Unreasonable Women

“Unreasonable Women 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. The book is as propulsive as any crime narrative but far more unsettling. 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.”

—Brian Goldstone, author of Carnegie Medal Finalist There is No Place for Us

“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.”

—Gilbert King, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Devil in the Grove

“Unreasonable Women 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.”

—Roxanna Asgarian, author of the National Book Critics Circle Award Winner We Were Once a Family

“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. Unreasonable Women takes 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 unputdownable.”

—Julia Ioffe, author of the National Book Award Finalist Motherland

“Reading Justine van der Leun's Unreasonable Women is an enraging, engrossing experience. 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.”

—Sarah Weinman, author of Without Consent

“I could not put down Unreasonable Women. 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.”

—Reuben Jonathan Miller, MacArthur Fellow and author of Halfway Home