Lisa Taddeo

The International No. 1 Bestseller'Cuts to the heart of who we are. I'm not sure that a book can do much more' Sunday TimesAll Lina wanted was to be desired. How did she end up in a marriage with two children and a husband who wouldn't touch her?All Maggie wanted was to be understood. How did she end up in a relationship with her teacher and then in court, a hated pariah in her small town?All Sloane wanted was to be admired. How did she end up a sexual object of men, including her husband, who liked to watch her have sex with other men and women?Three Women, which was nearly a decade in the making, is a staggering work of non-fiction for our times.'I will probably re-read it every year of my life' Caitlin Moran'Will have millions nodding in recognition' The Times'As gripping as the most gripping thriller' Marian Keyes'When I picked it up, I felt I'd been waiting half my life to read it' Observer'The kind of bold, timely, once-in-a-generation book that every house should have a copy of, and probably will before too long' New StatesmanThe No. 1 Sunday Times BestsellerThe No. 1 New York Times BestsellerFoyles Non-Fiction Book of the YearA Stylist Book of the DecadeThe Most-Picked Book of the Year of 2019

Three Women

Nina

Kristina Bonitz

Sloane, on the other hand, long-haired, yogic, fearsome, had ever more layers. Eventually any man in the world would go to her and stay there.

Laura Gill

Sometimes when Lina is in the big empty house she imagines a chasm inside her, a black space between one set of organs and the next. She frels she exists in that space, mindless, flavorless, unseen.

And her whole thinner body becomes a long ticking pendulum inside a clock. So that

On a yellow notepad, the man takes down her words. The past yawns at her, stretching itself, like a cat.

Her hormone doctor has told her what he believes her problem is. He has said, Lina, you come from a place where women are taught that their only real value is what they can do for someone else. 

But life knows when to throw in a plot twist. It is an idle but seasoned screenwriter, drinking beers alone and cultivating its archery.

She may have felt, the way we always seem to remember feeling in the moments before devastation, a sort of divine providence. Look at my long, tan legs. My soft blond hair. My body, which has finally been filled to all of its edges with blood and shape.

She thought for a moment. Her answer was not wrong but the world, she knew, was too oblivious to the trajectory of womanly pain to fully understand it without demeaning her. Even women would have trouble. Or women would be the ones to have the most trouble.

Three Women quotes

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