Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

19 reviews

saige_creature's review

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

I was already inspired by Mary Shelley so learning of her mother was greater inspiration than I knew I could have. An incredibly crafted bio that makes you feel like you’re watching a historical drama! 
I love how detailed each chapter is on the world’s state. It shows us how the world around them effects them and gives a clear picture of where they are. Some of these details go on a bit, but I am still grateful to learn so much!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide attempt and Child death

michayla13's review against another edition

informative fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Mental illness, Medical trauma, Infidelity, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Rape, Incest, Toxic relationship, Sexism, Pregnancy, Drug use, Death of parent, Animal cruelty, Terminal illness, Religious bigotry, Miscarriage, Medical content, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicidal thoughts, Pedophilia, Grief, Forced institutionalization, Emotional abuse, Death, Child death, Cancer, Blood, and Abandonment

Minor: Suicide attempt, Miscarriage, Incest, Drug use, Animal cruelty, Sexual assault, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, War, Terminal illness, Racism, Blood, Trafficking, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Rape, and Forced institutionalization

rieviolet's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

It took me a really long time to finish this book (apparently 9 months, wow!). I started out with the idea of reading a little bit every month, but then I kept getting distracted by other books and lost momentum. I think that this erratic reading pattern might have affected my overall enjoyment negatively; it really started to feel like an impossible and never-ending task to get through this.

I still think that the book is good; it is very informative and also readable, once you manage to get into the rhythm of it. The language is not overtly complicated or inaccessibly academic.

The book is structured in a sort of dual narrative, following Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley in alternating chapters. While I can understand this authorial choice, sometimes it was still a bit hard to recall what had been going on previously, given this constant switch.

I quite liked that the author did not focus only on their personal lives, but also explored and analysed their body of work, of which I knew very little aside from the "big names" (Frankenstein and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman).

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Child death, Pregnancy, Medical content, Violence, Mental illness, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Grief, Death, Sexism, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Classism, Torture, Gore, Child abuse, Ableism, Toxic friendship, Cancer, Chronic illness, Adult/minor relationship, Miscarriage, and Infidelity

Minor: Colonisation, Bullying, Animal cruelty, Religious bigotry, Racism, Murder, Acephobia/Arophobia, Drug use, Blood, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Incest, Alcoholism, Slavery, Forced institutionalization, Rape, and Animal death

lindseyhall44's review

informative slow-paced

5.0

Romantic Outlaws is one of the best biographies I have ever read! The pacing, narrative, and commentary made it hard for me to put this book down, and anxious to be reading late into the night. 
To anyone interested in the amazing lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelly, I would highly recommend!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Religious bigotry, Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Violence

tmickey's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Misogyny, Child death, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Death, Death of parent, Infidelity, Toxic friendship, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content, Terminal illness, Cancer, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Alcoholism

Minor: Slavery, Murder, Sexual assault, Blood, Homophobia, Incest, and Forced institutionalization

lidia7's review

dark informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Sexism, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Death of parent, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Infidelity, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Sexual violence

Minor: Abortion, Incest, Rape, and Cultural appropriation

mariakureads's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

This was an eye opener for me on both woman.
I'm saddened to say that before reading this book, I knew very little about either Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley, icons to me really, aside from that they were mother and daughter and both writers in their own rights, decades apart from each other. Enough but also not nearly once I got really into this book!

Gordon does a fantastic job of interweaving their histories through alternating chapters as it allowed me to see and grasp their similarities when they didn't even know each other as Wollstonecraft died after giving birth as well as keeping the reader engaged within the timeframe in which these women lived through because those additional paragraphs to the actual world events of the time really helped me see the battle that each was going through.

The similarities are so vivid and surreal as the book is presented in chronological order, starting with  Wollstonecraft, allowing for a pace that I found easy to follow and before realizing seeing the differences between them as they were each their own person. It just so happens that thanks to the amount of research and documents presented by Gordon, I really couldn't escape the eeriness of their lives and how almost identical it sounded by the end. The daughter echoing back her mother is what I thought.

I can't believe that all these years later, both women are still having almost an identity crisis thanks in no part to the undoing of their own family members, society's view of them, and the amount of written work that is still being uncovered for both which is helping to shed some light on these two women. I can't imagine what Mary Shelley might have been like with her mother at her side but even more so what new ideas, radical even, that both mother and daughter could have contrived together as Wollstonecraft's words and theology impacted Shelley's work. Oh that would have been such a site.

Big thanks to Gordon for the attention to detail, not just in these women, but all the people that were included, friends and family, but also to the real world that surrounded them. Without those historical notes and nods, a lot may have fallen flat but what rights I have today as a woman are all thanks to all those women who fought and struggled before me, and here are two women that did that.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Child death, and Death

Moderate: Chronic illness, Classism, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, and Toxic friendship

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, Mental illness, Chronic illness, Death, Death of parent, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: War, Classism, Miscarriage, Pedophilia, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Child abuse, Abandonment, Infidelity, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Cancer, Incest, Child death, Pregnancy, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Animal death, Bullying, Colonisation, Homophobia, Confinement, Racial slurs, Racism, Animal cruelty, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Xenophobia, Alcoholism, Eating disorder, Forced institutionalization, Rape, Ableism, and Sexual content

laurenleigh's review

adventurous challenging informative sad slow-paced

4.0

I’ve never read a dual biography quite like this. Gordon walks us chronologically through the lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley, simultaneously. Every chapter switches between the two. It was a unique reading experience, really allowing me to see the parallels and lines of influence from one generation to the next. It also was a detailed account of what life was like (for a white woman at least) in the late 18th-early 19th centuries. The most interesting parts were their times abroad: Wollstonecraft in France during the Revolution, Shelley in Austria and Italy with Percy Shelley and Lord Byron. This was a long book and there’s so much more I can’t fit here, but I highly recommend if you’re at all interested in these authors or these time periods. I have such a deeper understanding and appreciation for them and their works.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Death, and Death of parent

Minor: Violence and War

henrygravesprince's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Engaging & at times a very thrilling read. Very, very well-written and easy to read despite the length. I did take an extended break from reading shortly after I started this book & was unable to get back to it for over a year, but that was on account of my personal life, not the merits of the book. As an aside, a majority of the content warnings I’ve tagged for this are things discussed, not necessarily perpetuated, in the work.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Misogyny, Grief, Infidelity, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, Child death, Death, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Toxic friendship, War, Abandonment, Child abuse, Incest, Religious bigotry, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Homophobia, Pedophilia, and Rape

It is worth noting there’s also a moderate amount of discussion of capital punishment (particularly during the French Revolution), as well as minor discussion of graverobbing and corpse exhumation. That aside, the content warnings I’ve listed are moreso attributed to the events (& occasionally, people) the book covers than anything seeming to be endorsed by the author. There may be some things I missed, since I took a long break from reading in the middle, but I tried to mark down everything as best I could, based on how much they reoccur and how prominent they are within the biographies.