Take a photo of a barcode or cover
601 reviews for:
Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners
Therese Oneill
3.76 AVERAGE
601 reviews for:
Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady's Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners
Therese Oneill
3.76 AVERAGE
If you like your history with a healthy dose of humor and snark, this one's for you. Great overview of the gross, dirty, and ridiculous aspects of daily life for (relatively privileged) western women in the Victorian era. Also a great reminder of how modern "modern" medicine is. Being a quack in this era was evidently the norm, allowing any daft old codger with half-baked musings to write authoritative guides on women's bodies and behavior.
could do with less snark and commentary but was a fun and interesting read! i’m not an expert on the Victorian era so i don’t know how much of this is true but nonetheless very interesting
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
Well i have to admit i totally went into this one not knowing what to expect, trusting only the cover and its unusual tittle and, perhaps on account of that, ended up LOL at a good deal of the book and the way the author presents women's life in Victorian times.
The reviews here are quite mixed, and perhaps not everyone will agree with me, but i don't think this was meant to be considered a serious, scholarly book on women and gender studies and its evolution throughout the last say 150 years - there's plenty of those out there!
Basically what the author does is assume most of us modern ladies have a Hollywood induced longing for the times of good old Queen V and slap us in the face with some very realistic examples, sometimes successfully disguised thanks to the sarcasm/snarkiness? that drips from these pages, to illustrate just exactly how hard those times were for the female gender.
Although this is called Victorian Lady's guide, which would make most of us readers assume its strictly about Victorian England, she ends up giving us a good chunk of information/humor concerning american women in that same time frame.
I have researched zero on the author, have no idea of her background, so apologies in advance - if she's a feminist, i'm guessing yes, then at times her feminism feels a little too "intense' almost as if she despises any women who look fondly to the good old days of female subservience to hubby as the good old days when everything in the world was simple and right.
However, given the tittle, i went into this determined to read it pretty much like i read Eleanor Herman's SEX WITH KINGS and SEX WITH THE QUEEN ...with a huge bag of salt and some background on the topic....and that meant i ended up having some fun!
So, especially for those of you with high predisposition towards sarcasm...i would recommend at least giving it a try.
Happy Readings!
The reviews here are quite mixed, and perhaps not everyone will agree with me, but i don't think this was meant to be considered a serious, scholarly book on women and gender studies and its evolution throughout the last say 150 years - there's plenty of those out there!
Basically what the author does is assume most of us modern ladies have a Hollywood induced longing for the times of good old Queen V and slap us in the face with some very realistic examples, sometimes successfully disguised thanks to the sarcasm/snarkiness? that drips from these pages, to illustrate just exactly how hard those times were for the female gender.
Although this is called Victorian Lady's guide, which would make most of us readers assume its strictly about Victorian England, she ends up giving us a good chunk of information/humor concerning american women in that same time frame.
I have researched zero on the author, have no idea of her background, so apologies in advance - if she's a feminist, i'm guessing yes, then at times her feminism feels a little too "intense' almost as if she despises any women who look fondly to the good old days of female subservience to hubby as the good old days when everything in the world was simple and right.
However, given the tittle, i went into this determined to read it pretty much like i read Eleanor Herman's SEX WITH KINGS and SEX WITH THE QUEEN ...with a huge bag of salt and some background on the topic....and that meant i ended up having some fun!
So, especially for those of you with high predisposition towards sarcasm...i would recommend at least giving it a try.
Happy Readings!
Hilarious, enlightening, and a little frightening. Worth the time investment.
It has been a long time since a book made me audibly laugh so hard I cried. And more than once. Informative and hilarious you’re taken through the bad, the worse, and the wtf of the women of the Victorian era.
You’re in for a real treat.
Favorite Quotes Include:
“Remember, the center of a woman is her uterus. Her crazy, crazy uterus.”
“Even if you were alone during the day, you couldn’t be sure a neighbor wouldn’t call at your door, watching you through the window as you pinball around your parlor, hiding menstrual rags like a meth head during a police raid.”
“If you can’t arrange a modest or fetching top notch, you probably can’t breed robust sons either. “
You’re in for a real treat.
Favorite Quotes Include:
“Remember, the center of a woman is her uterus. Her crazy, crazy uterus.”
“Even if you were alone during the day, you couldn’t be sure a neighbor wouldn’t call at your door, watching you through the window as you pinball around your parlor, hiding menstrual rags like a meth head during a police raid.”
“If you can’t arrange a modest or fetching top notch, you probably can’t breed robust sons either. “
You’ve read Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Emma and the like, yes? You’ve read any number of the countless mysteries, romances, and adventure stories that are set in the Victorian Era, yes? Well, Therese Oneill is here to answer the questions you didn’t even know you had. The questions you probably wouldn’t even admit to wondering about.
For example, how are you going to get dressed? What does your underwear look like? How do you answer nature’s call? How should you act on your wedding night? How do you keep you husband from bringing back syphilis when he’s out on the town? If you’ve ever wanted to know what Victorians used for toilet paper (LOTS of different things), what you would do when you got your period (try not to panic), what causes consumption (everything) and/or what causes hysteria (everything else, but especially your uterus), then this book is meant for you. Therese Oneill provides a deeply researched, richly detailed look at how women lived in the 19th century. Oh, and she’s hilarious to boot.
Oneill reminds me a great deal of Mary Roach. Her approach is thorough and scientific, but her focus is on those aspects of life generally (and purposefully) left out of the narrative. Oneill’s funny, irreverent tone is sometimes at odds with the subject matter (how easy it is to get committed to an insane asylum, just how limited your life will be, just how common marital infidelity is), but she tackles each subject with gusto, and in these more serious moments, we learn to appreciate just how far we’ve come.
This book is perfect for history buffs, for anyone in love with the era, or for the merely curious. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. You will thoroughly enjoy this book, and you will learn a hell of a lot in the course of reading it.
An advance ebook was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Unmentionable will be available for purchase on October 25th, 2016.
More reviews to be found on my blog!
www.theirregularreaderblog.wordpress.com
For example, how are you going to get dressed? What does your underwear look like? How do you answer nature’s call? How should you act on your wedding night? How do you keep you husband from bringing back syphilis when he’s out on the town? If you’ve ever wanted to know what Victorians used for toilet paper (LOTS of different things), what you would do when you got your period (try not to panic), what causes consumption (everything) and/or what causes hysteria (everything else, but especially your uterus), then this book is meant for you. Therese Oneill provides a deeply researched, richly detailed look at how women lived in the 19th century. Oh, and she’s hilarious to boot.
Oneill reminds me a great deal of Mary Roach. Her approach is thorough and scientific, but her focus is on those aspects of life generally (and purposefully) left out of the narrative. Oneill’s funny, irreverent tone is sometimes at odds with the subject matter (how easy it is to get committed to an insane asylum, just how limited your life will be, just how common marital infidelity is), but she tackles each subject with gusto, and in these more serious moments, we learn to appreciate just how far we’ve come.
This book is perfect for history buffs, for anyone in love with the era, or for the merely curious. I found myself laughing out loud on more than one occasion. You will thoroughly enjoy this book, and you will learn a hell of a lot in the course of reading it.
An advance ebook was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Unmentionable will be available for purchase on October 25th, 2016.
More reviews to be found on my blog!
www.theirregularreaderblog.wordpress.com