A review by jess_justmaybeperfect
Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Say Nothing reads like a mystery novel while telling the complicated, violent, heartbreaking, terrifying, and even sometimes joyful story of The Troubles, the 30 year conflict in Northern Ireland between paramilitary groups, the British security forces, and civilians stemming from centuries of British colonialism and religious sectarianism.

You meet main characters from the IRA and related organizations and those who opposed them, politicians, families, and victims. The stories take place in Belfast and other Irish towns, prisons, homes, London, Parliament, abusive and terrifying orphanages, the Old Bailey, newsrooms, pubs, Boston College, and even the stage.

This was a hard one, but a good one. 

The narration is excellent. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail