Three Women

This audio-friendly summary follows three women whose lives are shaped by desire—and by the social scripts that tell women what they should want, what they should tolerate, and what they should keep quiet about. The story is not presented as titillation; it’s offered as an intimate, emotional portrait of how real people are formed by what happens to them and by what they’re forced to survive.

Across these chapters, listeners are invited to hold complexity: women who may not always appear “likable,” choices that may be hard to approve of, and yet a deeply recognizable human wish underneath it all—the need to be loved, to feel chosen, and to be seen as worthy of care. The narrative also highlights the damage caused when power is abused, when communities protect reputations, and when women’s desire is treated as something suspect rather than human.

• Listeners who want a compassionate, clear-eyed look at how desire and trauma can intertwine in real life
• Anyone interested in the emotional realities behind public stories of consent, coercion, marriage, and gendered double standards
• People who appreciate nuanced storytelling that avoids easy heroes and villains, and instead explores what shapes behavior over time

Lisa Taddeo is an American author and journalist known for narrative nonfiction that centers women’s interior lives—especially the emotional, social, and psychological realities that often go unspoken. In Three Women, she recounts true stories with the pacing and intimacy of a novel while staying grounded in lived experience.