Reviews tagging 'Murder'

The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann

83 reviews

zeldazonks's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Manages to be incredibly compelling and informative as well as highlight the hypocrisy, cruelty and nonsensical nature of colonialism. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was fantastic, I devoured this in two days.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Violence, Abandonment, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Death, Colonisation, and Alcohol

Moderate: Cannibalism

zsabella's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, War, Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, Medical content, Medical trauma, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Slavery, Racism, and Animal death

sarasreading's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative reflective tense fast-paced

4.5

This was pretty unputdownable. So much was happening all of the time it read much more like fiction than nonfiction, which I enjoy. It can get pretty gruesome, so know that going in. It can be harder to stomach since it's a true story. But I flew through this and will definitely read more from this author. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Colonisation, Cannibalism, and Classism

Minor: Racism, War, and Slavery

ekcd_'s review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Child death, Death of parent, Excrement, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Medical trauma, Police brutality, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Fire/Fire injury, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Grief, Kidnapping, Slavery, Cursing, Death, Mass/school shootings, Murder, Trafficking, Violence, Medical content, Suicide attempt, War, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Confinement, Physical abuse, and Racism

seanfischer's review against another edition

dark informative mysterious sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Violence, Cannibalism, Murder, and Death

elizabeth_lepore's review against another edition

adventurous informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder and Death

Moderate: Colonisation and Violence

linda48's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Death, Racism, Murder, Abandonment, and Cannibalism

jrae_miller's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark informative mysterious tense medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Blood, Colonisation, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

cristinar1800's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder

Moderate: Trafficking, War, Vomit, and Colonisation

Minor: Alcohol, Animal death, Cannibalism, and Animal cruelty

knkoch's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative medium-paced

3.75

I found this worthwhile and informative, if bleak in its reminders of the way naval stories like this are shaped by the huge and destructive forces of imperialism and ruthless extraction of resources. All the human folly that went into conscripting hundreds of deathly ill men to run ships that take thousands of century-old trees to build just to attempt needlessly difficult cape passages, only to shipwreck in an extremely challenging climate and

waste the lives of hundreds of people from disease and starvation!

I really liked that David Grann gave great context into the Indigenous tribes the men from this ship interacted with and the impact that naval expeditions had on them and all others in South and North America in the eighteenth century especially. It felt like he was resetting the image of journeys like these, moving away from glory and adventure into the grinding hardship, weaknesses of leadership, imperial greed, racist assumptions of superiority/inferiority, and endless jockeying between major European empires like Spain and England. Grann developed the historical characters well, and clearly established how naval honor codes, class, and rank influenced the events at sea and land. Shocked to learn that

the value of the seized Spanish galleon, then the greatest single event war bounty seized, was dwarfed by the full millions-of-pounds cost of the entire expedition to seize it.

And yet, we can't forget that history can be so easily spun into self-congratulatory stories that flatter rather than invite critical examination. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Eating disorder, Murder, Body horror, Medical content, Death, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Racism, Gun violence, Alcohol, Colonisation, and Xenophobia

Minor: Cannibalism

Eating disorder: Much discussion of starvation, but not sure what TW may fit better.