review against another edition

challenging dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I wish I could go above 5 stars for this book. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Rape, Racism, Racial slurs, Torture, Slavery, Sexual violence, Pedophilia, Infidelity, Homophobia, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Hate crime, Misogyny, and Sexism

Most (if not all) triggering content is only mentioned briefly in this book--in possibilities, in truths, in the complexities. It is mostly a reconstruction of the lost stories of Black women and queer people of the early 20th century, and an examination of why those stories are "lost" in the first place. Expect any content that may be wrapped up in that.