Forbidden Fruit: The Secret, Scandalous History of Contraception and Abortion by Jessica Cale – 3.5 stars
CBR18 Bingo: You – As a woman living in the United States, the history and the laws surrounding contraception and abortion are very important to me.
Though lawmakers today would have you believe that contraception and abortion are only recent inventions, in fact they have a long history.
With the recent attacks on access to abortion and contraception in the United States, it is somewhat reassuring to learn about how humans have been attempting to manage conception and pregnancy for pretty much as long as we have been a species.
In this book, we go through the many methods people have employed from the times of the Roman Empire to today, focusing mostly on the Western world. It was interesting to see how both biological and mechanical methods evolved, and how the Industrial Revolution changing mores in broader society would also drive innovations in contraception.
I did think the writing wavered awkwardly between a more detached historical tone and a more personal tone – I wish the author had stuck to one or another. I also would have been interested to learn more about abortion and contraception in the rest of the world after Roman times, as the geographical focus narrows at that point.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
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The Mysterious Case of the Victorian Female Detective by Sara Lodge – 3 stars
The image of the cerebral male detective exploded in popularity in the Victorian era, but at first glance there was no corresponding female detective literature. However, it turns out that women did play their parts in enforcing the law, both in real life and in fiction.
This book combines coverage of the ‘Victorian female detective’ in real life, both those working with the police and as private detectives, with their depiction in books and on the stage. Since they seem to have cross-pollinated each other in creating the image of the female detective in the average Victorian mind, this makes sense.
I thought the author did a good job of showing how changes in society led to the emergence of the female detective, as well as the tension between the glamorous image of the female detective in fiction with the reality, who dealt with more with crime born out of poverty and could be quite as oppressive as their male counterparts.
The writing can be a bit scattered, jumping from thought to thought or location to location in a way that makes the thread hard to follow on occasion. The book also takes a pretty broad overview, especially of female detectives in reality, when I wished we could have zoomed in further on specific women and cases longer.
Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
