Book Review: Three Women

Author: Lisa Taddeo

Genre: non-fiction, feminism

Rating: 5/5

Verdict

As you might guess, this book is about three women. The title makes that pretty transparent. What the title doesn’t tell you is that this book is just about these three women. No distractions, this book is their narratives and only their narratives. Get ready to know these women intimately, no details are spared and it’s brilliant.

This book was recommended to me by one of the lovely shop staff at my local bookshop. I’m glad they did and now feel it’s my turn to pass on the recommendation. One of my favourite reads ever, Three Women is a book I will never fail to recommend. If you haven’t read it, you need to. Own it? Go plonk yourself in your reading spot right now. You won’t regret it.

You’re introduced to 3 women: Maggie, Sloane and Lina. They don’t know each other, but each allows Taddeo an insight into their lives as young women experiencing sexual desire whilst living in America. Spoiler alert: it’s not easy. Each chapter is dedicated to one of them and we jump around following their lives.

First we meet Maggie. As an underage teenager she has a short, but intense affair with her English teacher. She doesn’t come forward about the affair until several years later when she finds out he’s won ‘teacher of the year’. Throughout the trial the media and local community portray him as the victim, and her as a whore.

Then we meet Lina. As a teenager she is gang-raped by a group of boys, which leads to her high school boyfriend dumping her. Jump forward and she’s married to a man who won’t kiss her. This prompts her to ask for a separation and re-kindle her relationship with her high school ex, who exhibits the same selfishness years later.

Sloane is in a happy marriage and running a successful business. Her sexual escapades with her husband involve her having sex with other people, which her husband either watches or films. Her focus is on the pleasure and sexual gratification of her husband rather than her own. What she wants doesn’t seem to matter.

In her author’s note, Taddeo states these three women were chosen for the honesty she saw in their words, and for their willingness to not hold back. She deems their stories to contain vital truths about women and desire.

Three Women placed a much needed spotlight on female sexuality, desire and the misconceptions surrounding both. We witness the complexity of desire and how it can never be isolated. Instead, it is weaved throughout our lives, with one decision influencing everything that happens next. For all them, their pivotal moment of desire leads to chaos and unhappiness. There is also a sad absence of fulfilment; female desire is never rewarded.

For me, this novel is eye opening and crucial. It highlights the absurdity that women are expected to be a walking contradiction when it comes to sex. Women can be desired, but they cannot commit the act of desire themselves. Chasity and promiscuity are expected to coincide, but (shockingly) they just repel each other. Society asks for the impossible, then condemns women for inevitable failure. And you see this continuously in the narrative of these three women.

The experiences of each woman are upsetting. But they reflect the experiences of many women worldwide. They also create awareness of the grim reality some readers are perhaps unaware women can face.

Lisa Taddeo spent several years producing this novel, keeping in contact and speaking to each Maggie, Sloane and Lina throughout this time. Interviews are held both in person and over the phone, but you wouldn’t know (or need to) as Taddeo uses a prose narrative to tell their story. A non-fiction piece reading as fiction, very reminiscent of In Cold Blood.

Taddeo takes herself out of the story, using the form of a nameless heterodiegetic narrator to tell their stories. This really allows the stories to speak for themselves. I found myself hooked on the words and events these three people went through. And it sucked reading what they’d endured. Whilst they came across as being consistently de-humanised in their worlds, I found their words made them real to me (ignoring for a sec that they are real) and undeniably human. In making their words the only words you see, it’s impossible for us to remove their humanity, forcing us to open our eyes and acknowledge some hard-hitting truths.

Find the book on Goodreads!