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challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Abortion
Easy and informative read. How one woman went on a quest to change and improve the lives of women at a time when women did not have any options or many, available to them. So much history revolves around this one women.
This was a great read. Well-researched and incredibly detailed. It not only tells the story of Madame Restell's rise from poor immigrant to wealthy and entrepreneurial abortionist, but ties in her story and the historical surroundings to today's current political climate surrounding abortion. I found the comparisons between 19th century arguments around abortion and 21st century arguments enlightening. It truly shows things do not seem to change for women in the United States and the same fears from over a century ago still drive political discourse today.
A highly interesting story about a long ago girl's girl that I didn't know existed. If you like the glamour of New York's high society around the time of the Gilded Age, learning about the history of women's rights and healthcare in the US, or true crime stories of rebels with a cause, put this one on your list.
4 stars for a slightly melodramatic audio narrator (I had audio and hardback here, but favored the hardback for that reason), and for being a little long overall. The organization worked, but the point could have been achieved with less pages in my opinion.
4 stars for a slightly melodramatic audio narrator (I had audio and hardback here, but favored the hardback for that reason), and for being a little long overall. The organization worked, but the point could have been achieved with less pages in my opinion.
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
The subject was clearly lovingly selected and extensively researched, and some passages were very captivating. The logical organization of each subject into a chapter also made it digestible. Madame Restell was an interesting and nuanced woman who ultimately was in it for only herself. But, when the service provided is a social good (like abortion), sometimes that's enough.
Unfortunately, I /really/ didn't care for the author's prose, and often it was so unpleasant that I felt it actively detracted from the book. The author tried unsuccessfully to toe the lines between sardonic, chummy, and intellectual. Some people use big words well, but if it's done poorly it has the effect of "picking similar words from a thesaurus because they think it'll make them sound smarter". Similarly, many sentences in the book are the author sarcastically retelling the same joke that she just quoted or set up in the previous sentence, or rephrasing a quote from a different source. If you wanted valuable deeper analysis of any of the primary sources presented in this book, look elsewhere. It was a book I was willing to read because Madame Restell was interesting, and not because the author is gifted at storytelling, and I feel that that's a shame.
Unfortunately, I /really/ didn't care for the author's prose, and often it was so unpleasant that I felt it actively detracted from the book. The author tried unsuccessfully to toe the lines between sardonic, chummy, and intellectual. Some people use big words well, but if it's done poorly it has the effect of "picking similar words from a thesaurus because they think it'll make them sound smarter". Similarly, many sentences in the book are the author sarcastically retelling the same joke that she just quoted or set up in the previous sentence, or rephrasing a quote from a different source. If you wanted valuable deeper analysis of any of the primary sources presented in this book, look elsewhere. It was a book I was willing to read because Madame Restell was interesting, and not because the author is gifted at storytelling, and I feel that that's a shame.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Five stars purely for the level of research that went into the writing of this book. I had never heard of Madame Restell before and am surely glad to have learned about her reign and legacy as one of the most successful abortionists of the 19th century.
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
A fascinating, dynamic, and nuanced narrative-style biography of a complex person. I can’t wait to read more from Jennifer Wright.
informative
sad
slow-paced