If you were to summarize this book in one sentence, you might say this is a book about the sex lives of three women. But this book isn't nearly as surface-level as that. It's much more complex and, in many ways, it's not even about sex. The sex is secondary to the varied reasons why these women have such strong feelings towards their partners and how they are rarely fulfilled in their hearts and souls. Their extreme reliance on the partners in their lives becomes the prevailing focus. The affairs they participate in, the lack of resolution when it comes to their hearts, the sheer unhappiness that pervades is tangible. These women's stories are not salacious, they are actually sad and quite heartbreaking.
While there are certainly common aspects to each of the women's stories, the situations that propelled each of them into the present are unique. The outcomes that were formed from childhood circumstances, to the families they were born into, to situations that they engaged in, either willingly or by force, each shaped who these women are today.
Maggie was just seventeen when one of her high school teachers took advantage of and started a sexual relationship with her. Lina's story begins with her as an unhappily married woman whose only wish is for her husband to kiss her, which he refuses to do. Sloane is a wealthy restaurant owner whose husband gets off when she hooks up with other people, either with him present or not.
Each woman lives inside the questions their circumstances present them with. They have eating disorders and terrible self-esteem. They look to men to provide reassurance as they scratch at love. While the women fall hard and fast and seem to genuinely fall in love with the men they're pursuing, the men are using the women purely for their own selfish purposes and really have no intention of disrupting their own lives in order to give the women the stability and true love that they yearn for. Everything that happens within their relationships is on the men's terms. The women are always pining or trying to wish things into existence or wanting to get in touch with the men, but they are always limited by the men as to the specific rules they must follow. The women are always waiting, always ready to do anything for the men on a moment's notice, yet the men never reverse their strategies or reciprocate in the same way. To them, the women are convenient and subservient. Probably one of the most agonizing observations is that at most times, these women aren't blindsided by the men setting the ground rules - rather, they're fully aware that the men are pulling the strings and they are merely the puppets, yet their depth of yearning and wanting to feel loved is so strong they acquiesce to it all. While they all encounter doubts at some points along their journeys, the pull of a possible one-in-a-million fairy tale ending still feels frustratingly just out of their grasp, yet they can't bring themselves to stop reaching.
Each of these three women looks outside of herself for love and acceptance. They're all participating in affairs of some kind - either cheating on their own spouse or hooking up with others who are married. In each instance, the affairs cause the women interminable stress. They take up an abundance of mental energy and the constant gender imbalance further tears the women down.
Out of the three women, I felt the most engaged with Maggie's story. I think it's because she was so young and, because of that, things seems to happen to her rather than her being able to truly have an adult decision-making capability based on experience and knowledge. Her story wasn't so much about desire as it was about the power of a well-loved man over an innocent "troubled" girl and how that power play worked in everyone's favour but her own. Her chapters follow her from her high school days right through to the court case between her and her former teacher.
Style-wise, the women's chapters are written in an alternating format. I think I would have preferred to have each woman's story told as a whole in three complete parts, as I sometimes found it jarring or confusing to switch back and forth to different storylines and people. The revelations are so intense and gripping that it would have been easier to digest one person's story at a time, but that's just my personal preference.
I try not to read reviews before reading books myself, but in this instance, I read a few just to get a better idea of what the book might be about. I saw reviewers state that there isn't enough diversity, which really can't be disputed, but though their skin colour might be the same, I found the women's backgrounds, their ages and married status, as well as their stages in life quite diverse. I also saw quite a few statements along the lines of the author spent years with these women and it doesn't resolve enough or that there's no real analysis. Maybe I didn't dig deep enough, but for me, a lack of analysis wasn't such a missing component. These are the women's stories and I don't feel as though they require a conclusion. It's a book about how women in particular are perceived and judged harshly from the outside world - they are married, they have children, a home, a big car, nice hair - whatever the random markers are of supposed success - so they should be happy and stop complaining, stop whining. Be quiet. Be small. But outer appearances really don't tell any kind of accurate story. These three women found the courage speak up and to shine a bright white spotlight directly onto their hearts. They were some of a small number who were brave enough to share their histories, their desires, their traumas and shame without filters. They each let their innermost stories out into the world and I hope in doing so, they finally feel at least a little taste of freedom.
Judge the cover: 2/5
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