REVIEW: The Five (Hallie Rubenhold)

Book: The Five

Author: Hallie Rubenhold

My rating: 4/5.

Premise: Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that ‘the Ripper’ preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told.

There is a sadness to this book. It tells the lives of each of the five victims, and for each of them, you want them to succeed and get their happy ending. But you know that it didn't end that way. I was struck by how respectful this book was of the women. It didn't go into detail of the murders, instead the story jumps straight to the next day and the aftermath. A big takeaway from this book for me was how awful it was for the poor and for women living in Victorian London. I can't even begin to imagine what it would've been like as a woman sleeping rough, not knowing where you'll be sleeping each night. Overall, a sad book that set off my inner feminist