A riveting page-turner that explores desire, heartbreak, and infatuation in all its messy, complicated nuance

Taddeo spent many hours with her subjects to better recount their family histories, sexual histories, motivations and insecurities. The result is three detailed stories, without a clear sense of why she chose these women, and why right now. This book does not reveal a secret history, or even describe a contemporary sexual dynamic with such specificity that one cringes in pained recognition (as happened with Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person”). Three Women simply confirms, once again, the hypocrisies of the heterosexual marriage, the psychological scars that sexual coercion and violence can leave on a person, and the persistence of gender inequality

Based on years of immersive reporting, and told with astonishing frankness and immediacy, Three Women is a groundbreaking portrait of erotic longing in today’s America, exposing the fragility, complexity, and inequality of female desire with unprecedented depth and emotional power. It is both a feat of journalism and a triumph of storytelling, brimming with nuance and empathy, that introduces us to three unforgettable women—and one remarkable writer—whose experiences remind us that we are not alone