OMG what were these women thinking?

This might certainly be your first thought, once you’ve started reading about the three women in Three Women.  It took eight years of research and writing for author Lisa Taddeo to compile this non-fiction book about the sex lives of three ladies: Lina, Maggie and Sloane.  Lina breaks up her passionless marriage by having an affair with her ex of eons ago; high school student, Maggie, threatens to break the marriage of her English teacher; and Sloane is very happily married to her husband, who is turned on by watching his wife have sex with other men, some within a threesome and some of whom are married.  Everyone has children, except for Maggie, a child herself.

Written in the most delicious literary prose I’ve come across in a long time, Taddeo pulls us into the three stories, leaving us insatiable at the end of each chapter as she switches from one protagonist to the other, much like the protagonists themselves, whose insatiable desires never seem to be completely satisfied.

The actions of Lina, Maggie and Sloane might make you bonkers, truly.  It seems as if their choices are informed and that they should know better.  However, as Taddeo reveals their pasts and explores deep and disturbing realities, which surround each of their circumstances, your sentiments might be replaced by rage towards an inherently misogynistic past that has plagued our planet for millenniums.

I did not want to stop reading this book and only did so because there were no more pages.  Simply put, Three Women will leave your head spinning and you’ll immediately want to lend it to a friend, provided she/he will get through it within a couple days, giving you someone with whom you may discuss it.

How apt it is that while reading Lady Glenconner’s book about the dramas she and Princes Margaret endured throughout their lives, the British Press have been creating quite their own histrionics over Meghan’s and Harry’s choice to pull back from their royal life and duties.  Their exit is hardly surprising and Lady in Waiting gives some insight into the fabricated tales published by newspapers, which can destruct the very core of any human being.

Anne Coke (pronounced Cook) was born into aristocracy, grew up with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, married Colin Tennant (he became the 3rd Baron Glenconner), with whom she had five children, and went on to become a trusted Lady in Waiting for almost thirty years to Princess Margaret.

Anne takes us into the depths of retrospection of the fascinating life she led, making us belly-laugh in one chapter, then wrenching at our hearts with despair in the next.  Her marriage to an outrageously flamboyant and moody man, Colin, alone would send the best of us into a tailspin, as she spares no details of his excessive behaviour.  His immense wealth afforded them a life full of dichotomy between the extravagance of their aristocracy in the UK and the lack of basic utilities, like plumbing and electricity, in Mustique, the Caribbean island which Colin bought in the 50s and eventually catapulted to fame.  What their wealth did not protect their family from were tragedies.  Lady Glenconner writes about these with clarity, her British stiff-upper-lip barely wavering, and you almost have to re-read the pages to make sure your eyes didn’t just deceive you.

Throughout the years, Princess Margaret remained a very close friend to the couple and this book is as much about her life as it is about theirs.  A petite woman in stance alone, Princess Margaret was apparently assertive and confident, fiercely loyal to her sister and the Crown, and thrived in her independent freedom during the countless times she spent in Mustique at the villa gifted to her by Colin Tennant.  One wonders if she had been a young person in this century instead of the last, would she have shed tradition and protocol for a more permanent pathway of freedom, like her great-nephew Harry is choosing to do now.

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I’m usually not a fan of self-help books, or navel-picking reads, as my mother calls them.  The reason for this is because one can fall into the trappings of self-hatred and inadequacy, taking the proclamations and advice of authors as gospel.  I’m not implying that the authors’ intentions are such, as I do believe there are many who simply want to help us.  However, all 7.2 billion people in the world couldn’t possibly fall together under the same umbrellas of wisdom in any of these books.  Many may read one book and relate to it, others may not.

According to Gary Chapman, PhD, and the late Dr. Ross Campbell, each child has their own love language, which he or she responds to the best: 1. Physical Touch; 2. Words of Affirmation; 3. Quality Time; 4. Gifts; 5. Acts of Service.  While all children, and all people for that matter, may respond positively to all five of these things, one will stand out from the rest and make them feel the most loved.

Champman is the bestselling author of The 5 Love Languages® series and helps many families form lasting relationships amongst themselves through counseling, seminars, radio programmes and his books.  Dr. Campbell worked as a clinical psychiatrist for more than 30 years, specializing in the parent-child relationship.  He also wrote How to Really Love Your Teenager and How to Really Love Your Adult Child.

Whilst reading The 5 Love Languages® of Children, I couldn’t help but feel and see how I have gone wrong.  I fell into the very trap of self-degradation, which is the reason why I don’t read these books!!  That said, I have been raising my kids with so much love, giving them the attention and the time I believe they need.  What I’ve come to realize is that there are gaps my husband and I must fill, and these might be negating even the positive part of our parenting.

This book is not a long read and is quite simple in its formula, so it is one I’d recommend to parents, particularly if you have noticed your child acting up in any way, however small.  It was recommended to me by my son’s grade two teacher, who is one of the most thoughtful, kind and responsive teachers I’ve come across.  This woman seems to live by responding to each of her students according to their individual love languages, so kudos to Champman and Campbell for writing the book and sharing it with the world.  It’s not only made me pay attention to the love language of each of my boys, but it’s even given me food for thought when it comes to my husband, myself and our relationship as a couple.

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Secrets We Kept depicts the very essence of living conditions in rural parts of Trinidad, allowing you to almost detect the stench of extreme poverty, from which Krystal A. Sital’s grandmother sought to escape. “House, lan, and motohcah,” my grandmother says, “dah is all meh evah wanted.”  This sentiment is repeated several times in Sital’s tale of her grandparents’ and parents’ courtships and domestic unions, demonstrating the hold the men had over women and their daughters.  The emotional and physical brutalities these women were forced to endure from their husbands was considered the lesser of the evils on offer.  The women in general didn’t stand up for one another, however, because there was a constant threat that they would suffer a beating of their own if they did.

When this book begins with Sital’s grandmother, Rebecca, hesitating to give the American doctors the go-ahead for treating Shiva’s (Sital’s grandfather) life-threatening condition, the reader might well conclude that this old Trinidadian woman is heartless, as her children believed her to be.  However, Krystal is certain there is more to the story.  Isn’t there always?

Amidst descriptive renditions of aromatic Trinidadian home-cooking, heavily influenced by their Indian ancestors, Sital’s mother, Arya, along with Rebecca, release and reveal the years of torture they both faced at the hands of Shiva.  We discover that history does in most ways repeat itself, as Arya sought the same, “house, lan, and motohcah,” like her mother, in an unrequited quest to escape the subservience of women within their culture.  Some of the prose is hard to read, not because parts are written in raw Trinidadian vernacular, but because the physical battering these women took is difficult to stomach.  That said, every adult human being should read this book, or at least one like it, for it relates the reality of millions, perhaps even billions, of women and girls around the world.

Whilst poring over the pages of this well-written book, one cannot help but feel the need to be a better parent and person, wondering if the last time you scolded your own child might have been a little harsh, for the damage could be irreparable.

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