kefink's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad tense slow-paced

4.5


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timesnewroman12point's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0


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emmaevns's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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marina_s's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad slow-paced
For someone with limited knowledge of “the Troubles”, this was an informative and insightful read. The narrative weaves between characters and through time in a way more reminiscent of a novel than of non-fiction. 

This book centres on the people who lost the most, and gives a real sense of trauma inflicted on everyone both during the active fighting, and the rippling after effects. I kept thinking this was further in the past but the events at the end of the book were well within my adult lifetime. How do people move on, and should they?

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qqjj's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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lipliplip's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

5.0


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nitar8's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

4.0


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mmccombs's review against another edition

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informative reflective slow-paced

4.5

Patrick Radden Keefe is the example of how to do great investigative journalism that blends facts, personal narratives, and emotional nuance. It took a while for me to get fully invested in this one (as opposed to Empire of Pain, which I immediately couldn’t put down), but after I switched over to audio to mix it up, I loved how Keefe guided our view of the Troubles through the lens of individuals and how their stories intersected. He never placed value judgements on any one person’s actions, but didn’t shy away from showing the incredibly devastating impacts of violence on communities. I learned a lot from this one and feel I have a better grasp on what I now realize is a vastly more nuanced, cultural history that is felt today. 

“Who should be held accountable for a shared history of violence?”

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sonygaystation's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense slow-paced

4.5


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_cararichardson's review against another edition

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challenging mysterious sad slow-paced

4.75

This book was extremely well done and thoughtfully researched. I got a lot of quotes from this one. It’s a fairly dense (not in a bad way) and was a fairly slow read for me, although that’s usually the case with non fiction. It’s a very complicated issue and I liked how Radden Keefe slowly unraveled the story  and it’s players. I didn’t know anything about the Troubles before going into this. I will say it took me a while to get a firm grasp on who supported what and what the different political groups stood for. At first I didn’t know how me or the author felt about the conflict, but as the narrative built I got a better understanding of the factors at play (what any great nonfiction book hopes to do!). Keefe managed to tow the line between sympathetic and scrutinizing. Overall, while this wasn’t an ~enjoyable~ read in the tropical sense, it was very heavy subject matter, I came away from this book with a lot to think about. Where should our ideals end, and how far should we be willing to go for our ideals?

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