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Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'
Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon
3 reviews
rieviolet's review against another edition
4.0
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).
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
mariakureads's review against another edition
4.5
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.
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
4.5
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