A review by aflovell2
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

AMAZING. I took my time reading this as I was so enthralled by Polly, Anne, Elizabeth, Kate and Mary-Jane’s stories that I wanted to fully allow myself to absorb this. And WOW! This book should be on everyone’s bookshelves. The grip of the stories, the emotion with which they are conveyed, the tiny details that so brilliantly and vibrantly bring the history to life made this one of my all time favourite reads! It reads like a fiction as you really fall in love, cry, get angry, laugh, and cry some more with these women and their lives. The analysis of the Victorian era, the moral values of that time, the similarities that are drawn between then and now and the deconstruction of the assumptions and attitudes towards the Ripper and the women he murdered are so expertly woven in. The last line made my cry and I was so sad to put this book down but so grateful to have read their stories. “The victims of Jack the Ripper were never ‘just prostitutes’; they were daughters, wives, mothers, sisters and lovers. They were women. They were human beings, and surely that, in itself, is enough.”