Madame Restell

This was an absolutely incredible read.

Nonfiction is very hit or miss for me but this book checked all my boxes. Not one was the initial premise was interesting – a female abortion doctor in an extremely misogynistic age that built an empire off of it – but the writing style was also very engaging while being just as informative. I didn't feel like any part of the story dragged even with all of the information that author managed to convey; many things I'd never known or heard about before in history class or through my own interests.

The story of this woman truly left me in awe. Everything she accomplished, the legacy she left even despite the vitriolic hate she received, all the people she managed to help in her time. The author didn't fall into the pitfall of only showing her virtues and not writing her faults, either, which only made me love her portrayal and her character even more. Give me a real hero who is cruel and hasty and wrong sometimes, someone I can see myself in as another human, rather than some angelic unattainable saint.

The subject matter tying from the 1800s to modern day in a post Roe v. Wade overturning America are definitely chilling and weighty to read, but necessary all the same.