As the review meme suggests, the stories in this book are much less important than the writer thinks they are. (In my head, the L to R order of characters in this image is Sloane, Maggie, Lena.)

Lisa Taddeo’s writing is simultaneously aloof and hyperbolic, which seems to be the mark of this “pretentious modern style” that Melinda defines well in her review of Florida by Lauren Groff. In this case, Taddeo describes the character's experiences in an over-the-top, self-absorbed fashion that makes you think “no real person could be this obnoxious.” She’s wasteful in her use of superlatives (“she would swallow chalk if he would just respond to this message”), and it creates a boy-who-cried-wolf phenomenon that keeps readers from fully connecting to these women’s emotions. In nearly every other chapter, one of the characters feels they will be driven to the verge of death if they can’t connect with their forbidden lovers, and the readers’ eye-rolling commences! The exception to this would be Sloane, who is better than everyone and thus unhindered by the emotions of uncool, unsexy women like Jenny, who is married to one of Sloane’s partners. There is a section where Sloane has a sit down with Jenny, and I wanted to smack her (Sloane) as she thought smugly about how she couldn’t relate to Jenny’s problems “because Sloane was her husband’s fantasy, and Jenny’s husband fantasized about Sloane.” Like SHUT UP!!!

Other takes I appreciated: Thomas’ thoughtful review discusses the problematic gender essentialism in this story, as Lisa Taddeo often draws broad universalizations from the experiences of three cisgender, heteroromantic women. Chantel’s review masterfully highlights the themes covered in Three Women, and is very fair to what the book tried to do while also noting where it failed: the detached voyeurism and inherent exclusion of these stories. Despite saying “this book is just about three women,” Lisa Taddeo frequently uses their highly specific (dare I say privileged) stories to opine about the way all women feel. In her universe, all women must be white as hell.

I didn’t think it’d be fair to do my scorched-earth, one-star review thing here because the shock value of these stories definitely kept me engaged. I think Three Women works as a written soap opera, but falls short of being the more impactful book described in many of the blurbs. Finally, I listened to this via my mom’s LibroFM account, which made it feel more like a story-format podcast in terms of “reader experience.” I don’t think I would’ve finished a physical copy, and honestly I forgot about finishing the recording for half a year. So, if you’ve made it through this review and still want to read Three Women, I would recommend the audiobook format.