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za_'s review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
The book discusses how rape is used as a weapon in war. However, it has barely been recognized in the legal system and globally. Meanwhile so many women from different areas have been impacted by the brutality of mass rape.
It talks about how the act of rape has long lasting impacts to the community and serve the purposes of the attackers. Women are often blamed for their rape, afraid to come forward, disowned by their husbands / families. Many say they are alive, but dead inside.
It seems the women speaking out want these attackers to be held responsible for their rapes and not just the deaths they caused, yet courts haven’t been sentencing many of the attackers for their rapes.
It would also set a precedent for future cases.
This book is truly devastating. I could only read a few chapters at a time. The author skipped around to different wars and survivors telling their stories, with so many of them being similar and atrocious.
lynndeeslibrary's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0
It's hard to say I "enjoyed" this book because the topic is disheartening and enraging, but I definitely appreciate it for the project that it was. R*pe is a constant war tactic yet is never prosecuted as a war crime--make that make sense. And many of the women are victimized twice--physically and socially. I definitely recommend this book if you're interested in these kind of issues, but just beware of the heaviness of it.
hallbrooke's review against another edition
5.0
Incredibly tough reading as you can expect. But also a must read collection of stories from women across the world
anjacanread's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
larryerick's review against another edition
4.0
I've never read a nonfiction book quite like this one. The cover of the book barely hints at what's contained within. The book I finished just before this one was about lynchings in America. What's covered in this book could easily be argued to be even more disturbing. I will also point out that the author has a remarkable ability to write with such concise clarity that it borders on seeming just simple, but it isn't. She packs a strong wallop in which she says. Where the true uniqueness of this book comes in is where the author straddles a very fine line between dispassionate reporting and strong advocacy, i.e., public relations. Indeed, she acknowledges at the end of the book that she started expanding the scope of the book after inadvertently(?) and repeatedly bumping into the areas and issues she was covering for different reasons. The point of the book in simple terms is that massive and systematic rape and sex slavery is a huge component of many, if not all, armed conflicts around the world. One need not know much about Rwanda or World War II, for instance, to know that many horrible deaths and much destruction took place. This book takes those events and several others known, at least superficially, to many readers, to show how females -- and I'm very sorry to add, children -- in particular, suffered well beyond what is taken for granted. Toward the end of the reporting on these areas, the reader will barely be able to comprehend just how abysmally one human can treat another -- of any and all ages. And where, according to the book, is the progress on tackling this issue? Progress has been made, but, if this was a book about civil rights in America, and not about global sexual abuse in war time, the world community would be somewhere where blacks in America were, perhaps shortly before the Brown vs. Board of Education SCOTUS decision in 1954, the one that took many more decades to enforce.