Three Women
Reader Score
81%
81% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Good
Based on 29 reviews on
2019 The New York Times Best Seller
Included in Belletrist Book Club
SOON TO BE A SERIES ON STARZ STARRING SHAILENE WOODLEY * BETTY GILPIN * DeWANDA WISE * GABRIELLE CREEVY * with BLAIR UNDERWOOD "Staggeringly intimate...Groundbreaking." --Entertainment Weekly
"A breathtaking and important book." --Cheryl Strayed
"Extraordinary...A nonfiction literary masterpiece." --Elizabeth Gilbert #1 New York Times Bestseller and a Best Book of the Year by: The Washington Post * NPR * The Atlantic * New York Public Library * Vanity Fair * PBS * Time * Economist * Entertainment Weekly * Financial Times * Shelf Awareness * Guardian * Sunday Times * BBC * Esquire * Good Housekeeping * Elle * Real Simple * And more A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women "who are carnal, brave, and beautifully flawed" (People, Book of the Week), based on nearly a decade of reporting. Lina, a young mother in suburban Indiana whose marriage has lost its passion, reconnects with an old flame through social media and embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student in North Dakota, allegedly engages in a relationship with her married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial turns their quiet community upside down. Sloane, a successful restaurant owner in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. Hailed as "a dazzling achievement" (Los Angeles Times) and "a riveting page-turner that explores desire, heartbreak, and infatuation in all its messy, complicated nuance" (The Washington Post), Lisa Taddeo's Three Women has captivated readers, booksellers, and critics--and topped bestseller lists--worldwide. Based on eight years of immersive research, it is "an astonishing work of literary reportage" (The Atlantic) that introduces us to three unforgettable women--and one remarkable writer--whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.
"A breathtaking and important book." --Cheryl Strayed
"Extraordinary...A nonfiction literary masterpiece." --Elizabeth Gilbert #1 New York Times Bestseller and a Best Book of the Year by: The Washington Post * NPR * The Atlantic * New York Public Library * Vanity Fair * PBS * Time * Economist * Entertainment Weekly * Financial Times * Shelf Awareness * Guardian * Sunday Times * BBC * Esquire * Good Housekeeping * Elle * Real Simple * And more A riveting true story about the sex lives of three real American women "who are carnal, brave, and beautifully flawed" (People, Book of the Week), based on nearly a decade of reporting. Lina, a young mother in suburban Indiana whose marriage has lost its passion, reconnects with an old flame through social media and embarks on an affair that quickly becomes all-consuming. Maggie, a seventeen-year-old high school student in North Dakota, allegedly engages in a relationship with her married English teacher; the ensuing criminal trial turns their quiet community upside down. Sloane, a successful restaurant owner in an exclusive enclave of the Northeast, is happily married to a man who likes to watch her have sex with other men and women. Hailed as "a dazzling achievement" (Los Angeles Times) and "a riveting page-turner that explores desire, heartbreak, and infatuation in all its messy, complicated nuance" (The Washington Post), Lisa Taddeo's Three Women has captivated readers, booksellers, and critics--and topped bestseller lists--worldwide. Based on eight years of immersive research, it is "an astonishing work of literary reportage" (The Atlantic) that introduces us to three unforgettable women--and one remarkable writer--whose experiences remind us that we are not alone.
Book Details
- Publisher: Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster
- Publish Date: Jul 7th, 2020
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Dimensions: 8.20in - 5.40in - 0.90in - 0.70lb
- EAN: 9781451642308
- Categories: • Human Sexuality (see also Psychology - Human Sexuality)• Human Sexuality (see also Social Science - Human Sexuality)• Women's Studies
About the Author
Taddeo, Lisa: - Lisa Taddeo is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Three Women, which she is adapting as a dramatic series at Showtime, and the novel Animal. She has contributed to The New York Times, New York magazine, Esquire, Elle, Glamour, and many other publications. Her nonfiction has been included in the Best American Sports Writing and Best American Political Writing anthologies, and her short stories have won two Pushcart Prizes. She lives with her husband and daughter in New England.
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
"I can't remember the last time a book affected me as profoundly as Three Women. Lisa Taddeo is a tireless reporter, a brilliant writer, and a storyteller possessed of almost supernatural humanity. As far as I'm concerned, this is a nonfiction literary masterpiece at the same level as In Cold Blood-and just as suspenseful, bone-chilling, and harrowing, in its own way. I know already that I will never stop thinking about the women profiled in this story-about their sexual desire, their emotional pain, their strength, their losses. I saw myself in all of them. Truly, Three Women is an extraordinary offering." -Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love and City of Girls "Three Women is a masterpiece. . . . Taddeo spent eight years immersed in the romantic, sexual, and emotional lives of three women. . . . No doubt, you'll find parts of yourself in these women." -Caitlin Brody, Vanity Fair "An astonishing work of literary reportage . . . As Lisa Taddeo writes about her subjects, the women she uses to map out an anthropological, humane, passionate study of female desire, she seems almost to inhabit them. . . . A fascinating appraisal of a subject few writers have approached so intently." -Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic "The hottest book of the summer . . . Taddeo spent eight years reporting this groundbreaking book, moving across the country and back again in her staggeringly intimate foray into the sexual lives and desires of three 'ordinary' women. Tragedy and despair lurk in each of their stories, but Taddeo's dynamic writing brings them all to breathtaking life." -Entertainment Weekly "Taddeo spent a decade immersed in the sex lives of three ordinary American woman. . . . The result is the most in-depth look at the female sex drive and all its accompanying social, emotional, reproductive, and anthropological implications that's been published in decades. But it's also fully immersive: gonzo journalism without the machismo." -New York "This nonfiction look at the sex lives of three American women will be whispered about around pools from coast to coast." -Town & Country "A deeply reported, elegantly written, almost uncomfortably intimate portrait of three American women . . . Taddeo reveals something universal in each of their stories . . . The result is a nonfiction book that feels as close to its subjects as a novel, like Adrien Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family, or Anne Fadiman's The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down." -Matt Haber, Columbia Journalism Review "What makes Three Women so remarkable and indelible, and also so refreshingly out-of-step with the tenor of the present moment, is Taddeo's refusal to judge these 'characters.' She is not particularly interested in determining who is right, who is wrong, and who is to blame. Intensity and compulsion draw her to these stories like tractor beams. What most fascinates her is how sexual desire transfigures the entire tissue of a personality and changes the course of lives." -Laura Miller, Slate "A dazzling achievement . . . Three Women burns a flare-bright path through the dark woods of women's sexuality. In sentences that are as sharp-and bludgeoning, at times-as an ax, she retains the accuracy and integrity of nonfiction but risks the lyrical depths of prose and poetry." -Margaret Wappler, Los Angeles Times "A revolutionary look at women's desire, this feat of journalism reveals three women who are carnal, brave, and beautifully flawed." -People (Book of the Week) "An extraordinary study of female desire . . . To write this kind of nonfiction-it's true, but reads like a novel-Taddeo smartly employs not only interviews but also diary entries, legal documents, letters, emails and text messages. The result is a book as exhaustively reported and as elegantly written as Katherine Boo's Behind the Beautiful Forevers or Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family. . . . Taddeo's language is at its best-sublime, even-when she describes the pain of desire left