Book Review for Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz by Gail Crowther
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What a fascinating book! I began reading knowing very little about Sexton or Plath, and finished with an appreciation for how complex and talented both women were. I had no idea how many parallels their lives had.

In my opinion, every female creative should read this book. It's more than a biography, it's a lesson in how difficult it was for women to balance a writing career with marriage and motherhood. You'll come to appreciate what an incredible achievement it was for both women to with Pulitzers at a time when female poet weren't respected or supported. What's more, so much of what they faced, from industry support to mental health treatment, continues in some form today.

I truly loved reading this story, and learned a lot.

A solid, intriguing biography that is more like a dual biography than it is about their friendship (which covers two or so out of eight chapters and an epilogue). I like how we get to dive into their parallel lives and how the culture and their mental illnesses affected them and their writing. There’s definitely a lot I didn’t know about Anne Sexton and her sexual abuse of her daughter, but it’s covered with the full consent of the daughter it happened to. Definitely a hell of a read, and something you might want to pick up when it comes out.

This book was very well researched and was really so interesting. I found the way that the author, Gail Crowther compared and contrasted the two poets so seamless and unbiased. That must have been difficult to accomplish. It was heart-wrenching at times but it gave the reader a very big window into Sylvia Plath‘s, and Anne Sexton’s troubled and gifted lives.