bairdthereader 's review for:

Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

2.0

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The publisher emphasizes that this is a feat of journalistic writing, an investigative accomplishment, and yet I felt the whole time like I was reading a series of very long People Magazine articles. Taddeo tells the stories of these three women with a respectable clear-eyed understanding, but couples it with a doomsday tone that undermines any independent analysis she could have applied. The book is crammed full of strange, intentionally opaque lines that are clearly meant to provide some kind of meaningful insight into the plight of women wrestling with their desire, but instead end up reading like a grab bag of sentences the author has always wanted to write and shoehorned into this book. I wanted to like this book; I wanted it to teach me something, or at least illuminate something about the condition of women and their wants and needs. But there is nothing new here. Taddeo draws no conclusions, makes no arguments, offers no solutions. While readable and mildly interesting, this book feels like a huge missed opportunity.