Status
Available
Description
"Desire as we've never seen it before: a riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women, based on nearly a decade of reporting. It thrills us and torments us. It controls our thoughts, destroys our lives, and it's all we live for. Yet we almost never speak of it. And as a buried force in our lives, desire remains largely unexplored--until now. Over the past eight years, journalist Lisa Taddeo has driven across the country six times to embed herself with ordinary women from different regions and backgrounds. The result, Three Women, is the deepest nonfiction portrait of desire ever written and one of the most anticipated books of the year. We begin in suburban Indiana with Lina, a homemaker and mother of two whose marriage, after a decade, has lost its passion. She passes her days cooking and cleaning for a man who refuses to kiss her on the mouth, protesting that "the sensation offends" him. To Lina's horror, even her marriage counselor says her husband's position is valid. Starved for affection, Lina battles daily panic attacks. When she reconnects with an old flame through social media, she embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. In North Dakota we meet Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student who finds a confidant in her handsome, married English teacher. By Maggie's account, supportive nightly texts and phone calls evolve into a clandestine physical relationship, with plans to skip school on her eighteenth birthday and make love all day; instead, he breaks up with her on the morning he turns thirty. A few years later, Maggie has no degree, no career, and no dreams to live for. When she learns that this man has been named North Dakota's Teacher of the Year, she steps forward with her story--and is met with disbelief by former schoolmates and the jury that hears her case. The trial will turn their quiet community upside down. Finally, in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, we meet Sloane--a gorgeous, successful, and refined restaurant owner--who is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. He picks out partners for her alone or for a threesome, and she ensures that everyone's needs are satisfied. For years, Sloane has been asking herself where her husband's desire ends and hers begins. One day, they invite a new man into their bed--but he brings a secret with him that will finally force Sloane to confront the uneven power dynamics that fuel their lifestyle. Based on years of immersive reporting, and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing in today's America, exposing the fragility, complexity, and inequality of female desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power. It is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy, that introduces us to three unforgettable women--and one remarkable writer--whose experiences remind us that we are not alone."--Dust jacket.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member Narshkite
Congratulations Lisa Taddeo, you have taken all the fun out of sex, you have made women's desire synonymous with rape, abuse, dysfunction, and rejection. You have subscribed to the old trope that women don't really like sex, they just do it to feel loved and safe. This is the most regressive
Almost as infuriating was Taddeo's claim she was using the actual words of her subjects. There are many reasons I don't believe her, and they start with the first story about her mother getting followed daily on her walk home from school by an old man who jerked off while walking down the lane behind her. (That is some talent even in a young spry guy. I imagine its hard to walk and masturbate simultaneously.) She says her mother told her that the man's penis was long and skinny. Because her mother is not identified as crazy, I am going to assume that when she shared this story she did not provide descriptions of the penis. Who would describe an abuser's penis to their child? I raised my child in a sex positive home, I talked about sex openly. And it would never have occurred to me to describe a penis. I am also someone who was raped in college when I was very drunk, and I talk about that too because I think it is instructive for many reasons. In talking about my rape it would never occur to me to describe the physical attributes of my rapist's penis. Obviously I was not present when Taddeo talked to her mother, but I feel pretty certain about this.
There is another reason I don't believe Taddeo is using her subjects' words. I lived in Fargo for two years right after the Knodel trial. I was in an Executive Director position with a college in the area. (Weird coincidence, someone who had been on the team I led testified at the trial, and she was mentioned by name in the book!) My students were mostly from the region, many of them from West Fargo High and a few from Sheyenne High (it was brand new so we only had one or two graduating classes from there.) I have not one speck of doubt that none of my students ever talked like this version of Maggie with her flowery metaphors and Deep Thoughts. Even the Theater, Literature and Classics majors did not talk like that, and they had been educated at a decent liberal arts college. Maggie has nothing beyond a high school education (unless you count the single year at NDSU where she flunked out) and she thought Twilight was great literature. North Dakotans are efficient and plain-spoken people. People with PhD's thought it was pretentious when I used the word "whom" or "alumna." None of them would say that the taste of beer on someone's breath is the taste of desire. None. For all the women there is a lot of discussion of the tastes and smells of things, and they are things normal people don't say. The worst was when Taddeo wrote that the wine at Lena's gathering "tasted like pool sneezes." Nope. She might be telling her version of their story, but she is not using their words to do it. The disconnect was worst with Maggie but it was still clear that none of those women said 90+% of the things with which they are credited.
In the end she told her version of the stories of three women who were victims of abuse, and who assessed their worth by whether particular men wanted to fuck them. Maggie was almost certainly the victim of abuse at Knodel's hands. Even if he never laid a hand on her, the manipulation evidenced in his notes to her is at least as abusive as the sexual acts. That said, she was drawn to daddy figures and had already had an affair with another adult male who took advantage of her instability. I am not blaming her at all, but she has issues that predate the abuse by her teacher and which were almost certainly exacerbated by that event that she needs to address. Lena was too sad to even consider, with her drama queen aches and pains that magically disappeared when she was having sex with an intellectually porous man who could not have cared less about her. Her poor kids. It was so uncomfortable to read about her begging a man to have sex with her even after he made clear he was not interested. Nothing she did was about sex, it was about self-hatred. Maybe that stemmed from her rape and things she didn't deal with. Some of the issue surely rested there, but there were other things too. To me it seemed Taddeo abused Lena by even working with her. Lena was constantly looking for people to whom she could tell her story -- the storytelling was part of her pathology. I suspect at least part of that was because she wanted people to know that a man found her sexually appealing, but in general she was a deeply lonely and entirely self-involved person who got off on attention of any kind. Giving her this soapbox is like giving fentanyl to an opioid addict. And Sloan. That was heartbreaking. A smart, talented, beautiful woman who spends her life deploying her sexuality only for the pleasure of her husband (she is largely incapable of orgasm according to the book) because she has craves adoration. It broke my heart.
That is the story of female desire? As a female who has entirely sexual and sensual desires, and has friends who also have real desires, I assure you it is not. It is a perpetuation of the second wave feminism "women are victims" falsehood that keeps healthy women feeling nothing but shame and otherness with respect to their own sexuality. (Andrea Dworkin and her "all heterosexual sex is rape" garbage.) There is a story to be told about women being unable to find happiness and a sense of self worth without the validation that comes from inspiring an erection. (That is good and pleasant validation, but God help anyone for whom that is the only source of validation.) This was a sad and misleading book that preyed on the despair of three women, and provided no context for any larger truths to emerge, no scientific method. I feel like like I just hid in the bushes and looked through my neighbor's window. Man this is tawdry.
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anti-feminist book I have read this year, possibly in the past decade but I would have to think about that. By calling this a book about women's desire (not just the pathetic lurid tales of three specific females, which is what it is), you paint all women with your sad, lonely, weak, needy, passionless brush. There are plenty of women who have affairs because they enjoy it, who participate in polyamory because they find it hot, who have hot-for-teacher relationships in college when they are consenting adults and the affair is just against college rules, not the rules of decency. Those are stories of desire, and that is what Taddeo purports to write about. That was my biggest problem with this book, but there are others.Almost as infuriating was Taddeo's claim she was using the actual words of her subjects. There are many reasons I don't believe her, and they start with the first story about her mother getting followed daily on her walk home from school by an old man who jerked off while walking down the lane behind her. (That is some talent even in a young spry guy. I imagine its hard to walk and masturbate simultaneously.) She says her mother told her that the man's penis was long and skinny. Because her mother is not identified as crazy, I am going to assume that when she shared this story she did not provide descriptions of the penis. Who would describe an abuser's penis to their child? I raised my child in a sex positive home, I talked about sex openly. And it would never have occurred to me to describe a penis. I am also someone who was raped in college when I was very drunk, and I talk about that too because I think it is instructive for many reasons. In talking about my rape it would never occur to me to describe the physical attributes of my rapist's penis. Obviously I was not present when Taddeo talked to her mother, but I feel pretty certain about this.
There is another reason I don't believe Taddeo is using her subjects' words. I lived in Fargo for two years right after the Knodel trial. I was in an Executive Director position with a college in the area. (Weird coincidence, someone who had been on the team I led testified at the trial, and she was mentioned by name in the book!) My students were mostly from the region, many of them from West Fargo High and a few from Sheyenne High (it was brand new so we only had one or two graduating classes from there.) I have not one speck of doubt that none of my students ever talked like this version of Maggie with her flowery metaphors and Deep Thoughts. Even the Theater, Literature and Classics majors did not talk like that, and they had been educated at a decent liberal arts college. Maggie has nothing beyond a high school education (unless you count the single year at NDSU where she flunked out) and she thought Twilight was great literature. North Dakotans are efficient and plain-spoken people. People with PhD's thought it was pretentious when I used the word "whom" or "alumna." None of them would say that the taste of beer on someone's breath is the taste of desire. None. For all the women there is a lot of discussion of the tastes and smells of things, and they are things normal people don't say. The worst was when Taddeo wrote that the wine at Lena's gathering "tasted like pool sneezes." Nope. She might be telling her version of their story, but she is not using their words to do it. The disconnect was worst with Maggie but it was still clear that none of those women said 90+% of the things with which they are credited.
In the end she told her version of the stories of three women who were victims of abuse, and who assessed their worth by whether particular men wanted to fuck them. Maggie was almost certainly the victim of abuse at Knodel's hands. Even if he never laid a hand on her, the manipulation evidenced in his notes to her is at least as abusive as the sexual acts. That said, she was drawn to daddy figures and had already had an affair with another adult male who took advantage of her instability. I am not blaming her at all, but she has issues that predate the abuse by her teacher and which were almost certainly exacerbated by that event that she needs to address. Lena was too sad to even consider, with her drama queen aches and pains that magically disappeared when she was having sex with an intellectually porous man who could not have cared less about her. Her poor kids. It was so uncomfortable to read about her begging a man to have sex with her even after he made clear he was not interested. Nothing she did was about sex, it was about self-hatred. Maybe that stemmed from her rape and things she didn't deal with. Some of the issue surely rested there, but there were other things too. To me it seemed Taddeo abused Lena by even working with her. Lena was constantly looking for people to whom she could tell her story -- the storytelling was part of her pathology. I suspect at least part of that was because she wanted people to know that a man found her sexually appealing, but in general she was a deeply lonely and entirely self-involved person who got off on attention of any kind. Giving her this soapbox is like giving fentanyl to an opioid addict. And Sloan. That was heartbreaking. A smart, talented, beautiful woman who spends her life deploying her sexuality only for the pleasure of her husband (she is largely incapable of orgasm according to the book) because she has craves adoration. It broke my heart.
That is the story of female desire? As a female who has entirely sexual and sensual desires, and has friends who also have real desires, I assure you it is not. It is a perpetuation of the second wave feminism "women are victims" falsehood that keeps healthy women feeling nothing but shame and otherness with respect to their own sexuality. (Andrea Dworkin and her "all heterosexual sex is rape" garbage.) There is a story to be told about women being unable to find happiness and a sense of self worth without the validation that comes from inspiring an erection. (That is good and pleasant validation, but God help anyone for whom that is the only source of validation.) This was a sad and misleading book that preyed on the despair of three women, and provided no context for any larger truths to emerge, no scientific method. I feel like like I just hid in the bushes and looked through my neighbor's window. Man this is tawdry.
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LibraryThing member AlisonY
I'm finding it hard to assimilate my thoughts on this book - I'm very conflicted.
Lisa Taddeo tells the story of the real life passions of three women - one has had an affair with her high school teacher, another is having an affair with her first love and a third is enjoying additional sexual
Taddeo wraps a prologue and epilogue around the stories, and halfway through I found myself returning to the prologue again with the question in my mind of "what, exactly, again is Taddeo trying to achieve with these stories?" And therein lies my issue with this book. What Taddeo wants this book to be about and what she actually writes about (or how she writes it) are not necessarily the same thing.
In the prologue she writes that in her research she became interested in the difference between men and women when they are in the throws of desire; how for men their passion can be compartmentalised between during and after, whilst for women every aspect of the passion consumes their every moment. The stories that she chooses don't feel representative of the average woman on the street (OK - they aren't representative of the women that I typically know). These are three women who have some serious issues going on in their back stories, and they are women making choices that not every woman would make. And that would be fine in the context of simply enjoying reading about their loves and passion in their three very different situations. However - and this is where I take issue with this book - Taddeo loses sight of her own objective and the retelling of these stories becomes some sort of feminist polemic agains the men involved in the three stories. When, unsurprisingly, these three stories don't end up with happy endings, in Taddeo's hands the three women all become victims of a perceived cruel, emotional deception by the men, and by the end it feels like we've unwittingly been duped into signing up to some all-men-are-bastards sisterhood.
Yes, the guys in these stories probably all sit somewhere in the lower echelon of the hierarchy of decent blokes, but somehow Taddeo manages to make this a broad brush sweeping generalisation of men (and indeed of us women - of how we love and the people we become when we're in love). These stories ring truer as stories of immature infatuation. These are the stories of women who chase other women's husbands, who seek the thrill of the bad boy and yet are surprised when they get hurt. And despite cheerleading for the women protagonists in these stories, Taddeo never champions the corner of the cheated on wives affected by these affairs, so this is where her feminism championing rings hollow for me.
Which brings me back to my question throughout this book - just what point is Taddeo trying to make? That this is how women love? This is how some women love, but in Taddeo's hands it feels broader than that.
I also question its supposed categorisation as non-fiction - the level of detail included belied what anyone would have been able to truly recount, and somehow I therefore lost the voice of the women themselves and it became all about Taddeo's voice and perception.
So why the best-selling plaudits? Well, it does feel visceral and depicts well the raw spectrum of emotions that the women feel as the sun rises and sets on their various affairs. Taddeo writes fearlessly and quite rightly unashamedly about the women's sexual desires with a distinct voice and turn of phrase, and all of that I applaud and enjoyed in the book. But I can't get past the fact that somehow her sincerity in recounting these women's stories doesn't ring true and her true objective is to bend them to some version of the book that she wants to write about.
3.5 stars - a great book for a book club discussion, but this book was too full of Taddeo's personal agenda for my taste.
Lisa Taddeo tells the story of the real life passions of three women - one has had an affair with her high school teacher, another is having an affair with her first love and a third is enjoying additional sexual
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partners with her husband's eager assent (and often involvement). All three stories share the common thread of hot sexual desire, which Taddeo describes to us often with forensic detail.Taddeo wraps a prologue and epilogue around the stories, and halfway through I found myself returning to the prologue again with the question in my mind of "what, exactly, again is Taddeo trying to achieve with these stories?" And therein lies my issue with this book. What Taddeo wants this book to be about and what she actually writes about (or how she writes it) are not necessarily the same thing.
In the prologue she writes that in her research she became interested in the difference between men and women when they are in the throws of desire; how for men their passion can be compartmentalised between during and after, whilst for women every aspect of the passion consumes their every moment. The stories that she chooses don't feel representative of the average woman on the street (OK - they aren't representative of the women that I typically know). These are three women who have some serious issues going on in their back stories, and they are women making choices that not every woman would make. And that would be fine in the context of simply enjoying reading about their loves and passion in their three very different situations. However - and this is where I take issue with this book - Taddeo loses sight of her own objective and the retelling of these stories becomes some sort of feminist polemic agains the men involved in the three stories. When, unsurprisingly, these three stories don't end up with happy endings, in Taddeo's hands the three women all become victims of a perceived cruel, emotional deception by the men, and by the end it feels like we've unwittingly been duped into signing up to some all-men-are-bastards sisterhood.
Yes, the guys in these stories probably all sit somewhere in the lower echelon of the hierarchy of decent blokes, but somehow Taddeo manages to make this a broad brush sweeping generalisation of men (and indeed of us women - of how we love and the people we become when we're in love). These stories ring truer as stories of immature infatuation. These are the stories of women who chase other women's husbands, who seek the thrill of the bad boy and yet are surprised when they get hurt. And despite cheerleading for the women protagonists in these stories, Taddeo never champions the corner of the cheated on wives affected by these affairs, so this is where her feminism championing rings hollow for me.
Which brings me back to my question throughout this book - just what point is Taddeo trying to make? That this is how women love? This is how some women love, but in Taddeo's hands it feels broader than that.
I also question its supposed categorisation as non-fiction - the level of detail included belied what anyone would have been able to truly recount, and somehow I therefore lost the voice of the women themselves and it became all about Taddeo's voice and perception.
So why the best-selling plaudits? Well, it does feel visceral and depicts well the raw spectrum of emotions that the women feel as the sun rises and sets on their various affairs. Taddeo writes fearlessly and quite rightly unashamedly about the women's sexual desires with a distinct voice and turn of phrase, and all of that I applaud and enjoyed in the book. But I can't get past the fact that somehow her sincerity in recounting these women's stories doesn't ring true and her true objective is to bend them to some version of the book that she wants to write about.
3.5 stars - a great book for a book club discussion, but this book was too full of Taddeo's personal agenda for my taste.
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LibraryThing member bookomaniac
I must confess, I have always enjoyed the movie “What women want”, starring the uber macho Mel Gibson. We have to face it: it's every man's wet dream (pun intended) to perfectly know what's going on in women's minds. (That doesn't sound woke, I know.) So I was very intrigued by this book. After
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all, in the introduction, Lisa Taddeo suggests that she is going to uncover the secrets of 'female desire', based on years of study and after numerous conversations with women. That’s quite a promise. Unfortunately, the result is rather disappointing. Taddeo tells the story of three women and their sexual experiences, in alternating chapters, which is handy to keep the dynamic going. Of course, many passages are quite explicit, so that you regularly seem to find yourself in 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. But to be fair, of the three selected cases there is only one, that of the very promiscuous Sloane, in which the focus of Taddeo (female desire) really comes into its own. Especially in the story of the minor Maggie and her brief relationship with a teacher, she misses the mark: Taddeo focuses almost entirely on the (unfair) judicial process around this relationship. In the end, what struck me most is that in the 3 cases - especially in the story of the traumatized Lina - the women involved mainly attune their desires to, or subordinate them to that of their male partners. Nothing new under the sun, unfortunately. So it seems to me that this book really doesn’t live up to the goal of uncovering the ‘real heart of women’. I'll keep on searching... Show Less
LibraryThing member Salsabrarian
Narrated by Tara Lynne Barr, Marin Ireland and Mena Suvari. Not quite sure that the author's hours of interviews merited this work, and I'm not sure what the reasoning and meaning for its being is. But as a window into others' worlds it made for three very interesting stories, ones that made me
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realize there are probably hundreds of women out there with similar stories to Lina, Maggie and Sloane's. Strange to contemplate! Show Less
LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile
I mean, it's good if you like agony. Maybe you feel better about your own life when you read about people who are so flamboyantly messed up. I feel for Maggie. She got in over her head with a dirtbag. I liked Lena. She was trying to make the best of a bad situation and she had agency even if she
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didn't have great options. Sloane? Ugh. I feel sorry for her. Taddeo told these womens' stories with empathy and detail. A lot of detail. There is an element of voyeurism to this book. It's definitely emotionally gut wrenching stuff. Show Less
LibraryThing member pomo58
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo is a book that I am having a hard time formulating an opinion about. While I think it has some valuable insights and information, I also think it suffers from a combination of presentation and promotion. I'll try to explain.
First of all, I think it is not only a mistake
Yes, these are all white women and not even a particularly large cross-section of that group. I also think we need to consider that limited scope within the context of the type of research conducted. Taddeo did some immersive research that included in-depth interviews as well as living in the vicinity of each. In other words, trust played a large role in which women remained from the beginning of the project. It isn't particularly unusual for the women remaining to be white since there is a human tendency to trust more fully those similar to us. I'm not saying this is a good human trait but it has been shown in both research and anecdotal evidence to be true. So this is less a sweeping account of all women and more of a contribution that would ideally be joined by similarly in-depth research on a wider range of women.
This is also where some of the presentation and, especially, promotion issues arise. This has been widely pitched as about women's sexuality when in fact it is about primarily dysfunctional sexual practices within a narrow selection of women. If a woman reading this were hoping to find where they might fall on some spectrum they will be disappointed since the "spectrum" has but three closely grouped points. That is a mistake in promoting the book. The problem I have with presentation is that even when Taddeo extrapolates she largely excludes a large part of the population. That makes this, ultimately, simply three case studies that desperately need more contextualizing and a larger sample size.
Having made all these relatively negative comments, I also want to point out that, as case studies, these are very detailed and offer insights that rarely come through in less immersive research. So there is a lot in here that could be used, whether by Taddeo or another researcher, in furthering the research.
I am hesitant to either recommend or not recommend the book. I would make a reader aware of what it is and what it isn't and let that reader then decide.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Goodreads.
First of all, I think it is not only a mistake
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but a sign of mistaken self-righteousness to dismiss this out-of-hand simply because it doesn't represent every woman or because these women made some decisions we might call poor. These are still human beings and no decision, good or bad, is made independently from the society in which they are made. That said, I think there is some substance at the center of many of these dismissals. I'll get to that in a moment.Yes, these are all white women and not even a particularly large cross-section of that group. I also think we need to consider that limited scope within the context of the type of research conducted. Taddeo did some immersive research that included in-depth interviews as well as living in the vicinity of each. In other words, trust played a large role in which women remained from the beginning of the project. It isn't particularly unusual for the women remaining to be white since there is a human tendency to trust more fully those similar to us. I'm not saying this is a good human trait but it has been shown in both research and anecdotal evidence to be true. So this is less a sweeping account of all women and more of a contribution that would ideally be joined by similarly in-depth research on a wider range of women.
This is also where some of the presentation and, especially, promotion issues arise. This has been widely pitched as about women's sexuality when in fact it is about primarily dysfunctional sexual practices within a narrow selection of women. If a woman reading this were hoping to find where they might fall on some spectrum they will be disappointed since the "spectrum" has but three closely grouped points. That is a mistake in promoting the book. The problem I have with presentation is that even when Taddeo extrapolates she largely excludes a large part of the population. That makes this, ultimately, simply three case studies that desperately need more contextualizing and a larger sample size.
Having made all these relatively negative comments, I also want to point out that, as case studies, these are very detailed and offer insights that rarely come through in less immersive research. So there is a lot in here that could be used, whether by Taddeo or another researcher, in furthering the research.
I am hesitant to either recommend or not recommend the book. I would make a reader aware of what it is and what it isn't and let that reader then decide.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Goodreads.
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LibraryThing member CarrieWuj
I'm extremely conflicted about this book. While I recognize it for the tour-de-force it has become, taking on the topic of women's desire, I am left struggling to determine the "moral" of the story. All the women who act on their desire are unhappy. Is that the moral or the reality? The portraits
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painted of Maggie, Lina, and Sloane are intimate in the extreme - especially in the details of their sex lives - but also more poignantly in the imagination of their desire and the ways their minds lead them captive to their relationships. This is the part Taddeo nails - much of it must be supposition, but it rings true in the things women are taught about attractiveness and their own desirability. "Maggie's destiny arrives one afternoon without a clarion call. It comes on cat feet, like everything else in the world that has the power to destroy you." (17) That's powerful prose and is the real asset of the book. Maggie in her neediness and openness, gets involved with a teacher at her high school. His grooming of her is predatory, but when she finally has the courage to tell, a year after the fact, the situation is turned around on her. Lina is in a loveless marriage - her husband is completely hands off - and she initiates an affair with an old high school flame she finds on Facebook. She becomes addicted to the relationship. Sloane and her husband Richard have an open marriage - mostly dictated by him, though she is complicit. She is from a background of money and privilege which alternately empowers and imprisons her. All three women have trauma of a sexual nature in their backgrounds. Mostly my takeaway is that misplaced intimacy has stunning repercussions for the health and well-being of these women. If it weren't for the negative outcomes, this might be a women's power manifesto. It might be saying more about me that I found it somewhat depressing. Kudos to Taddeo for taking it on and writing about it so eloquently. Show Less
LibraryThing member Tim.Roberson
I highly enjoyed this read as it delved into the thoughts and feelings of 3 different women in different places in life and different experiences that got them to the points they were. All 3 drastically different and approaching the subject matter in vastly different ways. Each tale however was an
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inside look at the many various ways of approaching topics like these and quite possibly in very different ways than the reader might approach in their own lives. These stories provided an opportunity to get out of self and look through the eyes of others on subjects some of us might otherwise by too shy or scared to view the lens of our own lives. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookwyrmm
I have never read a work of non-fiction that has read so much like fiction - highly engaging even if the premise is a little hard to explain.
LibraryThing member niaomiya
This book was unlike anything I’d ever read before — nonfiction accounts of the sex lives of three real women, based on eight years of reporting by author Lisa Taddeo. But this was not some excuse for the creation of a titillating book. The depth with which Taddeo writes about each of these
I found myself alternately intrigued, sympathetic, frustrated, angry, sad...I *felt* with each woman a deep sisterhood. Even if I’d never before experienced what was being described, I could feel the depth of their emotions.
The book left me frustrated because I know what I personally wanted as the resolution for each woman’s life. But life is never that simple, nor is it fair. The frustration I felt partly stemmed from wanting the book to continue: I want to know what happens to the women from here. I felt such a vested interest after reading the book. But perhaps it’s best to leave the unknown unknown, and thus leave me with a bit of optimism for these women’s futures.
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women gives them a profoundly human voice — flaws and all.I found myself alternately intrigued, sympathetic, frustrated, angry, sad...I *felt* with each woman a deep sisterhood. Even if I’d never before experienced what was being described, I could feel the depth of their emotions.
The book left me frustrated because I know what I personally wanted as the resolution for each woman’s life. But life is never that simple, nor is it fair. The frustration I felt partly stemmed from wanting the book to continue: I want to know what happens to the women from here. I felt such a vested interest after reading the book. But perhaps it’s best to leave the unknown unknown, and thus leave me with a bit of optimism for these women’s futures.
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LibraryThing member bobbieharv
I never wanted it to end. I felt I was inside the hearts, minds, and souls of each of the women. Such talent it takes to interview about such deeply personal feelings, to allow time (8 years!) for the women to speak so honestly and openly; and then to write so beautifully and honestly. I've read
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many books by journalists, and none was like this. One of the best books I've ever read. Show Less
LibraryThing member LovingLit
Initially I was sceptical as the narration moved from first to second person - possibly some fangled approach designed to be dynamic, or to mix things up - either way, I found it irritating and confusing. But, once the writing settled into itself it became very difficult to resist.
The book tells
The book is a great example of narrative non-fiction, and I highly recommend it.
The book tells
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the stories of three different women. They have no connection to each other, but each has their story to tell and the author has clearly spent a lot of time with each of them. They have no axe to grind, no agenda to push, they are simply women whose real stories have real effects on their lives. Broadly speaking the stories are about relationships: platonic, rewarding, sexual, abusive, dysfunctional. Each of the three women, whose stories unfold in turn-about chapters, has or is struggling with a relationship that is either illicit or unconventional. Sadly, in spite of the women sometimes feeling powerful in these relationships, mostly they are subjugated by the men in their lives.The book is a great example of narrative non-fiction, and I highly recommend it.
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LibraryThing member pivic
These are words on the lives of three women. The author spent, she says in the introduction of this book, thousands of hours with the women over eight years.
The book is airy, not a dense mass of words, which is what working on something closely for a long period of time can do to you; many authors
Still, it'd be brutal to suggest that a human author can separate itself completely from its subjects, and, to an even greater extent, from injecting itself into a book about others.
The rhythm of the book is what pulled me into it; you know the feeling of being lulled into security by a talented and veteran writer? That is what happened to me with this book.
While I never had occasion to wonder about my father’s desire, something in the force of it, in the force of all male desire, captivated me. Men did not merely want. Men needed. The man who followed my mother to and from work every day needed to do so. Presidents forfeit glory for blow jobs. Everything a man takes a lifetime to build he may gamble for a moment. I have never entirely subscribed to the theory that powerful men have such outsize egos that they cannot suppose they will ever be caught; rather, I think that the desire is so strong in the instant that everything else—family, home, career—melts down into a little liquid cooler and thinner than semen. Into nothing.
There's succinct curtness at the base of the book. Even the quotes are quite sparse. It creates a kind of ballet feeling where the dancers move around much by the use of small and quick steps. The rhythm is nearly poetic.
Because most people will agree—when a lover shuts down, refuses to meet you, doesn’t want his Oral-B back, doesn’t need his trail shoes, doesn’t return an email, goes out to buy another pair of trail shoes, for example, because that’s better than dealing with your mousetrap pain, it’s as though someone is freezing your organs. It’s so cold you can’t breathe.
Most people can probably relate quite well to this book. Much time, patience, and—I guess—revision and editing have gone into this book, to make it this readable and interesting.
The book holds out well throughout and is often enthralling, mainly because of how Taddeo has mixed the everyday, the mundane, and the extraordinary into one, thus formulating the sort of text that Marcel Proust and Maria Stepanova mastered.
For the briefest of moments you want to reach across with your small hands that he loved—Does he still love them now? Where does the love of hands go when it dies?—and hold his face in them and say, Oh fuck I’m sorry for betraying you. I was terrifically hurt and angry, and you stole several years from my life. 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’ve gained thirty pounds. I’ve been kicked out of school a few times. My father has just killed himself. I take all these medications, look in my bag, there’s a shitload of them. I’m a girl with the pills of an old woman. I should be dating boys with weed breath but instead I fully personified my victim costume. I’m hanging by a fawn hanger at Party City. You never wrote back.
It's a quite visceral book, keenly atoned to its subjects; the women aren't stereotypically written in any sense. Sure, one might be critical of some of their at-time leans, for example, "The Scorned Woman", but that's not stereotypical, but happens. A lot. And that's it, really. Taddeo has done away with the atypical and simply opted, it seems, for portraying women as women.
His eyes come up off the table to meet yours. They are cold and black and dead. Little agates, gleaming and stern, and older than you remember. In fact, you don’t remember these eyes at all. They used to be filled with love, lust. He used to suck your tongue into his mouth as if he wanted another tongue.
The stories are often of the sensual with humans in a modern age, although, as always, trapped in our past, unable to move away from headlights that are rushing towards us, Bambi in traffic. And it's thrilling. Taddeo's style is made for humanising sexuality, as opposed to the tripe that drips off Sex and The City, Fifty Shades of Gray, et al, which plagues much of current literature. This book does away with that and is lifted beyond. Thank Bog.
She wasn’t quite sure there was no better partner, but she was willing to find out.
The book seemed a bit dull for a short time but quickly picked up again. That's the harshest critique I can give it.
The best thing about this book is that it revives a sense of honesty without shock, which hopefully will revitalise any lovelorn reader who has missed terse literature that brings to life that which many other authors have abused. Every paragraph can be separated from its chapter, and still be of use; it takes a special author to manage that.
The book is airy, not a dense mass of words, which is what working on something closely for a long period of time can do to you; many authors
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seem quite easily content with placating their own desires, but when adjusting to the fact that one has to write truthfully—which this book does, I believe—about three different persons, it takes a special author who can exalt itself to virtue and zen-y bypass the self.Still, it'd be brutal to suggest that a human author can separate itself completely from its subjects, and, to an even greater extent, from injecting itself into a book about others.
The rhythm of the book is what pulled me into it; you know the feeling of being lulled into security by a talented and veteran writer? That is what happened to me with this book.
While I never had occasion to wonder about my father’s desire, something in the force of it, in the force of all male desire, captivated me. Men did not merely want. Men needed. The man who followed my mother to and from work every day needed to do so. Presidents forfeit glory for blow jobs. Everything a man takes a lifetime to build he may gamble for a moment. I have never entirely subscribed to the theory that powerful men have such outsize egos that they cannot suppose they will ever be caught; rather, I think that the desire is so strong in the instant that everything else—family, home, career—melts down into a little liquid cooler and thinner than semen. Into nothing.
There's succinct curtness at the base of the book. Even the quotes are quite sparse. It creates a kind of ballet feeling where the dancers move around much by the use of small and quick steps. The rhythm is nearly poetic.
Because most people will agree—when a lover shuts down, refuses to meet you, doesn’t want his Oral-B back, doesn’t need his trail shoes, doesn’t return an email, goes out to buy another pair of trail shoes, for example, because that’s better than dealing with your mousetrap pain, it’s as though someone is freezing your organs. It’s so cold you can’t breathe.
Most people can probably relate quite well to this book. Much time, patience, and—I guess—revision and editing have gone into this book, to make it this readable and interesting.
The book holds out well throughout and is often enthralling, mainly because of how Taddeo has mixed the everyday, the mundane, and the extraordinary into one, thus formulating the sort of text that Marcel Proust and Maria Stepanova mastered.
For the briefest of moments you want to reach across with your small hands that he loved—Does he still love them now? Where does the love of hands go when it dies?—and hold his face in them and say, Oh fuck I’m sorry for betraying you. I was terrifically hurt and angry, and you stole several years from my life. 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’ve gained thirty pounds. I’ve been kicked out of school a few times. My father has just killed himself. I take all these medications, look in my bag, there’s a shitload of them. I’m a girl with the pills of an old woman. I should be dating boys with weed breath but instead I fully personified my victim costume. I’m hanging by a fawn hanger at Party City. You never wrote back.
It's a quite visceral book, keenly atoned to its subjects; the women aren't stereotypically written in any sense. Sure, one might be critical of some of their at-time leans, for example, "The Scorned Woman", but that's not stereotypical, but happens. A lot. And that's it, really. Taddeo has done away with the atypical and simply opted, it seems, for portraying women as women.
His eyes come up off the table to meet yours. They are cold and black and dead. Little agates, gleaming and stern, and older than you remember. In fact, you don’t remember these eyes at all. They used to be filled with love, lust. He used to suck your tongue into his mouth as if he wanted another tongue.
The stories are often of the sensual with humans in a modern age, although, as always, trapped in our past, unable to move away from headlights that are rushing towards us, Bambi in traffic. And it's thrilling. Taddeo's style is made for humanising sexuality, as opposed to the tripe that drips off Sex and The City, Fifty Shades of Gray, et al, which plagues much of current literature. This book does away with that and is lifted beyond. Thank Bog.
She wasn’t quite sure there was no better partner, but she was willing to find out.
The book seemed a bit dull for a short time but quickly picked up again. That's the harshest critique I can give it.
The best thing about this book is that it revives a sense of honesty without shock, which hopefully will revitalise any lovelorn reader who has missed terse literature that brings to life that which many other authors have abused. Every paragraph can be separated from its chapter, and still be of use; it takes a special author to manage that.
Show Less
LibraryThing member LoriKBoyd
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
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
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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. Show Less
LibraryThing member froxgirl
I'm not sure why this nonfiction, told in novel-like fashion, has received so much critical praise and attention. Maybe because outside of bodice-ripping romances, few books are based upon the strong sexual desires of women (as compared to men). The author follows three women and their sex lives.
Maggie, from a household with alcoholic parents, was a high school student when she was molested by a North Dakota “Teacher Of The Year”. At 16, she willingly lost her virginity willing to a thirty one year old soldier while visiting her older sister in Hawaii, and was shamed by her family for it. Two years later, as she grows closer to the teacher, she shares with him her journal about her feelings about being with the older man, probably looking for the understanding and forgiveness from him that is lacking at home. This mistake of trust leads to his seduction of the vulnerable Maggie.
Lina comes from a home with complete parental distance and disconnection, and she ends up marrying a man as cold as her father, who will not allow her tongue in his mouth because he thinks it's unsanitary. She finds an old and still remarkably handsome high school boyfriend on Facebook and falls into a very torrid affair.
Sloan comes from upper class white privilege and from a mother who was driving when her own mother was killed in a car accident. Cut off from her father and given up to the equivalent of rich people's foster care, Sloan's mother demands perfection in her own daughter. Sloan, a bulimic and successful model and restaurateur, marries a chef who urges her to sleep with other men and women as he watches.
The common ground these women share is cunnilingus: Maggie’s teacher will not have penetrative genital sex with his student because that would cross some line he justifies; Lina revels in the tongue of her lover, both from deep kissing and oral sex; and Sloan's husband performs on her for thirty minutes at a time because it's the only way she can reach orgasm.
This is a very erotic but terribly sad book. I don't know what the objective in writing it was and I don't know what was achieved, so I can't exactly say I admired or enjoyed it.
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Based on what she learns from them, men's desires don't go beyond orgasms and control, but women's have less to do with control and more to do with compensation for whatever they survived in childhood - neglect, abuse, low self-esteem, lack of proper parenting. Maggie, from a household with alcoholic parents, was a high school student when she was molested by a North Dakota “Teacher Of The Year”. At 16, she willingly lost her virginity willing to a thirty one year old soldier while visiting her older sister in Hawaii, and was shamed by her family for it. Two years later, as she grows closer to the teacher, she shares with him her journal about her feelings about being with the older man, probably looking for the understanding and forgiveness from him that is lacking at home. This mistake of trust leads to his seduction of the vulnerable Maggie.
Lina comes from a home with complete parental distance and disconnection, and she ends up marrying a man as cold as her father, who will not allow her tongue in his mouth because he thinks it's unsanitary. She finds an old and still remarkably handsome high school boyfriend on Facebook and falls into a very torrid affair.
Sloan comes from upper class white privilege and from a mother who was driving when her own mother was killed in a car accident. Cut off from her father and given up to the equivalent of rich people's foster care, Sloan's mother demands perfection in her own daughter. Sloan, a bulimic and successful model and restaurateur, marries a chef who urges her to sleep with other men and women as he watches.
The common ground these women share is cunnilingus: Maggie’s teacher will not have penetrative genital sex with his student because that would cross some line he justifies; Lina revels in the tongue of her lover, both from deep kissing and oral sex; and Sloan's husband performs on her for thirty minutes at a time because it's the only way she can reach orgasm.
This is a very erotic but terribly sad book. I don't know what the objective in writing it was and I don't know what was achieved, so I can't exactly say I admired or enjoyed it.
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LibraryThing member PrueGallagher
For all sorts of reasons, this is a book that will stay with me for quite a while as it raises so many interesting issues. I can imagine Book Clubs will argue fiercely.
LibraryThing member brookiexlicious
What does the word “desire” mean to you? Is it a word you actively think about, or only in the context of a relationship? Or is it something you have buried, or are ashamed to speak aloud for fear of judgment? Here we have a book where the author follows 3 different women over the course of 10
The three women we meet are Lina, a married mother in her thirties; Maggie, a small town high school student; and Sloane, a married business owner in her forties. Each woman gets her own chapter equally dedicated to her family history, career, hopes, fears, dreams and missed opportunities. The prose is strong and you feel as if you are eaves dropping on a conversation or are reading someone’s diary. You not only get to hear from the women themselves but their family and friends as well.
The stories that I were invested in the most were that of Maggie and Lina. Having grown up in a small town similar to that where Maggie did, I related all to well to her feelings of wanting to be bigger than her hometown, and as events in her life came to a head, I felt overwhelmed along with her, and each time her chapter ended it was all I could do to not skip ahead to her next part. After reading Lina’s story, my heart broke for her and the trials she faced in her marriage. It made me want to reach through the pages and give her a hug and be the friend she so desperately needed.
When it came to Sloane however, I just couldn’t connect with her. Sloane is very open about her sexuality and I have no issue with that at all; I just wasn’t as invested in the outcome with her as I was with Maggie’s or Lina’s story. I felt they dealt with more real world issues than Sloane did.
It was refreshing to me to read a book about female sexuality that for once wasn’t clinical. It is straight forward and holds nothing back, including graphic descriptions of sexual acts. The author doesn’t wrap up the book with any expert findings or annotated examples; she just presents these three women and their stories to you, and allows you to draw your own conclusions.
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years, and writes about their failed love lives, their unrequited love, and their fetishes laid bare. The three women we meet are Lina, a married mother in her thirties; Maggie, a small town high school student; and Sloane, a married business owner in her forties. Each woman gets her own chapter equally dedicated to her family history, career, hopes, fears, dreams and missed opportunities. The prose is strong and you feel as if you are eaves dropping on a conversation or are reading someone’s diary. You not only get to hear from the women themselves but their family and friends as well.
The stories that I were invested in the most were that of Maggie and Lina. Having grown up in a small town similar to that where Maggie did, I related all to well to her feelings of wanting to be bigger than her hometown, and as events in her life came to a head, I felt overwhelmed along with her, and each time her chapter ended it was all I could do to not skip ahead to her next part. After reading Lina’s story, my heart broke for her and the trials she faced in her marriage. It made me want to reach through the pages and give her a hug and be the friend she so desperately needed.
When it came to Sloane however, I just couldn’t connect with her. Sloane is very open about her sexuality and I have no issue with that at all; I just wasn’t as invested in the outcome with her as I was with Maggie’s or Lina’s story. I felt they dealt with more real world issues than Sloane did.
It was refreshing to me to read a book about female sexuality that for once wasn’t clinical. It is straight forward and holds nothing back, including graphic descriptions of sexual acts. The author doesn’t wrap up the book with any expert findings or annotated examples; she just presents these three women and their stories to you, and allows you to draw your own conclusions.
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LibraryThing member davidroche
Several books from the 2020 Gordon Burn Prize shortlist have been on my bedside pile for a while and I was delighted to read Three Women (Bloomsbury) by Lisa Taddeo, whose reading at the event of the opening chapter certainly raised some eyebrows! I’m told it is an every woman story and it’s in
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the best tradition of this Prize as it blurs the lines between fiction and non-fiction and is somewhat hard-hitting. It seems to have received Marmite type reactions and I fell on the ‘loved it’ side of the divide – and those that do, do. Pick it up, read the reviews and give it a go. If you are on the positive side of the line, believe me, you will not regret it. Show Less
LibraryThing member jgmencarini
This is not a book about female desire, as it has been touted. It is about these three women’s suffering as a result of male desire for sex (or lack thereof). The writing is beautifully creative, but this is a joyless book in which these damaged women engage in sexual behavior and activity that
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ultimately causes them a significant amount of pain. It’s #MeToo stories sold as female empowerment. Ouch. Show Less
LibraryThing member capewood
2021 book #60. 2019. The true story of 3 women and the horrible lives they live due to the terrible men in their lives. Read for a book club but couldn't finish it. It may be the most depressing book I ever read.
LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
This book dives into the lives and relationships of three women. Taddeo interviewed the women over a decade and they allowed her close access to their lives. There's Maggie, who reported her high school teacher and saw her community turn on her. And Lina, who is having an intense affair with the
The depth with which Taddeo has explored these three lives is impressive, Women's desire is an uncomfortable topic and the author explores the way that how and what these women desire is formed by their upbringing and experiences. Reading this was an intense experience, that often felt startling intimate.
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man she dated in high school in an attempt to feel a sense of intimacy with someone. And there's Sloan, whose husband chooses men for them to sleep with and when people find out, she's the one who is blamed. The depth with which Taddeo has explored these three lives is impressive, Women's desire is an uncomfortable topic and the author explores the way that how and what these women desire is formed by their upbringing and experiences. Reading this was an intense experience, that often felt startling intimate.
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LibraryThing member YRLibrarian
I was fortunate to read an advance copy. Three Women is a nonfiction account of the lives of three women. The women aren’t connected other than the fact that Taddeo, an incredibly talented journalist, has established a level of trust with these women allowing her to immerse herself in their lives
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for 8 years. She tells their stories masterfully and it reads like a can't-put-it-down novel, leaving you deeply invested in the characters' lives. A beautiful read that is certain to be a bestseller. Show Less
LibraryThing member framberg
While this was, at times, painful to read I will be thinking about it for a long time. I really appreciated how Taddeo told each woman's story without judgement or sentimentality. She presents their stories with care and empathy, and avoids ever implying that they could have (or should have) made
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different choices. Show Less
LibraryThing member mkh43
I think the reason a lot of people don't like this is that they expect it to be some universal reflection of women's experience as a whole, when it should be looked at as anecdotal case studies presented without any overarching "point" to be made. The author was limited to the three women who gave
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her permission to share their stories, who all happen to be cis, straight (perhaps one is bisexual, although this is never fully addressed), and white, so this is obviously not meant to represent women as a whole. This book made me super uncomfortable, but not in the ways I expected it to before reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member ElizabethCromb
Not sure why she wrote this story of 3 women from different communities and economic backgrounds their early sexual experiences woven around a theme of desire.
Awards
Australian Book Industry Awards (Shortlist — 2020)
Gordon Burn Prize (Shortlist — 2020)
BookTube Prize (Octofinalist — Nonfiction — 2020)
Foyles Book of the Year (Winner — Non-Fiction — 2019)
NPR: Books We Love (2019)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2019)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Non-Fiction — 2019)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2019)
New York Public Library Best Books: For Adults (Top Ten — 2019)