Reviews with content warning for Incest - Three Women

I've changed the rating of this book a few times - I appreciate its role exploring *true stories* of desire; but as a novel-like book falls flat for me, with some of the explicit sexual scenes going for too long and some other important/interesting aspects of the stories being ignored or brushed off way too quickly. The creative writing is great but all those years of immersive research leading to just this compilation feel a bit disappointing.

It's certainly thought-inducing and although I enjoy the mixed order of the stories, I feel the whole structure lacks intention. Why were the stories told in that order? Is there something truly connecting them? (other than the very obvious "sex stories told by women"). I feel the author fails in giving strong answers to that which overall made the book less enjoyable for me. Some themes will stay with me for a long time but only because of their importance, not because the author threaded them particularly well.

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golelifsu's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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1moodreader's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Lisa Taddeo follows three women's lives in an effort to unmask women's desires.

The audiobook has a full cast of narration and the author reads the author's note and closing. The other three narrators are perfect and really elevate the audiobook.

The book follows Maggie, Sloane, and Lena. All three women are very different, but we see that they each deal with the oppressive nature of living in patriarchal society. The implications of their shared reality manifest differently in each woman's life (check trigger warnings!).

The book can be summed up with the following quote from one of Lena's opening chapters