the description of this book (the falling out of relationships between a husband, wife, and wife's best friend who doesn't like her husband over the span of one day) was interesting, however, the actual story fell short for me. i really didn't care for any of the characters and found it hard to become invested in the story, which seemed to drag on.

A bit disappointed by this book as I kept waiting for the central narrative tension to unfold. I like the three part point of view but wish the characters were more fully developed.

I struggled with this book. The lack of quotations, paragraph spacing, and chapters to break it all up made the story very hard to read and understand. Sometimes I would have to go back to a sentence 2 or 3 times because I wasn't sure who was speaking when. It also felt like it just ended, we spent a day in 3 peoples heads and nothing really happened besides the friend and husband going back and forth, with the wife in between, neutral. I think I would have enjoyed this more if the ending felt more tied up and if the dialogue was easier to understand. I'm sure there are people who would enjoy this book, it just wasn't for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book is told in three sections, divided by the point of view of the narrator: wife, husband, best friend. Agbaje-Williams chose to only name one of them--Temi, the best friend. The others are simply husband and wife/friend. That actually fits because neither of them seem like truly fleshed-out, real people and exist little more than in relationship to each other. Even in the sections that they themselves narrate, there is a coldness and a removed distance. I don't feel like I got to know them at all.

I don't think a character needs to be likable for me to enjoy a book, but not only did I find myself not rooting for or identifying with a single one of them, I didn't care what happened to them. At all. I didn't care if the wife left her husband or if they stayed together or if they had children.

To add to all this, there is very little punctuation. Long stretches of back-and-forth dialogue contain no quotation marks, line breaks, or indentations. A lengthy conversation would just be one giant block of daunting text to slog through, making sure you paid close attention to who was talking because they certainly weren't named. I wouldn't have minded the lack of punctuation if Agbaje-Williams pressed the Enter key once in a while.

I want to thank @netgalley and
@putnambooks for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review. I’ve been reading a lot of horror and thrillers lately, so this book was a nice change of pace. I really liked the format of each section being the voice of each person in the relationship. The book is about the relationship between a wife, a husband, and the wife’s best friend. The friend and husband do not get a long. The wife and husband are talking about starting a family. I enjoyed how three people can see the same thing and have three different perspectives.
#netgalley #arc #bookstagram

Arc. I loved the blurb and it's an amazing concept. Though I feel like I would have loved this even more if it didn't feel so slowed paced. I think the characters are written alright but again the way the story is paced to me kinda gives up, still enjoyed it.

Hmmm, this is a different kind of book. Basically we have a friend who can't let go of her now married friend and a wife who can't prioritize her husband over her friend. It's a recipe for disaster. It's not compelling or thought provoking it's just a story you watch play out wondering who the wife will ultimately chose. The story maintains the same cadence throughout with no high points, climaxes, or building drama. It's just a mess of unspoken truths that you wonder if someone will be bold enough to express.

Don't waste your time on this book. The description is appealing but the book doesn’t live up to the hype. The story is boring and the author long winded with sentences taking up more than a page. Lack of punctuation makes the book almost impossible to read. You need to re-read passages several times to follow conversations since no quotation marks are used. The three characters spend their day making each other miserable. I can’t imagine why anyone would spend time with these people or want to read about them.

A really unique storytelling method, The Three of Us was unlike any other book I've read in recent memory. Told from the three different perspectives of the three characters, you slowly build the world through each of their individual lenses. I really enjoyed the varying details throughout each of their points of view, and found the characters to be extremely compelling, even if they were not altogether very likable. A very enjoyable read.

It was a quick read but I struggled with the format and telling where the dialogue started then stopped. I can see this being a story that many would enjoy, but it just wasn't for me.

Wow! This was such a unique and great book! I couldn’t put it down and finished it in one sitting! The characters were great. I found them to be very relatable. This book was well written and I look forward to reading more from Ore Agbaje-Williams! Make sure to add this to your tbr list!

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Putnam for this arc!

The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams was such a diverting story.

This is an engaging read, with characters I instantly got wrapped up in and didn't want to depart. I found myself excited to see what happens next with the characters throughout the story. I felt this was a deeply relatable novel.
They felt so real, and the dialogue so cutting, that it's difficult not to be wrapped up in them.
Ore's writing is well executed which had me turning the pages to my Kindle very quickly.

“I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.”

PENGUIN GROUP Putnam,
Thank you for your generosity and gifting a copy of this approved eARC!

Grateful to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

The pages in this book sped by, and reading it was a delight. The dialogue, clever sentence construction, and pithy prose say a lot without the language ever feeling bogged down, and you understand a great deal about the relationships in small details, from the way the wife asks her best friend for cigarettes which she knows she won’t smoke if her husband is home to smell them on her to undermining one another’s takeout orders. The perspective changes in each of the book’s sections, shifting from the wife to her husband to her best friend (whom the husband despises as much as his wife loves). It’s not out yet and I’m already hungry for a sequel.

P.S. Thank you for my new mantra: “Kim, people are dying.”

This was such a unique read for me! I haven't read anything with this type of genre before but I really enjoyed it. In all honesty, I requested the book after the blurb and the wine on the cover. It was such a great story and I really enjoyed diving into this.