Scan barcode
quills4days's review against another edition
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Bullying, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Cursing, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Grief, Rape, Suicide, and Toxic relationship
rswindle1990's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Easily jumped into my top ten favorite books of all time. Maybe top 5. Incredible writing. Artful narrative techniques that are subtle and exquisite, and most importantly that allow the truth of each woman to pour through and stand on its own without distraction. Just stunning I cannot recommend this book enough and can’t wait to read more from Lisa Taddeo.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Child abuse
lookingforwonder's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
3.0
This book tells the true stories of three women and how sexual desire played into their lives. What it is that gave them their particular desires, from the families to their ages to their history with trauma, and how they reacted to others finding out about their sex lives, and how others reacted to them.
Maggie has the strongest narrative. Her teacher groomed her and "corrupted" her at 17 years old, and six years later she reports the crime. It is the narrative the book starts and ends with, and definitely has the most haunting result of all of them. This story breaks down what we may logically think a grooming situation would be like isn't the way we think it would be. How her abuser, Aaron Knodel (and that is his real name), was able to get away with it. How he took a vulnerable young woman's craving for love and belonging to sate himself and break her down.
Lina is a 30-something year old woman whose husband no longer even touches her. She separates from her husband and has an affair with her a high school ex-boyfriend. In my opinion, this was the weakest of the three women's stories. Perhaps because Taddeo did not see the conclusion of their relationship. Her chapters are mostly descriptive sex scenes and while there is definitely the complicated dynamic she has with this ex-boyfriend, it wasn't anything revealing or particularly important, imo. The one interesting insight came at the very end, in the epilogue, and only lasted a paragraph.
Sloane is a woman who is married and desired greatly by her husband, and part of their sex life is letting other men and women into their bed. Sloane grew up wealthy and beautiful, and married a chef. In the beginning, it was the same type of story you'd expect--societal pressure of a pretty, privileged white woman. Her part was also the smallest, which made me wonder why she was included in the first place. But at the end, other details pull together that link Sloane's early family life with her life with her husband now, and how their preferences impact others around them.
The descriptive writing in this book in probably its strongest point. Even in Lina's chapters, which were generally the least interesting to me, the details are enough to savor and really understand and see the point of view of each of these three women's stories.
Maggie has the strongest narrative. Her teacher groomed her and "corrupted" her at 17 years old, and six years later she reports the crime. It is the narrative the book starts and ends with, and definitely has the most haunting result of all of them. This story breaks down what we may logically think a grooming situation would be like isn't the way we think it would be. How her abuser, Aaron Knodel (and that is his real name), was able to get away with it. How he took a vulnerable young woman's craving for love and belonging to sate himself and break her down.
Lina is a 30-something year old woman whose husband no longer even touches her. She separates from her husband and has an affair with her a high school ex-boyfriend. In my opinion, this was the weakest of the three women's stories. Perhaps because Taddeo did not see the conclusion of their relationship. Her chapters are mostly descriptive sex scenes and while there is definitely the complicated dynamic she has with this ex-boyfriend, it wasn't anything revealing or particularly important, imo. The one interesting insight came at the very end, in the epilogue, and only lasted a paragraph.
Sloane is a woman who is married and desired greatly by her husband, and part of their sex life is letting other men and women into their bed. Sloane grew up wealthy and beautiful, and married a chef. In the beginning, it was the same type of story you'd expect--societal pressure of a pretty, privileged white woman. Her part was also the smallest, which made me wonder why she was included in the first place. But at the end, other details pull together that link Sloane's early family life with her life with her husband now, and how their preferences impact others around them.
The descriptive writing in this book in probably its strongest point. Even in Lina's chapters, which were generally the least interesting to me, the details are enough to savor and really understand and see the point of view of each of these three women's stories.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Eating disorder, and Sexual content
Moderate: Death of parent, Sexual assault, and Suicide
Minor: Car accident
erinbarton's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content
Moderate: Sexual assault and Child abuse
Minor: Eating disorder, Death of parent, and Suicide
elise_allberry's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Sexism, Sexual content, Misogyny, and Eating disorder
Moderate: Mental illness, Abandonment, Infidelity, Gaslighting, and Grief
Minor: Alcohol, Car accident, Death of parent, Drug use, and Suicide
sammantha's review against another edition
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Death, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Alcoholism, Grief, Rape, Sexual content, Car accident, Eating disorder, and Infidelity
Minor: Animal death
sarahhj's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual assault, Suicide, and Rape
Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Car accident, Death of parent, Panic attacks/disorders, Cancer, and Mental illness
sauvageloup's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
Rating this book for how much I liked it, versus how well I thought it achieved its purpose, feel like totally different things.
Pros:
- Taddeo definitely has a pretty way with words. Sometimes it hit exactly right and was very astute and/or moving. She weaves the stories together really well and collected all the threads into one big carpet of 'desire in women' which I know from trying to bring fiction plots together AND bringing university essays into a neat but inpactful conclusion is really hard.
- it was definitely thought-provoking. When i couldn't sleep because of my cold, I thought about this book and the women in it, trying to puzzle them out at the same time as my reaction to it, and how it related to my life, my gender.
- I liked very much that Taddeo acknowledged that Black and poor (and other maginalised) women have it much harder. The book wants women to go after their desires without being limited by society, or men, or other women, or shame, or the law. But it does admit this is far easier for some than others, and the women it focuses on in the book are all (to my knowledge) white.
- Some of the parts on desire did ring true to me. Women shamed for wanting sex, or wanting part but not all of it, of the word 'slut' hanging in the air even when it's not said, of being terrified of sex but desperate to abate the loneliness at the same time. Somewhere in there, it did hit a chord at times.
Cons:
- Primarily, I found it hard to relate? or objectively view? this book because of my own feeling around woman-ness. I'm non-binary, I've deliberately rejected being called a 'woman' in whichever places I feel comfortable enough to come out. But in society at large and my own home with my parents, I'm still considered, against my will, to be a woman. I feel so strongly about not being a woman that I've gone out of my way and caused myself pain trying to figure this truth out inside me, and yet I was brought up as one, are viewed as one 90% of the time, and have the body parts of one. So that alone makes any book trying to "cut to the heart" of being a woman very difficult.
- That said, I didn't feel like i could relate to much of what the women were feeling or doing, either in what I'd observed in women around me or in the feminine parts of myself. How much of that is down to my own denial, me not being a woman, me not being observant or experienced or cynical enough, or even me being British not American, I don't know. I had a visceral rejection to many things in each of the women's story's that just said 'that doesn't feel True'. Not the events, of course, I don't doubt the trauma and the awfulness the women went through, but how they reacted to men and the cruelty between women didn't feel true to me. I haven't met women so consumed by men, or women being so cruel. Maybe I'm naive. (but then there's all the reviewers saying that the book 'gets to the heart of who we are' and i'm just like ????
- I also felt that the book was trying to be brand new and yet didn't feel that original at all. It said here, look at these women's pain and feel shocked and angry on their behalf. I've read other books that talk brutally about rape and abuse (Notes to self by Emilie Pine and Escape by Carolyn Jessop) in real life as well as the struggles of parents who didn't do right, who didn't protect their daughters. I suppose the fact that Maggie wasn't believed in her rape trial shows that these stories need to be out there, but I feel it's preaching to the choir sometimes. But I don't know how much is me trying to be like, I'm different, I wouldn't act like that, I would believe the women and support them and be happy for their successes and I know the world is complicated and wouldn't judge them for having an affair, or being too brash, and goddammit i'd say something if someone got an eating disorder. But there's always the doubt of, would I actually?
- Sometimes the flowery writing was just A Bit Much, and sometimes it was painfully blunt. Both of which I could more used to as the book went on, but it felt like unnecessary excess at times, in crudity and in flowery-ness. (But I think maybe Taddeo was aiming for that - to try to capture something bigger than the literal, and to be brutally honest. So here's where what i like and can manage to read splits away from reviewing whether or not Taddeo wrote a good book.)
- There was also the problem of the assumption that to be a woman you must experience sexual desire. That they all do. That it's normal. Impying that it's not normal if you don't. If you're asexual for example. I don't know, perhaps I'm expecting too much. I know this focuses on three allosexual women who like men, but when a book is claiming to be trying to include the whole of female desire, i felt it could have at least touched on women who don't want sex, or on women who have a penis. (also the implication that men are wrong if they don't want sex?? Lina's damp-fish of a husband, who's described as 'smirking' after the therapist validifies his desire not to want to kiss. Like, he *is* valid. He's just wrong for Lina, as she's wrong for him.)
- Finally, I feel uneasily like Taddeo might be the type to be a terf. I can't find anything that suggests so, but the literal one mention of queer people in her book (a gay man) is followed immediately by him acting badly. There's no discussion of gender beyond the binary, and Sloane's experiences as a queer woman seem primarily to be at her husband's bequest and not hers. Taddeo talks about women's desire, but never about women's desire for other women.
So yeah. Complicated.
Pros:
- Taddeo definitely has a pretty way with words. Sometimes it hit exactly right and was very astute and/or moving. She weaves the stories together really well and collected all the threads into one big carpet of 'desire in women' which I know from trying to bring fiction plots together AND bringing university essays into a neat but inpactful conclusion is really hard.
- it was definitely thought-provoking. When i couldn't sleep because of my cold, I thought about this book and the women in it, trying to puzzle them out at the same time as my reaction to it, and how it related to my life, my gender.
- I liked very much that Taddeo acknowledged that Black and poor (and other maginalised) women have it much harder. The book wants women to go after their desires without being limited by society, or men, or other women, or shame, or the law. But it does admit this is far easier for some than others, and the women it focuses on in the book are all (to my knowledge) white.
- Some of the parts on desire did ring true to me. Women shamed for wanting sex, or wanting part but not all of it, of the word 'slut' hanging in the air even when it's not said, of being terrified of sex but desperate to abate the loneliness at the same time. Somewhere in there, it did hit a chord at times.
Cons:
- Primarily, I found it hard to relate? or objectively view? this book because of my own feeling around woman-ness. I'm non-binary, I've deliberately rejected being called a 'woman' in whichever places I feel comfortable enough to come out. But in society at large and my own home with my parents, I'm still considered, against my will, to be a woman. I feel so strongly about not being a woman that I've gone out of my way and caused myself pain trying to figure this truth out inside me, and yet I was brought up as one, are viewed as one 90% of the time, and have the body parts of one. So that alone makes any book trying to "cut to the heart" of being a woman very difficult.
- That said, I didn't feel like i could relate to much of what the women were feeling or doing, either in what I'd observed in women around me or in the feminine parts of myself. How much of that is down to my own denial, me not being a woman, me not being observant or experienced or cynical enough, or even me being British not American, I don't know. I had a visceral rejection to many things in each of the women's story's that just said 'that doesn't feel True'. Not the events, of course, I don't doubt the trauma and the awfulness the women went through, but how they reacted to men and the cruelty between women didn't feel true to me. I haven't met women so consumed by men, or women being so cruel. Maybe I'm naive. (but then there's all the reviewers saying that the book 'gets to the heart of who we are' and i'm just like ????
- I also felt that the book was trying to be brand new and yet didn't feel that original at all. It said here, look at these women's pain and feel shocked and angry on their behalf. I've read other books that talk brutally about rape and abuse (Notes to self by Emilie Pine and Escape by Carolyn Jessop) in real life as well as the struggles of parents who didn't do right, who didn't protect their daughters. I suppose the fact that Maggie wasn't believed in her rape trial shows that these stories need to be out there, but I feel it's preaching to the choir sometimes. But I don't know how much is me trying to be like, I'm different, I wouldn't act like that, I would believe the women and support them and be happy for their successes and I know the world is complicated and wouldn't judge them for having an affair, or being too brash, and goddammit i'd say something if someone got an eating disorder. But there's always the doubt of, would I actually?
- Sometimes the flowery writing was just A Bit Much, and sometimes it was painfully blunt. Both of which I could more used to as the book went on, but it felt like unnecessary excess at times, in crudity and in flowery-ness. (But I think maybe Taddeo was aiming for that - to try to capture something bigger than the literal, and to be brutally honest. So here's where what i like and can manage to read splits away from reviewing whether or not Taddeo wrote a good book.)
- There was also the problem of the assumption that to be a woman you must experience sexual desire. That they all do. That it's normal. Impying that it's not normal if you don't. If you're asexual for example. I don't know, perhaps I'm expecting too much. I know this focuses on three allosexual women who like men, but when a book is claiming to be trying to include the whole of female desire, i felt it could have at least touched on women who don't want sex, or on women who have a penis. (also the implication that men are wrong if they don't want sex?? Lina's damp-fish of a husband, who's described as 'smirking' after the therapist validifies his desire not to want to kiss. Like, he *is* valid. He's just wrong for Lina, as she's wrong for him.)
- Finally, I feel uneasily like Taddeo might be the type to be a terf. I can't find anything that suggests so, but the literal one mention of queer people in her book (a gay man) is followed immediately by him acting badly. There's no discussion of gender beyond the binary, and Sloane's experiences as a queer woman seem primarily to be at her husband's bequest and not hers. Taddeo talks about women's desire, but never about women's desire for other women.
So yeah. Complicated.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Adult/minor relationship, Cursing, Gaslighting, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Toxic relationship, Suicide, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Rape, Death, Death of parent, Bullying, Car accident, and Sexual harassment
Moderate: Emotional abuse and Alcoholism
Minor: Biphobia, Incest, Mental illness, and Acephobia/Arophobia
maess's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Vomit, Car accident, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Grief, Eating disorder, Death of parent, Sexism, and Suicide
Minor: Incest
miriamahs's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Car accident, Rape, Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, Sexism, Sexual assault, Suicide, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Eating disorder, Fatphobia, Grief, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Terminal illness