Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

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

23 reviews

olivianw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

A fantastic book!
Completely gripping, without sensationalising the story. Hallie Rubenhold treats each woman with respect and care. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Body horror, Child death, Confinement, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Misogyny

scarlettreadsbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

The Five explores the human stories of the lives of the women killed by Jack the Ripper, and a dark history of Victorian London. Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. They came from Fleet Street, Knightsbridge, Wolverhampton, Sweden, and Wales. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible has never been brought to justice, but the character created by the press at the time has become more famous than any of these five women.⁣
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This was such an interesting read. I didn't know much about the Victorians until I read this book. Most people only learn about Queen Victoria, and the upper classes. I loved the fact that this book mainly focuses on the untold lives of the lower classes in London. Throughout history, it was believed that The Ripper only targeted prostitutes. Hallie Rubenhold seeks to dispel this myth, and to tell their true stories.⁣
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I deducted a star from this as I did feel that some of the history was repeated a bit, but I think this was due to the fact that many of the women lived quite similar lives. Other than that, I absolutely loved it!⁣
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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Infidelity, Physical abuse, and Sexism

sarah984's review against another edition

informative sad medium-paced

2.0

I think this is absolutely a valuable topic for scholarship, and I commend the fact that this book is written in a way that minimizes the women's murderer in favour of describing their lives instead, but I didn't like the book itself very much. The writing comes across as very silly and melodramatic in places, and in defending the majority of the women against the posthumous charge of prostitution the author sort of winds up doing what she condemns in the final chapter: diminishing sex workers as a subclass of women who are more deserving of ill-treatment.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Death, and Misogyny

Moderate: Child death, Chronic illness, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Trafficking, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, Suicide, Sexual violence, Religious bigotry, and Physical abuse

Minor: Body shaming, Forced institutionalization, and Religious bigotry