Sue Lloyd-Roberts

This is the sort of book that it is really hard to say "I really enjoyed this book". Because this is the sort of book that it is hard to enjoy. The horrors that are related transcend ordinary superlatives; the author manages to find words, but it's hard to see how anyone could observe all that and still be able to write about it. Just reading it was harrowing. The author traces misogyny throughout various parts of the world (she stays almost totally in the eastern hemisphere, which is unfortunate). She visits Argentina, but other than that does not chronicle the many ways that have been devised to render women powerless throughout the Americas. She writes well, managing to maintain her reporter training while still writing in a compelling style that evokes the real people behind the stories she relates. My main complaint with the book is the material added following her death by her daughter; too much sentiment about her mother, more of a eulogy that does not belong in a book of this sort. A brief note to let people know that the author had passed away before she could complete the book, and where her daughter and a co-worker finished the last chapter and a half, and save the encomiums for a biography of the author. This may sound petty and cruel, but a book like this needs to remain the hard-hitting investigative work that characterizes the bulk of the book if it is to be effective. Overall, highly recommended.… (mehr)