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Three Women

Lisa Taddeo (Goodreads Author)

3.70 · Rating details · 60,685 ratings · 5,987 reviews

A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women, based on nearly a decade of reporting.

Hailed as “a dazzling achievement” (Los Angeles Times) and “riveting page-turner that explores desire, heartbreak, and infatuation in all its messy, complicated nuance” (The Washington Post), Lisa Taddeo’s Three Women has captivated readers, booksellers, and critic ...more

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Hardcover, 304 pages

Published July 9th 2019 by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster

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Lisa Taddeo - author, nonfiction

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Aug 06, 2019 Roxane rated it it was ok

What even is this book? Broadly, it follows the desires and sex lives of three women but... it feels like a novelization more than reportage. Ten years of following these women went into this book but the author seems more concerned with transcription than any sort of thoughtful analysis. She draws no significant conclusions on the nature of women’s desires. Also, the title could be “Three White Women,” as all three women chronicled here are white. There is nothing wrong with that but it is such ...more

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Aug 24, 2019 Emily May rated it really liked it

Recommended to Emily May by: Tatiana

Shelves: feminism, nonfiction, botm, 2019

It wasn't regular, what you did, and now here I am. Look at me. I put this war paint on, but underneath I'm scarred and scared and horny and tired and love you.

I can understand why many readers were disappointed with this book. Luckily for me, it was recommended to me the right way: by a friend who painted it as a juicy and compelling portrait of three women's sex lives. Not as some amazing non-fiction project that contains the secrets of female desire.

If you came for the latter, I think disappointment awaits. Three Women is delicious and gossipy. It has its heartbreaking moments, too, but it is mostly a book full of scandalous thrills that narrates far more than it analyzes. So many of my friends read this expecting Taddeo's eight years of research to culminate in something more eye-opening, more diverse and representative of women as a whole. But the title really says it all: this is a book about THREE women. Nothing more.

It worked well for me, honestly. I knew what I was getting. It reads like a novelization of these women's experiences - in fact, I suspect some parts were embellished for better reading - but I found it very entertaining.

The book follows - you guessed it - three women and their sex lives. Maggie had a relationship with her married teacher in high school and still bears the scars, Lina is having a passionate affair behind her emotionally-detached husband's back, and Sloane has sex with lots of different people because her husband likes to watch. Judge me all you want, but I couldn't look away!

One criticism I read was of how this wasn't a very feminist book because all the women's sex lives were influenced or controlled by men. This is true to some extent, and yet Taddeo didn't seem to portray any of the women's stories as necessarily positive or healthy. Through the women's experiences, Taddeo touches upon how gender inequality punishes women for their desire, whether it is a young girl being taken advantage of by an adult man or a married woman feeling trapped in a passionless relationship.

It is, of course, very limited in its scope, and I find it frustrating that someone saw fit to market this book as some kind of desire manifesto for American women, especially when it's sample - as the title outright admits - is ridiculously tiny. The book itself is very engaging, the three women's stores are interesting, but how anyone could read this and imagine it is representative of most American women, never mind all, is beyond my comprehension.

If you like novels, genre fiction, scandals and being nosy, I recommend it. If you are in search of an in-depth study of desire, I would look elsewhere.

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Jul 10, 2019 Elyse Walters rated it it was ok

Shelves: audiobook, female-author, infidelity, usa, non-fiction, relationships-friendships, group-biographies, current-events, sexuality, feminism

Audiobook... read by Tara Lynne Barr, Marin Ireland, Mena Suvari, and Lisa Taddeo

I’ve listened to 3 hours so far - of the 11 hours and 24 minutes.

Dave Eggers said:
“I can’t imagine a scenario where this isn’t one of the more important - and breathlessly debated - books of the year”. 🤔

Well... let the debates begin!!! I don’t feel this book is worth the praise it’s getting - at all.

My thoughts so far....
Honest thoughts?
I think very little of it!!
The concept might have been a great idea....
But ...more

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May 24, 2019 Roman Clodia rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is quite a perplexing book as I'm not sure what Taddeo's intentions were. She takes three American women and tells their stories of failed love, disappointing marriages, unmet or unfulfilled sexual and emotional needs.

In some ways the stories are different and, almost deliberately (?) echo themes covered in recent fiction: Lina, in a sexless marriage, falls into an affair with her high-school boyfriend; Maggie is 'groomed' into a sexual relationship with her high-school teacher; Sloane fin ...more

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Jul 29, 2019 Matt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: sexuality

“If you have a husband who barely touches you. If you have a husband who touches you too much, who grabs your hand and puts it on his penis when you’re trying to read about electric fences for golden retrievers. If you have a husband who plays video games more than he touches your arm. If you have a husband who eats the bun off your plate when you’ve left it but you aren’t one hundred percent done with it. If you don’t have a husband at all. If your husband died. If your wife died. If your wife ...more

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Jul 07, 2019 Jessica Lafferty rated it did not like it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. TLDR: I hated this book so much that I’m genuinely angry

Advertised as a non-fiction book about women’s sexual desire, I chose this as my Book of the Month pick expecting stories of women exploring what it means to confidently own their sexuality in a Virgin-Whore patriarchal society. What I got instead were three stories in which women’s (exclusively hetero)sexual encounters were graphically (and sometimes awkwardly—Cadbury Cream Eggs are ruined for me forever) relayed as a backdrop to what was TLDR: I hated this book so much that I’m genuinely angry

Advertised as a non-fiction book about women’s sexual desire, I chose this as my Book of the Month pick expecting stories of women exploring what it means to confidently own their sexuality in a Virgin-Whore patriarchal society. What I got instead were three stories in which women’s (exclusively hetero)sexual encounters were graphically (and sometimes awkwardly—Cadbury Cream Eggs are ruined for me forever) relayed as a backdrop to what was unveiled as their “real” priority: to be desired and approved of by men.

The women themselves were written in such a way that they felt like caricatures of a real person. Maggie, the troubled teen with alcoholic parents, searching for adult approval, taken advantage of by her male teacher—who simultaneously struggles academically and is yet precocious enough to ponder life’s meaning and psychological/emotional complexities. Sloane, the rich girl who settles down with the “good guy” with a fetish with which she is completely uncomfortable but goes along with anyway, until one day she reads 50 Shades and she, I kid you not, “suddenly could see the world clearly,” deciding maybe she liked the fetish after all. Then Lina. Oh Lina, small-town girl, saddled with Catholic guilt and a sexless marriage, meeting up with an ex she has been pining for since high school to have clandestine sex in the back of her car, even though he repeatedly treats her like sh*t.

Then there are these choice lines: “When girls are without fathers they look under every manhole cover,” and “...women wait [after men leave them]....hoping that he will return with a smashed phone, with a smashed face, and say, I’m sorry, I was buried alive and the only thing I thought of was you...Marry me.” SERIOUSLY? Women just can’t be whole without a man around, and we’ll sit and pine in perpetuity. [insert world’s most massive eye roll]

Despite being a woman herself, I can’t help but wonder if the author has any respect at all for women...or if she even likes them. After all, she did manage to write a book entitled “Three Women” and somehow make it all about men. 🙄 ...more

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Jul 10, 2019 Catherine rated it did not like it

Shelves: nonfiction

I did find the stories interesting to read, but I have a myriad of issues with the book.

1. This book is marketed as a book about women's sexual desires, but of the three women's stories, only Lina's is about her "sexual desire." Maggie's story is about how she was groomed by her male teacher, and Sloane's is about how she has sex with other men because her husband likes it, even if she doesn't like or find those men attractive. Those two stories aren't about women's sexual desires; they're about I did find the stories interesting to read, but I have a myriad of issues with the book.

1. This book is marketed as a book about women's sexual desires, but of the three women's stories, only Lina's is about her "sexual desire." Maggie's story is about how she was groomed by her male teacher, and Sloane's is about how she has sex with other men because her husband likes it, even if she doesn't like or find those men attractive. Those two stories aren't about women's sexual desires; they're about women being abused by men.

2. Even though the synopsis says the women are "from different regions and backgrounds," they are actually not different at all (not only because they're all white Americans). Lina outright says that all she wants is for a man to love her and kiss her, and that she thinks women who say they care more about their careers than love are lying. Sloane, upon seeing a girl, immediately starts a mental competition in her head on who's younger, thinner, more alluring in bed, more interesting to talk to afterwards. And, Maggie, whose favorite book is Twilight, wishes she too could have a vampire romance like the one Bella has. These women are not only not different, but also they are all the negative female stereotypes you've ever heard put into three women, which brings me to my third point.

3. Why choose these women for the book? I had expected when initially hearing about this book something different entirely. For example, maybe there would be a story of an ambitious woman with a high-powered or lucrative career who hates the idea of marriage and having kids and spends her little free time sleeping with interns and secretaries who are awed by her success. I thought there would be more racial diversity (as well as diversity in sexuality), maybe one of the stories would be about an Asian woman who is married to a man but has a tumultuous affair with another woman: her immigrant parents would never approve, so she keeps quiet about her sexuality and her desires. Just something more interesting and more unique (more "groundbreaking," as the synopsis says) considering the author spent eight years traveling across the country to find and interview women for her book. But, instead, this is a story of three white women whose only ambitions are in relations to men. I would understand if this book was written to help bring justice to the women, like Maggie who no one believed or Lina who was gang raped, but all their names and locations have been changed (as the author said), so this isn't going to help them get justice; this is just to tell a story. So, why not at least tell a story that paints women in a positive, stronger light? Or, at least, doesn't just perpetuate the stereotypes that women only see other women as competition, that they exist solely to please men, that all they want is to get married?

4. The author writes in the epilogue that the type of woman whose sexual assault experiences are heard is white (along with young, rich, and pretty). It is a random and tactless statement to include, considering the author just got done telling the stories of only white women. It's similar to the way an award show that nominates and awards primarily white actors and actresses will hire a host to crack a few jokes about lack of diversity in Hollywood, as if doing that absolves them from taking any blame of contributing to the problem. The author was looking for some brownie points with that statement and to appease any reader who might have been wondering: "How representative is this book of women and female sexual desire if it only tells the stories of white women?" ...more

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Jul 11, 2019 Lisa rated it it was ok

Yawn. This book about three damaged women and their sad sex lives was not for me. I feel sorry for all of them - especially Maggie who was totally screwed - but I found the book tedious and pointless. Eight years of research for this?

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Aug 28, 2019 Caroline rated it did not like it

Shelves: nonfiction, she-wrote-it, narrative-nonfiction, botmc, psychology, waste-of-trees, so-much-potential

***NO SPOILERS*** BOOK TRIGGER WARNING: sexual abuse, eating disorders, and suicide.

Three Women depressed and sickened me. I made this a summer read, even making the mistake of reading it at the beach. It cast a pall on what should have been a fun time, leaving me feeling hollowed-out and at times even hopeless.

This is marketed as a book about female desire--more specifically, the romantic, but mostly sexual, desire of three specific women. These are Lina, an at-home mom of two children and wi ...more

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Dec 05, 2019 Nilufer Ozmekik rated it liked it

For a long time I didn’t read a nonfiction and after reading intriguing and provocative blurb and some mixed reviews I wanted to jump in without thinking any further.

I loved to see those three women early lives and their experiences, bad and good doings, suffering from all those hypocrisies, unfair verdicts, and judgmental looks. They might be abused and exhausted after carrying so much emotional pain and burdens but they are real survivors. Mostly three of them could be easily sympathized. Espe For a long time I didn’t read a nonfiction and after reading intriguing and provocative blurb and some mixed reviews I wanted to jump in without thinking any further.

I loved to see those three women early lives and their experiences, bad and good doings, suffering from all those hypocrisies, unfair verdicts, and judgmental looks. They might be abused and exhausted after carrying so much emotional pain and burdens but they are real survivors. Mostly three of them could be easily sympathized. Especially my heart broke for Maddie and her story. (I couldn’t say the same for Sloane. But I do understand her and her motives and thoughts beyond her actions.)

But what I didn’t like about this research:

We don’t get a proper analysis after reading the transcript. We didn’t get the emotional approach about those women’s suffer even after the revelation of injustice. I can understand maybe the author chose the stories speak for themselves but I still wanted to read something summarizing the conclusion. I think there are so many things left unsaid and unresolved which made me a little disturbed.

And other crucial fact made me question everything about this book is:
Why was this research on three white women? Didn’t they find any subject from other races, nations, cultures and if the research is about sexual desires why didn’t they choose a gay or bisexual person? It felt like so stereotyped approach to the matter which pissed me off. In my opinion if you want to reflect all those women’s desires in a book, you shouldn’t be focused on only one kind of prototype. There are so many voices out there suffering from worse life experiences to scream them to push out from their chests. I wish this book could give them the opportunity TO RAISE THEIR VOICES AND TRULY SPEAK THE SEXISM around every parts of our lives.

Overall, after surviving from all those depressing, heart wrenching feeling I have to deal with, I really respect those women who were so brave enough to tell their stories so I rounded my 2.5 stars to 3 just for their honesty, what they’ve been through and their determination to share their stories. But I still have second thoughts about the writing style and approach of the author. This research has so much potential wasted and failed for me!

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Sep 29, 2019 emma rated it liked it

Shelves: non-ya, owned, reviewed, couldn-t-wait-to-read, nonfiction, 3-stars

To whom it may concern,

Just once I would like to have uncomplicated feelings about a book. Just once.

I would like to uncomplicatedly, without exception, truly purely LOVE a book. I’d even settle for outright, simple dislike at this point.

But I seem to be cursed with having mixed feelings about everything I read lately, and I guess that is my cross to bear.

(Also ignore the fact that I’m saying “lately” as if I didn’t read this a full three months ago.)

Anyway.

The first thing I would like to say a ...more

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Jul 17, 2019 Britta Böhler rated it it was ok

Shelves: debuts, 2feminism, 2019, kindle-scribd, 2019new-release, femlit, 01secondshelf-read, non-fiction

Intriguing idea, a book about female desire, but this book is not about that. At all.

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Aug 12, 2019 Tatiana rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: those curious about other people's sex lives

Recommended to Tatiana by: slate

Shelves: non-fiction, 2019

I devoured this book. I couldn't put it down. This past weekend I was continuously either physically reading it or listening to it. Morbid curiosity will do this to you. Three Women pulled me in with the same force that every damn Dear Prudence column pulls me it. I just love reading about other people's dramas. This book delivers the thrills of snooping on someone's personal lives tri-fold.

Lisa Taddeo had intended to write a book about desire, but after spending a decade interviewing her subjec ...more

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Jan 15, 2020 Chelsea (chelseadolling reads) rated it it was ok

This felt very... gratuitous to me? I'm sure it was cathartic for the women involved, but reading about their experiences made me feel really anxious and uncomf and this just really didn't work for me.

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Jul 28, 2019 Thomas rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction, feminism

I appreciate how this book tackles the topic of female desire explicitly, given how female sexuality is so often stigmatized in contemporary culture. However, several issues got in the way of me enjoying the book or connecting with it more. As my friend Caroline writes in her astute review, I found aspects of the book gender essentialist, such that Lisa Taddeo would make comments about women’s desires broadly, without really analyzing how those desires may stem from socialization or how they may ...more

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Jun 20, 2019 Amanda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“Three Women” is an intense look at the lives of 3 women, delving into their lives over an 8 year period, where they have been interviewed in their home towns. It intrigued me as it was an intimate look at their thoughts and desires, rather like reading someone’s diary.

The 3 women live in different areas, are different ages and social classes, yet they still have the same desires and hopes for the future.

I couldn’t help love Maggie, Sloanne and Lina and even though they chose paths that I would ...more

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Jul 15, 2019 Claire Reads Books rated it liked it

This was an interesting one... The product of more than a decade of research and interviews, this book tells the stories of three women: Maggie, a North Dakota woman who, as a teenager, had an affair with her high school English teacher; Lina, a Midwestern housewife stuck in a sexless marriage; and Sloane, a glamorous Newport restaurateur whose husband likes to watch her sleep with other people. Provocative, explicit, and refreshingly frank, Three Women seems to be perfectly timed for our curren This was an interesting one... The product of more than a decade of research and interviews, this book tells the stories of three women: Maggie, a North Dakota woman who, as a teenager, had an affair with her high school English teacher; Lina, a Midwestern housewife stuck in a sexless marriage; and Sloane, a glamorous Newport restaurateur whose husband likes to watch her sleep with other people. Provocative, explicit, and refreshingly frank, Three Women seems to be perfectly timed for our current moment – after all, what could be better than a book about "female desire" and "women's narratives" in 2019? On a granular, sentence-by-sentence level, this book is richly told and immensely readable – in part because Taddeo has a gift for storytelling and detail, but also because the subject matter creates an unavoidable and at times exhilarating sense of voyeurism (although less so in the case of Maggie's story, which is more depressing and infuriating than anything). Where Three Women fails, however, is in the broader sweep of its narratives and how they relate to each other – not only does Lisa Taddeo draw flimsy connections between these women's stories while neglecting more substantial through-lines, but she also fails to build a compelling argument about what, collectively, these case studies really tell us about "female desire." I found this book's lack of a clear thesis profoundly frustrating, and for what it's worth, I'm not even convinced that "female desire" alone is that most interesting undercurrent in this book. You could argue that, more than anything, these are stories of exploitation, manipulation, and disappointment; the fraught social, sexual, and gender dynamics that are at play when male and female desires collide; and how, perhaps, female desire is too often warped by and forced to capitulate to male desire. I don't know – there is certainly a lot here, and the fact that Taddeo fails to analyze it in a satisfying manner is ultimately quite disappointing. ...more

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Jul 13, 2019 Renee (itsbooktalk) rated it liked it

It's taken me a few days to get my thoughts together to write what I hope is a usual review. I want to start by saying I think this book is worth reading. It’s bringing about important discussions, I’ve had some really great ones with a few bookstagram friends but I also think it’s important to have the right expectations going in. ⠀⠀
~
I was excited to read what had been buzzed about as a juicy expose on female desire. This book has been marketed as the next great feminist book based on 8 years o ...more

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Sep 11, 2019 Gabby rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks-i-listened-to, memoir-or-nonfiction, favorites, read-in-2019, reviewed, student-teacher-relationships, arc-or-won-or-received, erotica, own, 4-star-books

I listened to the audiobook, and I thought it was fascinating. I know this book is a little controversial right now, but I personally enjoyed it. We follows three different women in this book, and I like that even though this book in nonfiction, it reads like fiction. We get to hear the stories from these three women told from their own voices, which was a great choice on the authors part I think. I think Maggie's chapters were my favorite to read about, and her chapters take up the majority of ...more

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Jul 15, 2019 Claire Gibson rated it it was ok

I have no idea how to rate this book. On one hand, "Three Women" is a fascinating tale — but I wouldn't call it an accurate depiction of female desire, as it's being billed. To me, it is a sad tragedy about sexual dysfunction — not about sex as it should be. It is pornographic — at times, even more pornographic than I thought necessary. However that didn't surprise me, considering the fact that the book sought to lift the veil on "desire." I would love to read a book about healthy sexuality. Sad ...more

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Jul 31, 2019 Nefeli rated it did not like it

Shelves: non-fiction

DNF-ing at 34% because this book is making me feel incredibly angry. The fact that I wasn't going to like it was pretty apparent from the beginning, as the prologue reeks of victim-blaming: Lisa Taddeo describes how her mother was followed to work for a long time by a man who masturbated in plain sight while looking at her, and wonders why her mother "let that happen". She goes on to ask herself if maybe her mother secretly enjoyed the experience. If you need an explanation of why this is fucked ...more

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Jul 01, 2019 Book of the Month added it

"Why I love it"
by Lisa Taddeo

Recently over drinks I asked a friend, “What’s the last book you read that you just couldn’t put down?” Without hesitation, she answered, Three Women. Now, I’m not usually a nonfiction reader—and I have a stack of half-read memoirs to prove it—but with this book, I have to agree with my friend: Three Women sucks you in from the very first page. After all, who would pass up a voyeuristic glimpse behind the bedroom doors (or in some cases, the classroom or car doors) o ...more

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Feb 18, 2019 Tyler Goodson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: arcs

Three Women tells the story of female desire, not as experienced by all women, but by Lina, Maggie, and Sloane. The stories of these women are surprising and thought-provoking, and Lisa Taddeo relates them in a book that is as insightful as it is impossible to put down. It isn't that these three women speak for all women, but that they speak so clearly, honestly, and powerfully for themselves.

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Aug 19, 2019 Mariah rated it it was ok

@avidreaderpress #partner Okay. This is going to be a long one. I want to preface this by saying that my negative opinions about this book are not directed towards the brave women who shared their stories with the author.
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This book is marketed as a book about female desire. Goodreads pitches this as “the deepest nonfiction portrait of desire ever written.” The authors note at the beginning of my ARC says “I am confident that these stories convey vital truths about women and desire.” But I have t @avidreaderpress #partner Okay. This is going to be a long one. I want to preface this by saying that my negative opinions about this book are not directed towards the brave women who shared their stories with the author.
.
This book is marketed as a book about female desire. Goodreads pitches this as “the deepest nonfiction portrait of desire ever written.” The authors note at the beginning of my ARC says “I am confident that these stories convey vital truths about women and desire.” But I have to respectfully disagree. This book, to me, is not about female desire. If anything, it’s about how various men in these three women’s lives have controlled their desire or even projected their own desires onto them.
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For 8 years, Taddeo interviewed three women: Lina, Sloan, and Maggie. Lina is a homemaker who is married to a man who won’t even kiss her because the sensation “deeply offends” him. Her sex life has dwindled into nothing until one day she reconnects with an old flame via Facebook. What starts is an all consuming affair, but even in the sweaty, passionate meetings she has with her new lover, he calls the shots. He names the time. He names the place. Sloan, on the other hand, is in a very sexual marriage but her husband is turned on watching her have sex with other men. Men that he chooses. During these liaisons, whether he’s there or not, she has to check in with him and the one time she doesn’t he is enraged. Maggie was a high school student in North Dakota when she had an inappropriate relationship with her English teacher. She was preyed on when she was in a vulnerable state over issues she was having with her family. She loses her court case against him.
.
For me, these stories are not about female desire. They are about experiences in these women’s lives when they did not have autonomy over their own bodies. And those stories are important, of course! However, to market this, to call it a book that encompasses female desire is simply untrue. Even if their stories were not laced with trauma, they’re still 3 white women from semi-privileged backgrounds. That is not a complete scope of women. Also, the inclusion of an inappropriate “relationship” between a teenage girl and her teacher is a very strange narrative for a book about desire. A book about pedophilia or predators, sure.
.
I did find this book compulsively readable. I truly couldn’t put it down at times. However, I stand by my feelings about this one.
...more

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Sep 05, 2019 ABookwormWithWine rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, drama, secrets, social-issues, tragedy, female-authors, contemporary, disturbing, domestic-drama, buddy-reads

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is a raw and emotional look at the lives of three different women. This book made me angry, made me cry, and made me worry about our society. I think this is a must read for all women, and while everyone may not like it, I think most women will.

What it's about: Lina, Maggie, and Sloane are from different areas of the United States, different social standings and are different ages, but they all crave two things - love and affection. Lina is in a marriage w ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 5

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is a raw and emotional look at the lives of three different women. This book made me angry, made me cry, and made me worry about our society. I think this is a must read for all women, and while everyone may not like it, I think most women will.

What it's about: Lina, Maggie, and Sloane are from different areas of the United States, different social standings and are different ages, but they all crave two things - love and affection. Lina is in a marriage where her husband won't kiss her even though that's all she wants. So she begins an affair with an old flame. Maggie is seventeen and in high school when she has a physical relationship with a married teacher. Sloane has a happy marriage, but her husband likes to watch her have sex with other men (and women). All three women are struggling in their own ways, and through years of experiencing their lives and speaking to them at length, Taddeo brings to the table a look at what is really going on in the minds and lives of so many women around the world - not just Lina, Maggie, and Sloane's...

I have seen a couple people say that Three Women is not a book about desire, but I have to disagree. After all, the definition of desire is 'a strong feeling of wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen' and I think each of the women have a desire for at least one thing. This book takes a very direct look at sex and love, and the emotions women face in their partnerships with men. I definitely think that Maggie's story hit me the hardest of all, but I was fascinated with all three stories.

I also really enjoyed Taddeo's writing style. I don't read a whole lot of nonfiction, but there was something about her writing that really struck me and made the book even more interesting. It is very unique, so the writing style itself may not be for everyone.

Even though I am not in quite the same situation as any of the three women, I still found myself relating to aspects of their lives in different ways. I think Three Women will resonate and be very relatable for a lot of women. On the other side of that, I don't think this is necessarily a book for men. I don't think most will understand it quite the way Taddeo intends, and some might be very rude about it. With that said, I do think there are some men out there that will really appreciate this book!

Song/s the book brought to mind: (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction sung by Britney Spears and Beautiful by Christina Aguilera.

Final Thought: Nonfiction is so hard for me to rate, especially since I don't read all that much of it, so I had a hard time rating Three Women. The stories themselves definitely deserve a 5/5 because it can't be easy to let a reporter come into your life and share with the world your most private thoughts and actions. I think this book is such an important book, and one that will stay with me for a long time to come. ...more

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Jul 18, 2019 Jaclyn (sixminutesforme) rated it did not like it

Before I share my thoughts on this, please know I don’t do so lightly and my comments in no way pass judgment on the experiences shared by the women.

I had two key issues with this book - firstly the writing, specifically the use of imagery and metaphor, is some of the most jarringly awkward I have come across. More importantly though, I think there are some major issues with the way that this book is pitched as being about “desire” more broadly. The majority of the experiences shared in this foc ...more

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Sep 15, 2019 Bri Lee rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I found this book very average. I did finish reading it. I suppose I hoped that at the end the author would really come through, and offer up something more.

First of all: I'd like to second Roxane Gay's comment. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with choosing three such similar subjects for a book-length project, it does automatically (and significantly) limit any real insight into a subject as broad as "women's desire". After reading the acknowledgments and noting the author's inclusion I found this book very average. I did finish reading it. I suppose I hoped that at the end the author would really come through, and offer up something more.

First of all: I'd like to second Roxane Gay's comment. Whilst there is nothing inherently wrong with choosing three such similar subjects for a book-length project, it does automatically (and significantly) limit any real insight into a subject as broad as "women's desire". After reading the acknowledgments and noting the author's inclusion of a reference to a woman of colour interviewee who subsequently pulled out of the project, my suspicion is that she is aware of this limitation too.

All three women were in hetero relationships, or at least the source of their predominant ruminations were their current or previous hetero relationships, and so I found the sweeping statements about "men" and "women" to be particularly exhausting. This review in The Saturday Paper by Harkins-Cross says it better than I can (https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/c... "For a book so desperate to insist that these women are individuals with agency, Taddeo is prone to grandiose statements about Men and Women: “Throughout history, men have broken women’s hearts in a particular way”; or, “Men come to insert themselves, they turn a girl into a city. When they leave, their residue remains.” The heterosexual pact is laid bare, but there’s nothing radical about this vision."

Perhaps, for example, a shift in framing and this book could have been an interesting deep-dive into the concept of marriage. When it succeeds and when it fails, and what it looks like in middle America, etc? The concept of "desire" is such an incredibly, breathtakingly, wild and diverse thing. I did not see it truly explored here. Even when one woman tries non-monogamy with both male and female partners, there seemed to be not nearly enough of a grappling with the ramifications of that. One woman's husband seems to not want sex - not only with her, but seemingly not at all - and there is no consideration of asexuality being a real thing. When she then has an affair, we see the same meet-up with highschool sweetheart, followed by anxiety, half a dozen times. How is this new?

There are many pithy one-liners and beautiful sentiments peppered through it, but I'm just not sure what I was supposed to "get" out of this book. I kept waiting for an "aha" moment that never came.

I suspect people just like reading about sex (both good and bad) and don't want to admit it, so need it inside a beautiful cover with high-brow "narrative non-fiction" labels. If it has taught them something about themselves or others, then good for them. ...more

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Jun 02, 2019 Eleanor rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: work-heywood-hill, 20-books-of-summer-2019, bang-bang-bangity-bang

Oof. This BOOK. Three women; eight years; their love and sex and desires meticulously recorded, celebrated, foregrounded. It is, almost unbelievably, nonfiction that – in the very truest sense – reads like a novel; Lisa Taddeo gives her subjects the care and complete focus that we often only give to the people we’ve made up.

The three women she chooses are Maggie, who has an affair with her high school English teacher at fifteen, and at twenty-three decides to seek justice; Lina, who marries the Oof. This BOOK. Three women; eight years; their love and sex and desires meticulously recorded, celebrated, foregrounded. It is, almost unbelievably, nonfiction that – in the very truest sense – reads like a novel; Lisa Taddeo gives her subjects the care and complete focus that we often only give to the people we’ve made up.

The three women she chooses are Maggie, who has an affair with her high school English teacher at fifteen, and at twenty-three decides to seek justice; Lina, who marries the first man who asks, then suffers in the desert of being unkissed and untouched for months on end; and Sloane, who’s thin and hot and rich but whose husband is most turned on by watching her have sex with people he’s chosen for her. They couldn’t possibly be more different, and yet Taddeo seems able to slide into each of their brains with ease. (She is scrupulous, in her prologue, about her sources: she uses text records, phone logs, and court documents where she can, but in situations like Maggie’s–her teacher demanded that she delete every text message sent to, or received from, him–she has had to work with her subject to reconstruct the dynamic from memory.)

The most interesting element of Three Women, for me, is Taddeo’s ability not just to trace the events of eight years or so, but to show how every choice each woman makes, every twinge of desire or dread that she feels, is rooted in experiences from years or decades previously. Maggie’s early years–both her parents alcoholics, their marriage essentially loving but under a good deal of strain–make her intensely vulnerable to the isolation and grooming that Aaron Knodel perpetrates upon her. Sloane’s relationship with her mother, Dyan, a woman who herself was starved of familial love after a car that she was driving killed her own mother, is a kaleidoscope of inherited trauma. Lina’s parents’ apparent inability to take anything she says seriously drives her to cover up her own gang rape (by three friends of her older brother) in high school, then to an increasingly desperate need to have her longings acknowledged as an adult. Their choices are the sums of their lives, but so are their needs, their predilections, their compromises.

You’re likely, I’ll warn you, to come away from this book with the strong conviction that men are worthless toads. None of the featured men treat women well. Aaron Knodel is a weasely paedophile; Lina’s husband Ed is a vague and distant human-shaped meatsack; Aidan Hart–a high school sweetheart with whom she initiates an affair–sees her as an option but never a priority; Sloane’s husband Richard evades all the responsibility for any heartache that their sexual life–based entirely upon what arouses him–causes other couples.

But the point that Taddeo makes, implicitly but with every sentence, is that men aren’t the fulcrum of this book’s interest. It’s called, after all, Three Women. The sheer level of focus and attention, of serious consideration, given to the fantasies and realities of her subjects is almost unprecedented. Lina’s goofy texts to her lover made me cringe with their profound lack of sexiness, but Taddeo never cringes. Maggie’s experiences at Knodel’s trial made me flinch, but Taddeo never flinches. Nor does the book judge Sloane. Such care: is that what we mean by grace?

Three Women is out on 9 July, from Bloomsbury. Man or woman or neither or in-between, you should read it asap.

If you like what I write, why not buy me a coffee? ...more

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Jun 28, 2019 Bryn Greenwood added it

Reviewed for The Washington Post, to be published July 9, 2019.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert... ...more

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Aug 19, 2019 Meredith B. (readingwithmere) rated it it was amazing

5 Stars!

Because it's the quotidian minutes of our lives that will go on forever, that will tell us who we were, who our neighbors and our mothers were, when we were too diligent in thinking they were nothing like us. This is the story of three women.

I don't read a lot of non-fiction. When I heard that this book came out I wasn't sure what to think of it but it got a lot of buzz. As I dove in I realized how important this book being a woman myself and to society as a whole.

Eight years of rese ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
More Than Sex	1	13	Feb 07, 2020 09:33AM
Goodreads Librari...: Combine Editions - "Three Women" by Lisa Taddeo	2	26	Jul 16, 2019 02:32AM
Book of The Month: Three Women	2	56	Jul 02, 2019 05:23PM