The Three of Us by Ore Agbaje-Williams
Published: May 16, 2023
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Genre: Literary Fiction
Pages: 192
KKECReads Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I received a copy of this book for free, and I leave my review voluntarily.
Ore Agbaje-Williams a British-Nigerian writer and editor from North London who has written for gal—dem, Glamour UK and Wasafiri magazine. Her fiction writing has also been featured on Reflex Fiction.
What if your two favorite people hated each other with a passion?
The wife has it all. A big house in a nice neighborhood, a ride-or-die snarky best friend, Temi, with whom to laugh about facile men, and a devoted husband who loves her above all else—even his distaste for Temi.
On a seemingly normal day, Temi comes over to spend a lazy afternoon with the wife: drinking wine, eating snacks, and laughing caustically about the husband’s shortcomings. But when the husband comes home and a series of confessions are made, the wife’s two confidantes are suddenly forced to jockey for their positions, throwing everyone’s integrity into question—and their long-drawn-out territorial dance, carefully constructed over years, into utter chaos.
Told in three taut, mesmerizing parts—the wife, the husband, the best friend—over the course of one day, The Three of Us is a subversively comical, wildly astute, and painfully compulsive triptych of domestic life that explores cultural truths, what it means to defy them, and the fine line between compromise and betrayal when it comes to ourselves and the people we’re meant to love.
“In friendship I find knowledge.”
When her best friend gets married, she is shocked. When they decide to start trying for a baby, she is annoyed. She refuses to give up her friend. Her husband will never keep her.
Holy toxic friend. I felt terrible for the wife, being caught between her longtime best friend and her husband.
The husband was more tolerant than he should have been, especially with how snarky the friend could be. Her snide remarks, crude jokes, and spending hours at their house despite knowing they had plans.
Growing up is a ride, and we often evolve past the things we claim to want in our youth. In this situation, one person has grown up and gotten married. She even decided to try for a baby, even if she isn’t positive that is what she wants.
But the other has stayed in the same place she’s always been, and she refuses to accept her friend has changed. So she will stop at nothing to cause a rift, to keep her partner in crime.
This was well written, though I didn’t like the lack of quotation marks around the dialogue. I liked how the story was told in three parts and from three perspectives.