Recently, I bought myself a Books that Matter book box – a feminist themed box which each month contains a book and three gifts. I don’t want to waste too much time writing about the subscription box itself – but I was pleased with my first box – and having been convinced I would get a book that I had already read or had on the shelf I was just pleased that I received a book I hadn’t got. Everybody gets the same book, and the same gifts each month. The book was Three Women by Lisa Taddeo – which I had heard of and seen reviewed, and to be honest wasn’t really on my radar to buy for myself, but once it had arrived I was intrigued enough to read it straight away.
This is where reviewing this book becomes hard – I didn’t absolutely hate it, but there were times when I really found it hard to like. It is a book which has had so many plaudits, the back cover and inside pages are covered with glowing testimonials. However, with a quick glance at Goodreads – and following a Twitter thread I initiated while reading – it soon becomes apparent that is also a book that divides opinion fiercely.
“It’s the nuances of desire that hold the truth of who we are at our rawest moments. I set out to register the heat and sting of female want so that men and other women might more easily comprehend before they condemn. Because it’s the quotidian moments of our lives that will go on forever, that will tell us who we were, who our neighbors and our mothers were, when we were too diligent in thinking they were nothing like us. This is the story of three women.”
Three Women is book about women’s desire. It is a non-fiction book – though the cover looks like a novel – and in fact, the author uses a narrative style throughout the book that is immediately compelling, deliberately so I assume. It is literally a book about three women – a book that took eight years for the author to research and write. It is clear to me that Lisa Taddeo is committed to the women whose stories she tells here – she has told their stories faithfully, with great honesty and no judgement and that is to her credit. The three women are three white, straight, American women – two of whom appear to be of a similar age – and in that we have my first problem. There is a narrowness here that I couldn’t get away from, I was unable to identify with any of these women – a few people I have spoken to who have read this book said they couldn’t either. I don’t think this narrowness is in any way deliberate, it’s just the way it turned out – there is mention in the epilogue of another woman who dropped out of the project – a bi-sexual black woman originally from Dominica. In alternating chapters Lisa Taddeo tells us the stories of Maggie, Lina and Sloane.
Maggie – was a confused teenager, desperate to be understood she turned to a teacher for help – and at sixteen found herself in a relationship with him (the age of consent in many US states is eighteen). This is a relationship driven by her obsession – but controlled absolutely by this married teacher. A few years later – Maggie brings him to court – where she finds herself unbelieved, a target for sneers and ribald jokes in the town where she lives.
“Her whole life stretches out before her, a path of imprecise but multiple directions. She could be an astronaut, a rap star, an accountant. She could be happy.”
Lina wanted to be desired, to be seen as attractive. Suffering sexual assault as a teenager – she is later married to a man who never touches her. A mother with two children, she embarks on an affair with a man who she was obsessed with in her teens. Here again, the man is the one who calls the shots – her desire for this man eclipses everything else – their meetings hurried and passionate lack any kind of care or affection.
“Later she will text him, thank you for taking the time, for spending so much time with me today.
If you ask her how long it was she will say, Gee, I’d say it was almost thirty minutes.”
Having battled an eating disorder, Sloane has been successful in the restaurant business she and her husband have worked hard to establish. However, she is married to man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. She wants to make her husband happy; she wants to be admired and she tells herself that her husband will always want her. Compelled by the love of her husband Sloane finds herself acting out her husband’s sexual fantasies and telling herself its okay.
Supposedly a feminist work about women’s desire – and I’m not saying it isn’t – for me though, it was more a book about destructive sexual obsessions and oppression. Lisa Taddeo’s writing is good – she is particularly candid in the discussions of these women’s sexual experiences – the candid nature of which I had no problem with, but the frequency I found more wearisome. While these desires do come from the women themselves, there is no empowerment here and no doubt that is the point, and that I found rather depressing. Of the three stories, only one of them is really interesting, the other two I was drawn into by the compelling nature of Taddeo’s prose – and I was always just interested enough to read on and find out what happened to them. I’m still not one hundred percent sure what I think of this book, I can see why it is loved by some and I can see why it is so disliked by others. It would make a marvellous book group choice; it was actually suggested at my book group a few months ago and not picked – it would have kept us talking for hours!
I found it very depressing too! it looks like their sexuality was completely into pleasing their men, rather than their own desires? That’s what I got (especially from Sloane). That said, it was a very compelling novel.
The sexuality of these women was very much about pleasing the men rather than themselves, and that is depressing. Also, it isn’t actually a novel, despite feeling very much like one. That’s quite confusing.
I’ve not read this one, wary of all that hype, but it certainly sounds thought-provoking. The subscription box is an interesting idea.
The subscription box is lovely, and I am looking forward to my next one. I am oddly glad to have read this, but I do think the hype is overdone.
Sounds like a classic marmite book! I haven’t started mine yet, but am intrigued to get reading.
Oh very much a marmite book. I was intruiged by it too. Let me know what you think when you get round to it.
Will do. Meanwhile, we can look forward to the next box….. 😀
Yes! Not too long to wait now. 🎉
The narrowness does sound problematic, I must admit. There’s a balance to be struck between breadth and depth here – having enough participants to offer some degree of diversity while maintaining the focus to explore individual experiences in detail. Maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, that trade-off could have been positioned somewhat differently?
I couldn’t quite get past the narrowness, though it is clear the author spent a lot of time researching and speaking with these women. I do agree there needs to be more balance between breadth and depth.
The other stuff that came with it looks cool but I’m rather relieved I didn’t succumb to ordering a subscription. This does sound narrow and rather grim – which I suppose is the point to a large extent. And the repeated sexual experiences do sound wearisome (funnily enough, I found that a bit tiring in the overwhelmingly sex-positive YA book I read, Full Disclosure). Thank goodness you found a community that agreed with you in part, so you knew it wasn’t just you!
The little gifts were fab, and I am looking forward to my next box. Yes, clearly not just me, it’s definitely a marmite book.
Yes, you are not endearing this book to me, I have to say. I steered clear of it, because a lot of what is being touted as being open about women’s sexuality does seem incredibly depressing and all about being hard on ourselves and far too willing to submit to or be defined by others. Since when has sex become such a joyless experience? No, I don’t think it’s for me.
These experiences are clearly so joyless in any meaningful way (forget the immediate physical enjoyment) that to me it was depressing.
I’ve heard very mixed opinions on this one Ali but I don’t think it’s for me
No, definitely one that divides opinion.
I very much get where you’re coming from on this one, Ali. That narrow focus would worry me a lot, and having your sexual experiences totally controlled by men is *not* a liberation – frankly, it seems to me to be playing to men’s wishes and desires, and not women’s. But so often in history what’s touted as freedom for women is simply what’s better for men. I think this one definitely isn’t for me!
There was certainly no liberation in these stories. The narrowness is a problem I think, I don’t think it’s one for you either.
I didn’t realise it was NF. Not a book that I’ll race to read.
Yes, and not only does the physical book look like a novel but it has the style of a novel throughout.
I read this too. Mostly because the polarized opinions interested me; I did hear the author interviewed a couple of times, but her presentation didn’t pull me into the story as much as the controversy did. (Although it was interesting to hear her talk about how she got into this project and how it changed over time — and how inexperienced she was as an author/interviewer.)
It’s tricky though, I think, to sort out the discomfort that people have about the openness about their sexuality with the fact that it doesn’t necessarily reflect readers’ sexual experiences which is a different kind of discomfort (i.e. is it troubling because it’s so raw or because it’s different?). Hard to know. For me, I wanted more shape to the narrative beneath the stories, even if the stories themselves had to feel “unfinished” in some ways. More context. Or more of the journalist. Something else to offer some tissue in there with the blood.
It’s clearly a divisive book, but it was interesting in many ways. I think a more journalistic approach may have been better. More shape to the stories would have been better too.