Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
This week’s book review is on Three Women, by Lisa Taddeo. Over to Fiona from Brompton Library to tell us more about this fantastic read!
Three Women is a non-fiction book written as a novel, based on the lives of three women from different backgrounds. We hear from Lina, a bored suburban mother, Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student in North Dakota who becomes involved with her teacher, and Sloane, a successful restaurant owner from New York State whose husband has interesting sexual tastes.
Taddeo spent eight years interviewing these women and becoming immersed in their lives. The book explores the women’s emotional lives and their desires, showing how women keep themselves hidden and how they are judged by society. As a piece of non-fiction written as fiction, it manages get into the inner lives of these women. The external reality of their looks, their lives, and their selves are much less important than what is happening for them internally. Their perceptions of themselves and what they want are often in conflict with how society sees them and what it allows them to be and to have.
I really enjoyed this book. The stories are great, the characters are interesting and relatable, and I think what Taddeo has done is quite unique; having used real women, she keeps the authenticity of their stories and them as women, while making it into a very readable book. My only criticism would be that the writing at points is a little clunky, but it didn’t stop me enjoying the book.
Fiona, Brompton Library
Three Women is available to borrow in our libraries and to download with your RBKC library card from cloudLibrary here.
Have you read Three Women? What did you think? Let us know in the comments
If you are, did you know that you can borrow e-books from the library – free? We have a great selection and all you need to do is be a library member and then sign up for the e-book service. It’s that simple (unless you have a Kindle… read more below).
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