DNF at 34%. While I think this is an important topic, and Rose has clearly done a lot of research on the topic of violence against women, I was in agreement with other reviewers who struggled with the constant tangents. In combination with the dense, overly academic language, this made the book very challenging to follow and to appreciate the points being made. I also found the terminology used in the sections about transgender people outdated.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an eARC.

This non-fiction masterpiece delves into a realm of ideas, concepts, and insights that not only inform but inspire. As a reader, I found myself immersed in a captivating journey that left me with a profound sense of understanding and a newfound appreciation for the subject matter. This is a text we all need to be reading both inside and outside of women's studies courses.

Thanks to @netgalley and the publisher for sending me this e arc for review, in exchange for my honest opinion.

I sat with this fantastic, nuanced read for a while because frankly it got depressing and brought me down. I was also hoping for something more universal around violence on women but those seemed to be more UK, USA and South African focused. Language access seemed to be a footnote. I am not sure if the trans information was updated. Yeah, I will mull a bit more about the book.

I'm not sure, I always agree with Jacqueline Rose, and my main issue I guess is always that her books seem to rehash or present a condensed overview of theories that on their own, are far more complex, exhaustive, and satisfying in their understanding of violence, and especially violence against women.

I'm also not sure, I agree with her assessment that sometimes oppressors cause harm without realizing it: I think violence is rarely an afterthought; it's the very purpose of oppressive systems, and they are not maintained by ignorance.

I did appreciate the depth of some aspects of this book, especially the portion on Freud and psychoanalysis which have been foundational to misogyny and yet, for all the disclaimers, are still given a prominent spot in Western discourse around most anything.

Overall, I'm a bit torn. Because on the one hand, I think that this would be good for someone who wants to have a general overview on the various theories that explain the roots and dynamics of violence against women, but then I think if perhaps its meandering nature might be that useful to someone who isn't at least somehow informed about this topic?

On Violence and On Violence Against Women is a well written and researched book about how violence and violence against women in particular affects this world. Rose does a fantastic job looking into the phenomenon and writing about it's impacts. Not shying away from complexity, she looks at the intersections and intersectionality of women's experience and brings it to the forefront.

I mostly enjoyed this book. Rose is clearly a huge presence as a literary critic and she explores some really interesting avenues throughout this book - I particularly liked the two chapters that focused on trans people, and the chapter surrounding the murder of Reeva Steenkamp. There are some places where the narrative felt a little dry, or it felt like a lot of regurgitated theory was being employed instead of interviewing new sources - this might be the result of the book being a product of the pandemic. Overall, informative but not mind blowing.

I’m not really an avid non fiction reader, but the title and content really drew me in, and I really wanted to read it. Jacqueline Rose shows through this book some theories behind violence against women, and on violence in general that goes on throughout the world. The amount of sources that went into this book was amazing, and it made it feel like a really well researched topic.

I think what threw me off was that it was hard to follow along throughout the book on the topics. A lot of the times it felt like the book discussed one aspect, then another, and another, without having a clear red thread between them, and then there had to be some kind of explanation on why these things were important, and, yeah, it really threw me off and I couldn’t follow along.

A lot of the points made were interesting, but they just didn’t feel cohesive. I would have loved to see it more organised and simplified.

Unfortunately I had some trouble getting through 'On Violence and On Violence Against Women' and stopped at about 40%. The topic is extremely important and relevant to today's time, but I think the book would be suited to someone more highly educated in the topic than myself. I have a lot of education in a different field (STEM), and lived experience as a woman, but felt a bit lost as the themes seemed to ping pong rapidly between Trump, Weinstein, fictional works and theory, and other global topics.

"On Violence" is a solid review of many works and studies about violence against women, but it probably shouldn't be your first foray into the field. If you have an academic background in the humanities or are extremely well read in topics of women's rights, this could be a good next option to add to your list.

"On Violence and On Violence Against Women" by Jacqueline Rose is the study of and theories behind violence against women and the violence that is present across different fields and regions of the world. I'm an avid nonfiction reader, and I was really looking forward to a book devoted to this topic. The breadth of sources that Rose drew upon to compose this book was really outstanding. Until the last two or three chapters of this book though, I had a really hard time following along with many of the tangents that Rose went on and how they were connected to the purpose of this book. There were a couple of times in "On Violence" that Rose stated that she needed to bring the reader back to the purpose of the chapter, and then the chapter would end shortly thereafter. For example, there were some deep dives into Freud and psychoanalytic theory, as well as pages long literary analysis of books the author read, and while this was interesting to a point, it wasn't really cohesive. There were some strong points in this book, and I hope more books are published on this subject.