Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
Published by: Avid Reader Press / Simon and Schuster Publication Date: July 9th, 2019
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy
Maggie thought she was in love. She thought he loved her too. But it was an unequal relationship. He was her teacher. He slowly worked his way into her life so that he was all she had and then one day she texted him and his wife saw. That ended everything. In fact it felt like her life ended. A few years later she sees his face smiling on the news. He has been named teacher of the year in North Dakota. She realizes it is time to go public, because as her therapist has told her, she couldn't have been the first. Yet Maggie's past calls everything she says into question and the love of her life will get away with the damage he's inflicted. Linna just wants her husband to touch her. A kiss, a caress, anything. She's decided that if this continues for three months she will leave him. Of course he doesn't know that she has a dream, that she will get back together with her high school sweetheart whom she's been having an affair with. Aidan and her broke up in high school because she was raped by three classmates one night and forever branded a whore. Her entire life she has felt the void left by Aidan leaving. And here he is, back in her life, or at least her car, whenever his needs need to be met. She knows it's a one way relationship, but to be touched, to be cared for, even in this small way, was more than she ever got from her husband. Sloane looks to have the perfect life. A husband with whom she runs a successful restaurant, beautiful children, and looks that don't betray her age. She and her husband love each other completely, only he takes sexual satisfaction from watching his wife sleep with other men and women, occasionally participating. All these women would do anything for love. They would degrade themselves, they would hurt themselves, they would even, perhaps, kill themselves.
Three Women is a puerile and prurient book, like a small child that can not yet form full sentences but randomly yells out "fuck" for the reaction they get from adults. This is not in the least a book about female desire but a book about women molested and controlled by men. One can only assume that all the glorious reviews were written by men who long to dominate women and hope that this debasement is truly the secret desire of all women. I have shocking news for them; it's not. I keep coming back to the fact that Taddeo supposedly worked on this book for eight years and in this time she gained no depth on her subjects. These women could have been handled tactfully, their body image issues and abuse dealt with in a thoughtful manner, instead it's just who they are on the surface, not who they were made to become, and the abuse, while there, also fuels their desire. But why? WHY!?! These women are nothing more than paper dolls. They are one dimensional cliches that I strongly suspect don't even really exist with their love of Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. In fact Sloane might very well be nothing more than an amalgam of Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf from Gossip Girl. And the fact that Gossip Girl handled bulimia better than this book and that even Twilight is better written should give you a hint as to how bad this book is. As you read about Lina massaging the fondant from a Cadbury Creme Egg into Aidan's scrotum you will feel your brain cells dying.
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