Reviews with content warning for Alcoholism - The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

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

121 reviews

shelbyslifer's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.75

This has to be the best book to date on this case that has transfixed the world for over a century. Instead of information on the crimes that are infamous by now, Rubenhold instead focuses on the LIFE of these women and bringing them the humanity that they deserve. These women deserve the truth to their stories; not just for their tragic ends to be gawked at and Rubenhold highlights this PERFECTLY.

Content Warnings

etty_m's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional informative slow-paced

4.0

Content Warnings

revived_reading's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

The way Hallie Rubenhold writes, you can feel every single emotion she tries to convey. From dread to a bit of hope to powerless.

This book opens your eyes not only to the lives of these 5 women, but to the lives of many, many women in the Victorian era.

Hallie Rubenhold truly gave back these women their stories and their lives. She gave them the respect they were never given. She gave them justice.

Content Warnings

lavenderlilacs1912's review against another edition

Go to review page

informative sad tense fast-paced

4.75

A new, refreshing look into the Jack the Ripper case, one that doesn't focus on the elusive, and still unidentified killer, but on his victims and their stories. Indeed, the author doesn't even focus or even mention the grisly details of their murders, but on their lives and the circumstances that led them to the now infamous Whitechapel district. The care and respect she shows for Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Catherine "Kate" Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly gives them back their dignity and their humanity with all their strengths and weaknesses and I felt for them in a way no other account of the Ripper murders ever inspired.

Central to Rubenhold's book is the argument that the cultural depictions of these five murdered women as "prostitutes" is mistaken and even downright false. Indeed, she argues that of the five women, only two were had ever conclusively engaged in prostitution. Throughout the book, she paints portraits of women who struggled with abuse, addiction, illness, and above all poverty. That poverty, and it's resulting homelessness led to their misclassifications, because in the morally unforgiving and strict Victorian era, the police, media, and the mostly middle to upper class public they catered to could not possibly have conceived them to be anything else.

It's a compelling argument. I'm inclined to agree with it, although I would have liked to see a better organization of the book's thesis. Above all, it's a moving and sad account of the lives of Mary Ann, Annie, Elizabeth, Kate, and Mary Jane; daughters, wives, mothers, friends, and above all human beings, who did not deserve to be murdered regardless of their circumstances.

Content Warnings