The Three
by Meghan O'Brien
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Book Summary Information
Author: Meghan O'BrienEdition: Paperback
Published: 2006-01-15
ISBN: 1932300511
Number of pages: 292
Publisher: Quest
Book Reviews of The Three
Book Review: Fun read
Summary: 4 Stars
Meghan O'Brien's The Three was all in all a fun read.
I read it because I absolutely enjoyed Infinite Loop, but have the same issues with both books. They hindered the reading of Loop less than they did that of The Three.
To summarize, The Three is a story of 3 women involved in a romantic relationship in a post-apocalyptic US, in which only very few people survived a disease. It doesn't quite draw a picture of the entire country, we only get to know what these three women experienced before meeting each other, but those reflect what one would expect from a situation like this.
I'm not always into sci-fi, fantasy, but I do the genres if something in the portrayed world clicks with me. I have a little trekkie inside of me, and enjoyed spending a lot of time in Zimmer Bradley's Darkover world as a teenager.
One of the things that bugged me was that once Anna meets Elin it's love at first sight, and the relationship between Anna and Kael, Elin's partner progresses only slightly slower. I'm not sure if such a post-apocalyptic world would make you trust those sudden feelings faster or maybe not, at any rate, I found it somewhat unbelievable. The threesome itself is very believable and you can see what it is that attracts the women to each other.
I also would have enjoyed more plot and less sex. If you take the sex out (which is well written and hot), there's really not much left, and I think a setting like this would allow for a lot more to tell. The plot itself is also rather weak and predictable.
One of the women, Kael, presents as a man, and Anna, too, in the beginning thinks she is one. Kael likes her masculine identity, and the other women both at times use male pronouns, not just in public but in private as well. This aspect as well could have been better developed and used/explored for more than the sex scenes. Oh, that's unfair of me. To me, Kael is the most interesting characters of them all, and her masculinity and role in their relationship is explored in dialog and fights they have while they try to find their place in the threesome, I just wish there was more of it that doesn't relate to sex scenes. Although those were good.
Another thing that bugged me was the portrayal of masculinity/femininity in the book. While the three women are each at different points of the scale, their masculinity/femininity is portrayed along the lines of behavior etc. that matches the gender binary I so want to get rid of today. I wish the gender bending would have included breaking stereotypes of gender that still dominate a lot of people's thoughts today, e.g., feminine as weak and needs to be protected, cooks etc., while Kael hunts, scouts places for safety etc. Now, I realize that it also has to to with physical ability and personal strengths and weaknesses, but that doesn't explain the strict adherence to stereotypical views of gender.
I did enjoy reading it, but I wish there would have been a bit more meat to the story and that some aspects were developed more fully.
Summary of The Three
Twenty-five-year-old Anna is ready to give up on living in a post-apocalyptic world where unchecked sickness and slaughter have killed off her childhood tribe, family, and best friend. But when Anna unexpectedly interrupts an attack on a beautiful woman lounging by a lake, she is drawn into the relationship of two other survivors of the sickness: young, idealistic Elin, who welcomes Anna into their makeshift family with open arms, and Elin's lover, the older, more jaded Kael, whose dark and brooding nature initially keeps Anna at bay. The threesome journeys south for the winter season but is beset by accidents, relationship strain, and an attack upon Elin by a group of religious fanatics who believe that a woman's duty in the post-apocalyptic world is to bear children and repopulate the earth. Kael and Anna's fragile connection will be tested repeatedly. Will they find a way to work together to save the woman they both love? Intense, exciting, and sexually provocative, The Three is one book you do not want to miss.Contemporary Books
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