I'm afraid that I didn't get on with "The Three of Us" at all. Despite being 200 pages, it felt like incredibly drawn out and slow, culminating in a 'reveal' towards the end of the book...which then just stops. I felt that it would have been so much better as a short story, especially as many elements of the plot felt repetitive. Ore Agbaje-Williams is a good writer and there were elements of the story that I found humorous (like the repeated assertion that Nigerians don't take gap years). There is a great book waiting to be written by her. Sadly, I just didn't think that this was it.

What a joy to read The Three of Us. Brilliantly told, from the beginning the reader knows the relationship is crowded - there are too many people in this tie - a husband, his wife and her best friend. Most fascinating is the intrigue about the three way tie will end. When the end comes and a breaking point is reached, the revelation is was not was expected. This makes Ore Agbaje-Williams book even more fascinating.

Everyones integrity is called into question. If you are looking for a fun novel to read, look more further, the international and cultural comic twists even make it more exciting and interesting!

The Three of Us is one of this books that I can't fault on a technical level, but I was never really that invested in. Told through three perspectives – from the wife, the husband and the wife's best friend – it details a messy relationship over the course of a day. The wife has deliberately and willingly quashed down a lot of her own opinions in order to fit into her husband's very traditional ideal – and the best friend and the husband frequently clash over the version of the wife they want and believe in. I thought this was a promising premise and it touched on some interesting questions – but I was expecting – and craving – more of a twist and more exploration of their individual expectations. The perspectives are told in three big chunks and I felt it would have been a lot juicier to alternate the perspectives, to really see how the characters react to each other. This ended up being a bit of a nothing book for me and I'm not really sure what the author was hoping to achieve with it, but thanks to Vintage for letting me read it through NetGalley anyway!

So we have a couple - never named - and the wife's best friend, Temi. They've been friends since a changing room accident - or was it - at school, and the husband is a new introduction. Is Temi a wild and independent woman who wants her friend to get back to the way she was in the brief period between being subservient to her parents and being subservient to her husband, or is she jealous and anxious and trying to force her attention back on her. Is the wife happy to not work and just drift around her (very fancy) house, exercising and ... drinking wine with her best friend because that's the calm existence she and her husband wanted. Is her husband storing up things he knows, thank you very much, about his own wife, to get one up on Temi, or is he weird to be remodelling the whole top floor just because of ... that?

Set amongst an upper-middle-class London set of Nigerian heritage and self-made money, everyone's parents have expectations, of good jobs, of children, and some people are trying to make their consumption less conspicuous while failing miserably. Everyone seems to have working-class White service providers - cleaners and maids - which is a nice twist. Set over an afternoon as tensions rise and everyone gets sick and tired of each other, for all the Peletons and wall-to-ceiling windows, this is compulsive reading.

It almost felt like it was going to turn into one of those suburban thrillers I keep reading other people's reviews of; but nothing gory or horrendous happens as we watch a trapped man flailing to get rid of a parasite. Or a woman trying to reclaim her friend's independence. Or a woman trapped between two people she loves who hate each other. At least these millennials - or at least two of them - have grown up a bit and have a semblance of an adult life, and it's really well-written and extremely hard to put down.

Blog post up 27 April https://librofulltime.wordpress.com/2023/04/27/book-review-ore-agbaje-williams-the-three-of-us/

A brilliant and clever story, witty and well told. There's a mix of genre and there're three different POVs that tells a story that kept me hooked.
The author is an excellent storyteller and this contemporary comedy of matters, featuring three Nigerian millennials, is a delightful story.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Sometimes (very rarely) a book falls under my radar. I don’t hear much about it before release date. But I heard about this one through the grapevine and I was extremely excited to read.


Right so this book follows a wife, her husband, and her best friend Temi throughout one whole day. We don’t know much more going in other than the fact Temi and the husband hate each other. And it becomes painfully clear how much. In just the first chapter, we see petty insults and some very shady behaviour.


This is a book you want to read in one sitting. I couldn’t wait to see what happened next and who did what to whom.

It was messy and chaotic.

What a book!

🍷 REVIEW 🍷

The Three of Us - Ore Agbaje-Williams

Publishing Date: 11th May 2023

⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5

What do you do if your best friend and husband absolutely loathe each other? This is the problem the unnamed protagonist is facing in her third year of marriage. Her husband is a solid, dependable man, who works hard and is wanting a traditional life. Her best friend is the opposite, having rejected her family’s cultural norms of female subservience and lived her life only thinking about herself. Neither best friend nor husband can understand why the other has stuck around for so long, each of them seeing a different side to the wife. This story unfolds over a single day, and is told from each of the three perspectives to give a well-rounded view of the situation at hand.

Even though this is a very short (<200 pages) book, I was surprised by how little actually happened. I was waiting for some twist to occur, before realising that it really was just a story about how much two people who spend a lot of time around each other hate each other. I did enjoy the way the story was written, giving us each character’s perspective, however unreliable some thoughts may be. I also found it very realistic, the slightly more timid wife in between her outspoken anti-traditional best friend, and her husband who has stuck to his traditional values. However, I just felt that there was something missing, I would’ve like the argument at the end to have gone a bit further rather than be left unresolved, though I understand why the story was left there.

Overall a decent quick read, with intense characters but minimal actual plot.

Im sorry - i couldnt get to grips with this at all , its definitely not a book aimed at me (which is fine) - nothing really happened to get my attention, and I didnt get past 50%.

I really loved this book. It was such a brilliant premise and a fun read, told with such a brilliant voice and incredibly witty. The author manages to deep dive into the complex nature of friendships and relationships and what happens when the two overlap in unexpected ways. I haven't read anything like this in a while but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Agbaje-Williams is definitely one to watch and I can't wait to read whatever she publishes next.

This book had so much potential but just didn’t deliver. This novel is character driven and yet I didn’t feel that I knew any of them at the end. We follow three Nigerians living in London, a husband, his wife and the wife’s best friend over the course of a day. Only the friend Temi is named and this may be deliberate as she is the only character that I felt I knew a little. The husband is a big earner and is generous to his wife, he is patriarchal and likes his wife not working. His wife is educated and happy to drift along not doing very much at all either intellectually or in the home. Temi is a feminist and is anti marriage, doesn’t want children and wants her friend to herself. She spends a lot of time visiting and whispering in wife’s ear. The husband dislikes Temi and does not want her around.
Throughout the book the husband and Temi vie for the affections of the wife who just sits on the fence. She is totally vapid and I wanted to shake her and tell her to get a backbone and show/feel something.
The book becomes interesting towards the end where it built nicely ready for the conclusion. The ending like the rest of the book just happened.. The three stars are due to the author’s writing which is beautiful and Temi who did make me feel something.
My thanks to NetGalley for an ARC in return for an honest review.

Not for me, unfortunately, I disliked the writing and the characters. I liked the premise but the execution didn’t live up to the promotion.

In general, I found this book to be quite interesting due to its extensive exploration of characters. The narrative is told from three perspectives, the wife the best friend Temi and the husband.

The animosity between the husband and his best friend was particularly amusing especially considering that all of the ‘action’ of the story takes place over the course of one day. All three characters had qualities that I both appreciated and disliked - this complexity added depth to the novel but ultimately I disliked all of them.

Despite the ending being rather sudden and leaving me with more questions I quite enjoyed this short read from Ore Agbaje-Williams.

DNF. Hoo-boy. The writing is...not good. At least for me - I'm sure this book is going to be the love of the literary girlies and you know what, good for them, we all deserve good books. But I immediately found myself getting frustrated with the - this happened, then this happened, then this happened - writing style and NO SPEECH MARKS. I get it, it's a literary tool and it makes your book look so cool and edgy, but what if I like speech marks?? What if my eyes need them??

I was drawn in by the premise of this book, but I think the execution is way, way off. I should trust Goodreads reviews.

I devoured this brilliant book in one sitting. Written over a day from three perspectives, it details a very toxic relationship, in which each person thinks they are right and is shown with all their flaws, topped off with a surprise ending.
Difficult to believe this is a debut novel - definitely an author to watch.
Thank you to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book

I loved this clever, well written story told from three perspectives and set over an afternoon. It presents three flawed characters and their relationships at various stages of dysfunction. It's short and sharp and could be read in one sitting (with a glass of rosé)

Taking place in the course of one day, two friends and the husband of one of them give their narratives as the alcohol fuelled afternoon slips into evening. This is witty and sassy and sharp tongued and subtle, well written and very enjoyable.

5 stars
Can I tell you what happens in this book? - Not really.
Can I tell you that I freakin’ loved it? - Absolutely.

Somehow, despite nothing but a rather short dinner conversation occurring, there is a fully engaging story packed into this book. By the end of it I was left questioning what it means to be a true friend, how easy it is to indulge toxic behaviour and whether or not ‘the right thing to do’ is always the right thing to do?

It’s an extremely clever, well written and fast paced book with a lot of potential discussions to be had about the individual characters as well as the group dynamic. It would make an excellent book club read as I’m sure people will have differing opinions on whose behaviour is in the wrong. Each page gave me something new to consider and I devoured every word of it.

I’m really excited for more from this Author.

— 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 —

𝐓𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: The Three of Us
𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬: N/A
𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫(𝐬): Ore Agbaje-Williams
𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞: Contemporary Literary Fiction
𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐝: 11th May 2023
𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 3/5

”He sees what I see, but from the other side. A woman in between two selves, undecided as to which she can remain loyal. Where I see uncomfortable levels of domesticity and submission, he sees impolite outspokenness and levels of negative emotion rarely observed. What he thinks is a new person emerging in short and sometimes alcohol-fuelled bursts, I know is the occasional reappearance of my misguided friend. We are trying to solve the same problem, but our judgements on the solution differ significantly.”

A story of two different peoples perception of one woman has the atmosphere so thick, it could be cut with a knife.

In this book, we essentially meet a toxic throuple who each have an opportunity to tell the reader their side of the story. There’s Husband, Wife, and Temi, wife’s best friend. It was an interesting choice to not give Husband & Wife names yet give Temi one (but only in Wife’s perspective). It enforces the fact that Husband & Wife have their identities wrapped rooted in their roles whilst Temi is the wild card.

I actually don’t have much to say about this, because nothing much really happens at all. I can understand why the ending cuts off so suddenly, leaving it up to the readers own interpretation of what would happen next, and debating who was in the right/telling the truth, but I would have really liked to have seen the ending played out properly.

Thankfully it’s a short novel, so I did fly through it.

𝑲𝒂𝒚𝒍𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉 @ 𝑾𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒉 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑭𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒚
🧚‍♀️🤍

The Three of Us
by Ore Agbage-Williams

This is a story about an unnamed African British woman, her unnamed husband and her best friend Temi. The two women have been best friends forever however Temi and the husband do not get along, they hate the sight of each other. This puts strain on the married couple, and also on the friendship. This premise intrigued me.

The structure is really interesting; in three parts, one from each of the POVs. The first section, from the POV of the wife did not engage me. I found the writing insufferable, the characters bland and rude, shallow and childish. I wanted to quickly DNF but when I noticed how short the book is, 190 pages, I decided to push through.

The second section is told through the husband. This is where it begins to become interesting and I realised that the writing style of the previous section was actually the previous POVs voice, and here we have a different tone. A tone I did not warm to. In fact I hated this brash, vain, entitled pig of a man. I had an AHA moment and that was it. I needed to hear what Temi, our third POV had to say.

I already knew who she was, didn't I? I felt sure that she was going to save the day by accounting for or justifying her behaviour as described by her best friend and the man who hated her guts. Sadly, this is where the plot fell apart for me. Her voice should have been a strong and reasonable presence, but it was bossy, immature, reckless.

I admire the way this debut author put this together. I think she almost got there. I love the ending. It is a book that you will read and put down and think about at length.

Publication date: 11th May 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #randomhouseuk for the eGalley

Sometimes you read a book and you can feel the potential and yet it just never manifests. I was so excited when I got offered this book to review by Jonathan Cape as these are the types of books I love. I like gritty investigations into the human psyche and I like not liking all of the characters. But there’s a difference in like not liking characters and being so indifferent to them that you really don’t care what happens at the end.

The book is about a couple, who annoyingly we never know the names of, and Temi, the wife’s best friend who has intricately inserted herself into their lives. The man and the friend hate each other. Fine, that happens. But the wife is just… so passive that she never takes a side and makes everything worse. I’m all for investigating archetypal characters, the selfish friend, the breadwinning husband but do I actually believe that people are so black and white? No. And it’s unrealistic to portray them that way.

From the start I found this book a struggle, I couldn’t get into it. I was disappointed by the stereotypical betrayals. And in a book where not a lot happens it just didn’t really get any better for me.