{"product_id":"unreasonable-women-three-stories-of-violence-imprisonment-and-extraordinary-survival","title":"Unreasonable Women: Three Stories of Violence, Imprisonment, and Extraordinary Survival","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Impeccably researched . . . Required reading for anyone who cares about women and justice, \u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women \u003c\/i\u003eaims a powerful spotlight on our country's continued failure to protect its most vulnerable.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBookPage (starred review)\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Remarkable . . . A devastating portrait . . . A riveting, heartbreaking account of three women's experiences with violence and a system that perpetuates abuse.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Sure to enrage and affect . . . Embodying the increasingly rare role of journalist as relentless truth seeker, van der Leun embeds herself in these women's lives and combs through hundreds of hours of interviews and thousands of pages of legal documents to carefully tell their stories in piercing detail...This is true crime at its finest: when the racist patriarchal systems that replicate violence are at last exposed as the real monster.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"The book explores the stories of women who survived violence, only to find themselves criminally prosecuted and failed by the system. The stories span seven years of Justine's reporting and input from over 1,000 women.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWomen Beyond Walls\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Journalist van der Leun's new book, which she researched for seven years, tells the story of three women -- the victims of abuse in childhood and adulthood -- who had to kill to survive, and who were incarcerated for their actions.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Orange County Register\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"This book is intense, thorough, tight, and so well-reported. . . Very necessary.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eTraci Thomas, Unstacked\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women\u003c\/i\u003e is a rare and formidable work of narrative nonfiction. Grounded in years of exacting research and rigorous investigation, Justine van der Leun exposes a brutal truth: when women survive violence, the state often punishes them for it. With profound empathy and moral precision, she compels us to look beyond headlines and verdicts to the layered histories of abuse, poverty, silence, and disposability that precede a single violent act. As propulsive as any crime narrative but far more unsettling, the book situates these stories within a social and legal history that long normalized sexual coercion, absorbing men's violence into the ordinary fabric of life while casting women's resistance as deviance. The women here differ from others less in kind than in degree: in how far the violence went, and in their refusal to continue submitting to it. Van der Leun never turns away from pain, nor does she allow the reader to do so. This is essential journalism that fundamentally reshapes how we think about justice, survival, and the enduring peril of being a woman in America.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrian Goldstone, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of There is No Place for Us\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"What happens after a woman fights back and kills the man who's trying to kill her, after the credits roll? For most of them, it turns out, the answer is prison. \u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women \u003c\/i\u003etakes us into the suffocating web of a system that punishes a victim for not mutely suffering the violence that is her birthright, for fighting back, and for not being a perfect victim: a dead one. Exquisitely written and utterly infuriating, this book is \u003ci\u003eunputdownable\u003c\/i\u003e.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eJulia Ioffe, author of the National Book Award Finalist Motherland\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Reading Justine van der Leun's \u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women\u003c\/i\u003e is an enraging, engrossing experience, shining a much-needed light on the ways in which women who have been systematically destroyed by the people who profess to love them end up fighting back--only to be further pummeled by a criminal legal system more interested in wins than in mercy. Through the heartbreaking stories of Tanisha, Jema, and TC, and astoundingly detailed (and original) research on hundreds more incarcerated women, van der Leun demonstrates the impossible bind of those mired in intimate partner violence, and how it crushes them when they attempt to break free.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eSarah Weinman, author of Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle To Make Spousal Rape a Crime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"A rigorously reported and quietly devastating reckoning with how survival can be misunderstood in a courtroom. By returning these women to the center of their stories, Justine van der Leun widens our understanding of justice.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eGilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women\u003c\/i\u003e is a masterful deep dive into the keen survival instincts of three women who were pushed far past the edge, and a no-holds-barred indictment of a legal system that fails survivors by design. Trust me, you should read this book.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eRoxanna Asgarian, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award Winner We Were Once a Family\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"I could not put down \u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women\u003c\/i\u003e. It captures, with great care, the relentless pace of abuse and predation against the survivors of gender-based violence. Moving between history, scholarly insight, and years of careful reporting, it tells the story of three women from three different parts of the country trapped in the cycle of abuse, blame, and punishment that follows the women and girls who survive. And it does so without romanticizing their lives. This is the book we need if we're to ever confront our failure to see the nation's most vulnerable women as full human beings.\" - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eReuben Jonathan Miller, MacArthur Fellow and author of Halfway Home\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eChosen as a \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe \u003c\/i\u003eRecommended Summer Read and CrimeReads Best True Crime Books of the Month\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA groundbreaking account of how the legal system punishes those it purports to protect, told through the stories of three unforgettable women \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen award-winning journalist Justine van der Leun began researching the issue of criminalized survival, she was astonished to see women being imprisoned for protecting themselves against abuse. This sparked an intensive, years-long investigation into how survivors are targeted for prosecution, leading her to collect more than a thousand personal accounts from women's prisons across America.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women\u003c\/i\u003e, van der Leun tells the propulsive, shocking, and intimate stories of three extraordinary women who, finding themselves caught in the direst circumstances, had to kill to survive. Tanisha is a spirited Michigan mother determined to help authorities solve a cold case, whatever the consequences. Jema is a softhearted Missouri factory worker struggling to keep her family together while navigating a dangerous relationship. TC is a bold Californian trying to escape generations of trauma and a toxic family environment. In each case, the women's childhood abuse was replicated in adulthood--until they were forced to make an impossible choice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA work of literary reportage that reads like a crime novel, \u003ci\u003eUnreasonable Women\u003c\/i\u003e is the result of seven years of unprecedented research and on-the-ground reporting in U.S. prisons. It is the story of women and violence in America, a wake-up call about a broken system, and the moving narrative of three women who find hope and humanity in the unlikeliest of places.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/span\u003e 03\/15\/2026 (EAN 9780063241596, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 06\/01\/2026 (EAN 9780063241596, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eContributor Bio:\u003c\/strong\u003eVan Der Leun, Justine\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJustine van der Leun\u003c\/b\u003e is a journalist, the author of several books, including \u003ci\u003eWe Are Not Such Things\u003c\/i\u003e, and the host of the podcast \u003ci\u003eBelieve Her\u003c\/i\u003e. Her work has been published in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNew York Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eHarper's\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Guardian\u003c\/i\u003e. She has received fellowships from New America, the Emerson Collective, and PEN America, among others. She lives in New York.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Ecco Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496206106902,"sku":"9780063241596","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9780063241596.jpg?v=1783057524","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/unreasonable-women-three-stories-of-violence-imprisonment-and-extraordinary-survival","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}