This book is an unflinching study of female sexuality and desire which reads like fiction, but tells the true stories of three women. This book is fascinating, frustrating and heartbreaking all at the same time, and I related to - and empathised with - each of the women in one way or another. With these stories, Taddeo makes some great points about how women view and treat each other:

"Lina understands that some women, like her mother and her sisters, truly care for another woman only when that woman is in pain, especially in a kind of pain that they have already felt, and then overcome."

I found myself particularly caught up with Maggie, who has a relationship with her high school teacher and presses charges against him a few years later. Taddeo's writing was so involving that I couldn't help but feel I understood exactly what she went through and why it affected her so deeply.

"What the fuck do you know about young women, Maggie thinks. We don't remember what we want to remember. We remember what we can't forget."

I guess my overriding feeling when I'd finished this incredible book is that the desire to be desired, the need to be loved, the search for a connection that chimes makes women vulnerable. The women who are the subjects Lina, Sloane and Maggie were looking for validation that they were wanted and needed, yet none of them found it. It would be easy to point the finger at men, too easy perhaps as here they don't cover themselves in glory, however, I think we must acknowledge that women generally want more from their sexual relationships than men. A man once said to me that having sex was like quenching a thirst. I remember thinking that this statement simply objectified women, turned them into something to be used for the benefit of men, but I know not all men feel the same. I found the minutiae of thoughts as they experienced profound moments was enlightening. I'm sure these unconnected thoughts have occured to all of us at strange times. Perhaps it's the human way of accepting an action that we know in our psyche is wrong. Disturbing, enthralling and thought provoking.

I was not very far into this book when I realised it would not be my cup of tea. I know there are those who will say I'm missing a little gem judging by the reviews I've seen so far. However, I have to say that it is beautifully written with stunning visuals and glorious language. For me, it was just the subject matter. I've given it four stars for the quality of the writing.

It was hard to remember at times that I was reading non fiction; this totally read as a great work of fiction. But when I did remember it truly brought another level to it.
The story, as the title suggests, of three women. Three unrelated real lives, documented over a few years Lina is stuck in a loveless marriage who reconnects with her first teenage love. Maggie recalls her troubled teenage years where she finds complicated adulteress love with her schoolteacher leading to him facing charges. And finally Sloan, a married mother of two who, alongside her husband, seeks sexual thrills elsewhere but with full knowledge and often participation of her husband.

Deep themes of love, sex, desire alongside the complexities of characters, their backgrounds, their families. This truly examines the lives of three modern women. Unflinching, very compelling, and brilliant

A truly inspirational book for modern times. I absolutely loved all the different stories between the three characters and their, sometimes incredibly messed up relationships. Thoroughly enjoyed this xx

Three Women follows - somewhat unsurprisingly - three women in contemporary America: Maggie had a relationship with her teacher when at school and is now at the trial to see whether he will be convicted, Lina is in an unhappy marriage and turns back to the one man in her life who ever satisfied her sexually, Sloane lives to fulfil the sexual whims of her husband who likes to watch her sleep with other men. The reader gets to know these women over the course of the book, which I took to be anything between several months and a few years, I don't believe it was ever explicitly stated. Taddeo lays bare the innermost thoughts and desires of these women, mostly in the context of their sexual relationships - what makes the book so compelling and unique is that Taddeo does this in such a non-judgemental and revealing way, so much so that this reads like gripping fiction when in fact it is entirely non-fiction about these real womens' lives.

The stories of these women and how they approach and deal with their relationships and the men in their lives revealed things to me about myself and how I act in relationships with men I have dated which I had never before considered. Even if your experiences have differed to these women you will almost certainly find something to relate to here, and even possibly learn something about yourself.

This is quite a perplexing book as I'm not sure what Taddeo's intentions were. She takes three American women and tells their stories of failed love, disappointing marriages, unmet or unfulfilled sexual and emotional needs.

In some ways the stories are different and, almost deliberately (?) echo themes covered in recent fiction: Lina, in a sexless marriage, falls into an affair with her high-school boyfriend; Maggie is 'groomed' into a sexual relationship with her high-school teacher; Sloane finds herself introduced to open marriage built around a ménage theme, and recognises herself as a submissive after reading 'Fifty Shades of Grey'.

And yet, all three have commonalities: all three women are essentially unfulfilled; all are, to greater or lesser extents, exploited by men. Lina and Maggie are desperately pleading for love from married men who call them up when they choose. Sloane has a troubled history of anorexia/bulimia and despite her seeming assurance, traces early examples of male familial disapproval which affected her adolescence.

What I found disturbing about the book is a seeming gender essentialism which shows us abject women in thrall to powerful men who control their relationships whether through being unavailable emotionally and physically, sometimes because they're married, or, in the case of Sloane, by a voyeurism which makes her the sexualised object beneath a dual male gaze. The overall tone is one of dysfunctional masochism, especially in the cases of Lina and Maggie.

It's fascinating to see other women's inner lives but it's also frustrating to see how much pain, misery and lack of agency inhabit these (love) lives. The implication seems to be that whatever happens to level the playing field for women publicly and professionally, there's still an underground struggle for some women who want to be loved in ways that their men and their own choices seem to preclude.