Bonus Book Review: “Three Women” by Lisa Taddeo

I spent this past weekend at the Abbey of Gethsemani on a four day silent retreat. No…I’m not Catholic, nor am I super religious! But if you ever want a long weekend of peace and quiet to hike, meditate, read or write, it’s a great place to go. Unfortunately, I think I may be going to hell in a hand-basket after my weekend. I took a whole stack of books to read and do research. I even took a book about the Beatles, but instead, I ended up reading Three Women by Lisa Taddeo.

Three Women is the true story of women who the author followed for almost a decade and chronicling the stories of their very different, but very real sex lives. One woman after being gang raped in high school ends up married to a man who won’t even kiss her (it offends him), let alone hug, cuddle or have sex with her. The second woman’s story made headlines several years back when she reported her high school teacher for having an inappropriate relationship with her after he was named Teacher Of The Year in North Dakota. The third woman is a very beautiful and wealthy restaurant owner with her husband, who just happens to like to watch her have sex with other men. (And I was reading this at an Abbey!)

The author opens the book by explaining that she had intended to include both men and women in her research, but realized early on that men to feel as deeply as women do about their sexual activity. They don’t carry their prior sexual relationships with them for the rest of their lives as strongly as women do to the point of shaping them into who they are in middle age.

This book is really well written,but her vocabulary did make me wish I had a dictionary handy several times. I was afraid that it would read like a smut novel, but these women’s sordid tales are nothing to get excited about (pun intended!). And I truly believe that somewhere in these stories lies something that every women will be able to relate to in their own lives. And for that reason…

I rate this book, 4 out of 4 Beetles!