Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read to this book!

I enjoyed this one and I highly recommend.

I read this a while ago, but still remain surprised that this isn't fiction—it was an enormously compelling book, and while I get the impression many found it sordid or lacking the context and commentary most non-fiction books have, I thought the work on a whole was psychologically fascinating.

In some of the moments where Taddeo goes inside the heads of the women, the omniscience felt a little forced or poeticized or overwritten.

Generally, this book is not only about women and their love life and their desire. It is about women to be available and obey. Sure, they can have a mind of their own, as long as it fits in with what their male partner wants.
And if that is not hard enough to deal with in life, add the male gaze to that, which also has its effect on how women judge other women. Women's behavior and way they dress is scrutinized, and yet – when other women tell us we are doing okay, we feel okay. As we need their validation to make sure we are on the right track with what we do or what we wear.
Three Women is about inequality, financial dependence, love or lack of it, rape, eating disorders, power, and the want for a partner. It is a stunning documentary in words: moving and hair-raising.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.

This was a fascinating treatise on feminine desire. Taddeo creates a wonderful characterization of these real lives and leaves the reader sympathizing and rooting for each of them. This reader would love to see a subsequent book with lives of women from diverse backgrounds,

We would like to think that we are unique, one of a kind and that some experiences have only happened to us. Shockingly, not really, that belief is generally not true and chances are that there is someone experiencing the same feeling, emotion, thought or experience as you.
Three Women by Lisa Taddeo explores the sex lives of three real women after years of research. The three women are all in search of something, and when they find it, realize that it wasn’t what they hoped it would be. That can be the story for so many things in life not limited to sexual relationships but in work, children, family and in general life.
Maggie was a seventeen year old high school student in North Dakota. When she embarks on a physical relationship with her handsome, married English teacher. Years later she reports her relationship to the authorities which results in the Teacher of the Year facing charges in a public trial. The small-town community is ripped apart and sides are taken.
Maggie’s tale is one of rape, power, adolescent “love” and innocence lost.
Lina is a homemaker and mother in Indiana. Lina is in her thirties, stuck in a loveless marriage. There is no passion and no love, just the day to day existence under one roof.
After reconnecting on Facebook with an ex boyfriend, she finds the sexual passion that she longed for but learns a lesson in lust versus love. Can people find both in one relationship and, if so, which one is more important?
Forty-something, Sloane, is the glamorous wife of chef/restaurant owner Richard. Living in Newport, Rhode Island, Sloane works as hostess at her husbands’s restaurant. Perfect body, perfect job, perfect marriage, maybe on paper but underneath Sloane is searching for perfect sexual encounters with other men and women while her husband watches and sometimes participates.
All three women are seeking to fill a void in their life. All three women can trace their current situations to things in their past that helped shape their current views.
Lisa Taddeo’s book is graphic at times and delves into topics that are not normal dinner table conversations but if you are looking for a frank and sometimes harsh look at intimacy, then you will experience what Kate Tuttle from NPR described as “a work of deep observation, long conversations and a kind of journalistic alchemy.”
Three Women with three experiences remind all of us that nothing is singularly unique.
I received an advance copy of this book from NetGalley. #NetGalley #ThreeWomen

Fascinating, devastating, and powerful. I'm not sure why I expected this book to be more of a reflection of women's sexuality overall, but it isn't. It's specifically about three women, who are not representative of all women. And all three have trauma in their pasts, so lots of trigger warnings with this book. But I thought it was well done, engaging, and worth a read. Maggie's story is especially eye-opening. Her identity has not been changed, and her story became very public. If you think a 17 year old is partly responsible when they get involved with a teacher, you'll probably change your mind by the end of her story.

*I was approved for this ARC three years after I requested it.

I haven’t felt this much emotion towards real people’s lives recorded for the world to see since Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (one of my very favorite non-fiction books of all time). What makes Three Women so powerful is that it takes three lives that, on the surface, are nothing like my own and made me think repeatedly while reading “I can relate” or “oh wow I’ve experienced that emotion too”, even if the specifics of the circumstances were totally different. I found myself literally shaking my head at the injustices done to and lack of empathy/support provided to these women, specifically Maggie.
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My husband asked me if he should read my copy after me and my response was-yes, you and everyone else I know.

This is a weird one to review because I actually have a personal connection to one of the stories in the book - the student/teacher affair allegation happened in my hometown to a teacher I had in high school. Because of this, I was definitely interested in that story more than the others… but I didn’t really enjoy any of the women’s stories. The one I was familiar with left me with an “okay I still don’t really know what happened” feeling, which is true and possibly the point, but I think I was hoping to gain some new information or empathy towards the girl in the situation that would change my own viewpoint somehow. Other than that story, I found the other two unlikeable and actually uncomfortable at times, as they dealt with both consensual and non-consensual extra-marital affairs. Just not really something I want to read about or think about applying to my own marriage! So probably an interesting or impactful book to other readers, but not my cup of tea.

I read this book and had to DNF it and I'm glad I did. Lisa Taddeo essentially sensationalized the lives of these three women and tried to say she was objective and yet started the book with a very subjective personal story that fully shows how entrenched she was in the thesis statement of this book. Overall I'm not looking forward to any books this author may have in the future.

I had really high hopes for this book. The concept and topics very much interested me, however i just could NOT get into the book. I kept starting and stopping, and never really hitting my stride with reading this. Finally after a few months of trying and trying, i just had to DNF this title. I felt let-down. This sort of work would otherwise be very interesting to me.

I really wanted to like this book based on how it was marketed, as a study in desire. But after reading it (originally read as an ARC in 2019) it just didn't have that same vibe that I thought it would.

See review by Roxane Gay it says everything I would have said.

Roxane Gay Review:
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 a narrow sample. How are you going to write about women’s desires and only look at one kind of woman? I kept expecting more than transcription and so when I got to the end and there was no there there I was quite angry.

Three very different women and I am torn. I want the woman’s daily condition both exposed and explored. At the same time, I am not sure how satisfactorily this book did so.

I missed this last go around and wish i did this time too. All I can say is ugh. Boring and repetitive. I think people think too much about themselves and not enough about others.

Sorry to go against the grain on this one. Very disappointed after all the hype and 5* reviews. Written in a very disjointed way. I found the stories of these three women sad and depressing. I couldn’t find anything positive to take away from it. Thank you for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“A riveting true story about the sex lives of three American real women...” Really? The description of this book does it a disservice. It is more the riveting true story about three American real women who are damaged by society’s expectations of women. I believe every single woman who reads this non-fiction will understand that there are parts of it that apply to them. Over and over again I am reminded of the things we do as women to attract love. Although the book is nonfiction, it reads very easily and reads like fiction. There are lines and phrases that go immediately to my soul and also to the girl I was when I was 12 or 20, or 40 or 60. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for ARC.

Lisa Taddeo did a brilliant job of structuring this book. The three women's stories are woven together not just in a chronological fashion but one that does well to create dramatic tension and, at times, even complement each other and highlight parallels between the narratives. The stories were, in each of their unique ways, compelling, repelling, and captivating.

I haven't decided yet whether I like or am upset by the fact that Taddeo does not draw conclusions at the end of the narratives. She begins, in her introduction, by creating the framework of "desire." She states that these stories will uncover truths and mysteries that surround the desire of women. I was left with more of a sense of how men manipulate women into satisfying men's desires and at the detriment of women's desires. Taddeo doesn't end the three narratives with a return to the idea of the desire of women, so I felt a bit of a loss at the conclusion of the book.

Thank you to Lisa Taddeo and NetGalley for the opportunity to honestly review this book.

Three Women is an intense look at the lives of 3 women. It reminded me of reading a diary of their lives over an 8 year time frame. It digs intimately into their lives and looks at their thoughts and desires. In some cases it goes into graphic detail.

The 3 women couldn’t be more different. They live in different parts of the country, are different ages, and are from different social classes. It’s their desires and hopes for the future that is the commonality. I didn’t always agree with what they were doing, or how they conducted their lives, the Lisa Taddeo did a great job getting me to emotionally connect with each of the women. I needed to know how each of their lives turned out. Taddeo wrote about each woman without passing judgement and just laid out what happened.

If you want a book from a different perspective and with story lines that are rarely told, this is the book for you. Raw honesty was refreshing even with the topics discussed.

4 Stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This is a stunning debut, perfectly written. I devoured it in small bites, I almost didn’t want to finish. I would recommend it to almost everyone! Thanks to the publisher and netgalley for an egalley of this amazing book.

I received this review copy through NetGalley about a year after publication so I had previously read it at my local library and must say I don't recall it in great detail. I do remember that I enjoyed this book. I'm a huge non-fiction fan to begin with but this was a really well done "investigative" report of three women who hail from different parts of the country but each are left with the unfulfilled and unhappiness. One of the women was from Rhode Island, so I secretly tried to search for clues as to who it could be, as in RI, everyone knows everyone. I liked the idea of Taddeo sitting down for long conversations to peel back the layers that complicated relationships have. As an educator, I did not like the parts involving the teacher because it goes against the ethics of our profession. Overall, it was juicy and like a gossipy conversation between ladies but in the end, I felt sad for all of them.