Three Women is a book I will go back to re-read every year now. It was unlike anything I had ever read before. A gripping, enraging, heartbreaking, stunning story of three women that Lisa Taddeo spent eight years of her life listening to and following their stories. In some cases, relocating to their towns to better understand the experience they were living. I can’t find the words myself to summarise and do it justice at the same time but I’ll include a handful of my favourite quotes from the book that I dog eared. I’m about to finish her second novel ‘Animal’ and it has my stomach and heart in knots just the same way ‘Three Women’ did. This is a seminal book all women today should read, to better understand ourselves, our girlfriends, our mothers, our greatest loves and our greatest disappointments. 

“We pretend to want things we don't want so nobody can see us not getting what we need.” 

“The problem, she’s starting to understand, is that a man will never let you fall completely into hell. He will scoop you up right before you drop the final inch so that you cannot blame him for sending you there. He keeps you in a dinerlike purgatory instead, waiting and hoping and taking orders.” 

“Look at me. I put this war paint on, but underneath I’m scarred and scared and horny and tired and love you.”