#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 INDIE NEXT PICK Named a Best Book of the Year: The Washington Post * NPR * The Atlantic * New York Public Library * Vanity Fair * PBS * Time * Economist * Entertainment Weekly * Financial Times * Shelf Awareness * Guardian * Sunday Times * BBC * Esquire * Good Housekeeping * Elle * Real Simple * And more than twenty additional outlets * BBC * Esquire * Good Housekeeping * Elle * Real Simple * And more than twenty additional outlets
“Staggeringly intimate…Taddeo spent eight years reporting this groundbreaking book.” —Entertainment Weekly
“A breathtaking and important book…What a fine thing it is to be enthralled by another writer’s sentences. To be stunned by her intellect and heart.” –Cheryl Strayed
“Extraordinary…This is a nonfiction literary masterpiece…I can’t remember the last time a book affected me as profoundly as Three Women.” –Elizabeth Gilbert
“A revolutionary look at women’s desire, this feat of journalism reveals three women who are carnal, brave, and beautifully flawed.” —People (Book of the Week)
A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women, based on nearly a decade of reporting.
Lina, a young mother in suburban Indiana whose marriage has lost its passion, reconnects with an old flame through social media and embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student in North Dakota, allegedly engages in a relationship with her married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial turns their quiet community upside down. Sloane, a successful restaurant owner in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women.
Hailed as “a dazzling achievement” (Los Angeles Times) and “a 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 critics–and topped bestseller lists–worldwide. Based on eight years of immersive research, it is “an astonishing work of literary reportage” (The Atlantic) that introduces us to three unforgettable women–and one remarkable writer–whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.
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I found it very intriguing reading how the 3 different women’s lives had turned out. It was a shocker at times
If you enjoy reading about weak women with low self-esteem than this is definitely the book for you. I can’t help but wonder if the book was a cover for the real reason it was written — to expose the true story of the Teacher/Student relationship — under the guise of being about women in general. If the majority of women truly are as the adult females were depicted in this book than society is in very sad shape.
Powerful, relatable and thought provoking
I was completely enthralled in this book and these stories. I understood these women’s emotions. Just because woman are supposed to be stronger, better than past versions it doesn’t mean we are. We are complex, with complex emotions some of those submissive or longing for something we don’t feel we can have or deserve. This was a thought provoking telling of the lives of three women. To me it was more than just about their desire. This story made me think and probably will continue to make me think for some time.
I loved it but the end was a bit abrupt
I had high expectations for this book. But it left me wanting. The characters were hard to identify with and our fell a connection to. When I was done reading it it felt like there was something missing.
Intimate insight into women’s experience of passion
I don’t get all of the hype about this book. I thought it was well written but all of the women were tragic with little redemption in my view.
With every page I turned in this book, I could feel myself becoming a different person, someone with a more empathetic view of my past self, someone with the wisdom and insight to understand my own emotional impulses. To write THREE WOMEN, Lisa Taddeo spent years interviewing Maggie, Lina, and Sloane—women of different ages, backgrounds, and locations—to explore the notion of desire: how it shapes our lives; how it’s so intrinsically tied to our past; how it can derail or electrify our present; how it can wound us and heal us; how it can expand to feel like it’s everything, especially when someone treats it like it’s nothing. At 17 years old, Maggie had a romantic relationship with her teacher, and at 23 she finally begins to understand (and take action against) the damage (both physical and mental) this teacher wreaked in her life. Lina’s husband won’t kiss her, so, feeling unloved and unwanted, she yearns for the boy she fell in love with in high school, just before a pivotal and traumatic experience rerouted her life. Sloane’s husband wants to watch her sleep with other men, and it’s only once one of these men carries a secret into their bed that she finally recognizes the imbalance of power in her relationship. I have never had any of the above experiences—but I related to each of these women so deeply that it often felt like a bell inside me was being struck, reverberating for whole minutes as I thought about how the lessons these women learn apply to the emotional landscape of my own life. When the defense attorney in her case against her former teacher suggests that Maggie’s memories became what she WANTED them to be, instead of what they were, Taddeo reports Maggie as thinking, “What the f**k do you know about young women? We don’t remember what we want to remember. We remember what we can’t forget.” When I read those lines, I had to set the book down and just sit with that truth for a while, feeling it echo inside me, both familiar and enlightening. Lisa Taddeo’s prose is also GORGEOUS, which elevates and honors all the nuance and complexity of the stories being told. If I had the money, I’d buy it for everyone I know.
It’s hard not to relate to one or more of these women and their twisted love lives. Would recommend to every woman out there.
Hard to believe it was true. I couldn’t Believe you can add another person to your marriage and not have trouble.
Wow this is a powerful book about women. It is the story of three who have love and sexual issues stemming from their teen years and family upbringing. It delves deep into their sexual history but is really about their psyche. There were times I had to stop reading to absorb the pain of their story.
Lisa’s writing is so exquisite, I often forgot I was reading non-fiction. An important book for every woman.
This book was more honest than most of us want to admit. The issues were so raw and real. I couldn’t put it down!
While this is a good book, I urge readers to keep in mind that examples have been hand-picked. I suspect that most of us women don’t have the same preoccupations with sex and whatnot that these women do!
144 pages in and I just can’t take the sadness of these women’s “desires”. I really had high hopes but this is a book of manipulations, shaming, and the ugliness of what is supposed to be desire! Not a glimmer of beauty or hope in these messed up relationships! Just had to quit!
2.5 stars rounded up to a 3.
The marketing on this book was so hyped that we picked it for our book club. I came so close so many times to not finishing it. For me, it did not live up to its hype. At All. I look forward to hearing what the other members think.
I found the writing fragmented. The women, real, but not necessarily likable, except for Maggie, where your heart breaks for her. The stories seemed to drag on and at times were very boring. I was never sure what part was the women’s voice and what part was the author’s.
Wow. I’ve never read anything like this before – totally original and insightful look about the meaning of desire.
synopsis did not sound like a book for me