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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.
sapphicbookworm's review against another edition
4.75
Very triggering and heartbreaking, but also necessary read
jaini056's review against another edition
5.0
Most important book I have read in my life. These stories will make you angry. Then these stories will make you feel empathy. Then these stories will hopefully start to rekindle that rage within you, the rage you felt when you were a little girl growing up, being told not to dress a certain way to entice boys, the rage you felt when you noticed the unsettling way they would look at you , the rage you felt when he touched you without our permission, the rage you felt when your body was stolen from you, and then the fire will slowly burn out and be left with nothingness. That’s where this book comes in again, and will remind you to get up again, because there are countless more like you, there are countless more who didn’t deserve it, there are countless more who didn’t ask for it. And there are countless more to fight for. If we don’t educate ourselves about these stories we won’t do anything about them. If we don’t do anything about them we can’t be surprised when our sisters daughters mothers face the same fate.
driveupstate's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
sad
5.0
harrowing yet incredibly written. a must read
brew_and_books's review against another edition
4.0
How often are we introduced to the ravages of war having women, and children at the receiving end? Before I even attempt to draw upon the impression this book left me, I’d disclaim this is one of the toughest books I have ever read, much harder than ‘My Dark Vanessa’, which was my all-time toughest read before this. Also, I can never get myself to rate and review a book based on traumatic war experiences of people. Horrendous and utterly nauseating in its storytelling, Christina Lamb has ventured to expose the purview of sexual abuse and rape amid conflicts of war. She gives detailed accounts of the women who experienced the horrors of these rape crimes and sets out to voice those who were overlooked and ignored by the very authorities that were set up to address such issues.
As I went about reading the atrocious crimes committed all over the world throughout history including Rwanda, Congo, Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, Myanmar, I couldn’t quite take in as what I was reading are real-life accounts. To think of such crimes being committed to women and children at this moment, when we believe to have progressed a lot from the contemporary times, and still go unreported from the mainstream media infuriates me. The narrative truly torments you and that I believe is what makes it important. These are real-life accounts that happened to people, very much like us. This book mandates the support it so desperately deserves and that the voices of these people must not go unheard.
However important I believe and claim this book to be, I myself stopped reading it 100 pages from completion. When everything around is so grey and sombre, reading a book this tough is the last thing I would want to do. I’d be honest to confess I ploughed through this book for two months until I finally decided to stop short and pick this up again only when I am ready, prepared to take what this book offers. This is a deeply unsettling, discomfiting but equally important read, and one must approach it with the right state of mind, with all the TW in the head.
As I went about reading the atrocious crimes committed all over the world throughout history including Rwanda, Congo, Bangladesh, Syria, Iraq, Myanmar, I couldn’t quite take in as what I was reading are real-life accounts. To think of such crimes being committed to women and children at this moment, when we believe to have progressed a lot from the contemporary times, and still go unreported from the mainstream media infuriates me. The narrative truly torments you and that I believe is what makes it important. These are real-life accounts that happened to people, very much like us. This book mandates the support it so desperately deserves and that the voices of these people must not go unheard.
However important I believe and claim this book to be, I myself stopped reading it 100 pages from completion. When everything around is so grey and sombre, reading a book this tough is the last thing I would want to do. I’d be honest to confess I ploughed through this book for two months until I finally decided to stop short and pick this up again only when I am ready, prepared to take what this book offers. This is a deeply unsettling, discomfiting but equally important read, and one must approach it with the right state of mind, with all the TW in the head.
e_grace's review against another edition
5.0
The atrocities in this book rarely makes it to mainstream media. It’s a hard read but definitely one that needs to be read and talked about - it should be on every school curriculum!