It's been a while since I read a thriller! The last crime book I read was The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and it was really good! So I was hoping this one would surprise me!

Unfortunately, it didn't: I guessed who the lover was, who the killer was - even if I didn't have all the details I was just surprised by the ending!
Still, this book is a 5-star read. So why?

While reading Imperfect Women, I couldn't stop thinking some scenes, sentences, characters' impressions were true. These women could be our neighbours or our friends. They exist in every one of us, in a way. What they do isn't perfect, isn't good even, is even wrong sometimes - they won't be likable for some readers -, but I still felt close to them, I still grew attached to them. In a way, I didn't like this book because of the mystery/crime, I liked it because of the way it portrayed women, their struggles, and the way they can't understand each other and be understood by their relatives, be they male or female. They all got their personal hell and have to fight alone because of their guilt and their fear to lose their closest friends. It felt viceral sometimes and I ached for them. Nothing is simple, people aren't what they seem, we can never know what someone is living through in their head.

I didn't know it beforehand but I guessed it in the beginning: the book is divided in three parts, each focusing on one of the three friends' point of view.
My favorite part is Nancy's, for reasons I can't explain without spoilers.

Even if I guessed who did it, this book was still gripping and made me doubt sometimes! The ending really surprised me though! It was hard to read and heartbreaking, but there were still hope in the end.


So, Imperfect Women is a great read, captivating and genuine.

Imperfect Women was a very slow paced whodunit thriller. The book was heavily focused on character descriptions and development. By the end of the book it leaves you to believe any one of the characters could have committed the crime but there is a twist. I will say, I loved the author’s previous book, Our Kind of Cruelty much more but I did enjoy the author’s writing style and feministic prose in Imperfect Women.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an ARC of Imperfect Women by Araminta Hall. In exchange I offer my unbiased review.


Having read and enjoyed Ms. Hall’s previous thriller, Our Kind of Cruelty, I was excited to obtain an early copy of her newest work, Imperfect Women. Unfortunately, this book was a huge disappointment.
I’ll focus on the positives:
1.Catchy title, that sums up the characters perfectly
2. Striking, visually pleasing cover design
Now for the negatives, and I’m truly sorry but I need to keep this real:
1. Inconsistent, messy, illogical writing
2. Despicable characters, weak character development, slow moving plot
3. Mystery lacked excitement, suspense, belief
4. A chore to read, I’m sure there was a good story here but it never came together

In all honesty, I would not recommend this book to anyone.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review.

I was totally obsessed with this author’s previous work, Our Kind of Cruelty. It was one of the best books I read in 2019. So I was positive I was going to love this one too. Alas, it wasn’t to be.

The good news is that Araminta Hall remains a beautiful writer. She has a way with language and description, making her books much more literary than so many others in the genre.

Unfortunately though, as “thrillers” go, I did not find this one at all thrilling. It moved really slowly and was more of a soap opera/Neighbours type drama than a murder mystery. I also did not like any of the characters. In contrast to “Our Kind of Cruelty, in which you hated the characters but were fascinated by them, I found little to interest me in any of these imperfect women and men. Hall’s great writing was not enough to get me through the slow plot and less-than-compelling characters.

I gotta say, I take it really personally that I didn’t love this book, because her previous one made such an impression on me. I will surely read more by Hall. This one just didn’t capture my attention. Though murder happens in it, I also think it might have been better classified as women’s fiction than mystery/thriller in order to set expectations for a slower pace and more melodrama.

Thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Araminta Hall for the advance copy. Here’s hoping Hall’s next book packs the thrills and intrigue once again.

Nancy Hennessy is brutally murdered, leaving behind two best friends, a husband, a daughter, and a lover. As the police begin investigating her death, the two friends realize how little they really knew their best friend.

I loved "Our Kind Of Cruelty" so I was really excited to read the new book out by this author. I am sad to say I was sorely disappointed. There was not a single likable character in the book. The only redeeming feature of the book was the mystery of which one killed Eleanor, and it was a matter of "get in line" because she was so despicable everyone had a motive. I can not in good conscience recommend this one.

Three young women meet in college and become best friends. Twenty eight years later they are still bff’s. When one of the three is murdered questions are asked and the answers are far from pretty. This story is told in their three voices. The title is perfect as they are very much imperfect and highly unlikable! They still had no redemptive qualities by the end of the story making this book a complete downer!

Imperfect Women could also be called Trash People. Ugh. Everyone was terrible and candidates for the worst husband or wife of the year.

Blech. A modern thriller but frankly, not that well written and just...not okay. I'm fine with unlikeable characters but....EVERY SINGLE ONE of these people was the worst.

Thanks to netGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read.

Let me start by saying that Araminta Hall’s first book Our Kind of Cruelty blew me away. So you can imagine I jumped for joy when I saw she was coming out with another book. Imperfect Women is the story of three women who met at the very beginning of their university days. They forged a bond that they assumed was unbreakable. But as the story progresses, the flaws of each of these women come out in full force and drive them apart and yet together at the same time. When one of the women winds up dead in the middle of the night, the rest of the characters try to find meaning and answers behind the horrendous crime. I’m a sucker for a book with strong, female characters but unfortunately this was not it. I love a good flawed heroine but this book just makes all women look weak and docile. In my opinion the men in this book behaved more atrociously than the women and it sickens me that they were “allowed” their horrible behavior because “men and women are just different”. The book is told from all three women’s perspectives but the timeline jumps back and forth too many times to keep straight. Imperfect Women is definitely my type of book but I wish it hit the mark for me more than it did.





***Review posted on Instagram on 7/24/20

"Women, Eleanor thought, carry guilt and responsibility like a second skin..."

I loved "Our Kind of Cruelty" by Hall, so I was anxious to read her newest, "Imperfect Women". Women is very different from Cruelty; it focuses on three long-time friends who bonded in university (just finished "The Best of Friends" along a similar vein). Eleanor, Mary and Nancy have chosen different paths. Told in alternating chapters from each woman's perspective, the book opens with the death of Nancy, at the hands of her lover, whose identity remains unknown. These women have their secrets, and each of them thinks, incorrectly, they know the other, inside and out. They also have their jealousies, due to their often misguided perceptions of each other's lives. Eleanor thinks Nancy has the perfect life, Nancy feels inadequate and wishes she were strong like Eleanor. Neither wants to be Mary, who has given up on her academic aspirations, had 3 children, and whose husband is a flaming narcissist. They make bad choices, act selfishly and betray each other in ways big and small, but, remain friends. Are they likable? Hmmm...they are honest. And once awakened, Mary and Eleanor vow to be better to themselves and each other. "...how the wonderful thing above love was that it could always expand to include more people..." A bit of a feminist manifesto, and not always easy to read, "Women" may stay with you for a bit, and gasp, make you think.

P.S. Many thanks to NetGalley, for the advance copy.

Imperfect Women is about three friends: Eleanor, Nancy and Mary. In the first couple of pages the reader learns that Nancy has just died unexpectedly and also that Eleanor knew she was having an affair before she died. There are three sections of the book, each told from one perspective - first Eleanor's, then Nancy's, and Mary's last. It is clear from the very beginning that Eleanor is not telling the reader the entire truth, and by the time we get to Nancy's section, the reader is desperate to pull together all the loose threads that Eleanor has left hanging. There are major reveals in Nancy's section of the book, and by the time Mary is the focus, the story of these three women gets borderline depressing and definitely frustrating.

All that to say that Imperfect Women really held my attention and absolutely kept me wanting more. Eleanor upset me from the beginning because it was so clear that she was keeping things from the reader - and from Nancy's husband and Mary - so I was relieved to get to hear from Nancy. But Nancy ... well she was just not a kind person. She was genuinely someone that I couldn't possibly relate to and reading her section was like reading the worst kind of gossip magazine. The kind where you can't stand the thought of anything you're reading but you read it anyway. And Mary's section was just really heartbreaking. By the time I got to Mary's section I was just exhausted, and although she was the most likable of the three women, she was still hard to care about. I couldn't understand her choices and while I sympathized with her, I couldn't drum up enough empathy to truly care about what happened to her.

So Imperfect Women was really a mixed bag for me. While I couldn't put the book down, ultimately I really disliked all three of the major characters so I had very little connection with them. In a book this character-driven, it's very difficult for me to LOVE a book if I can't connect to the characters, so in the end ... it wasn't my favorite novel.

I absolutely loved Our Kind of Cruelty and was excited to see a new book from Araminta Hall. I really liked the sound of Imperfect Women but it fell short for me. I am not really sure what it was, a combination of the story dragging out and the attitudes of the 3 main characters. Perhaps my expectations were too high. It was a good story but not quite as good as I was hoping.

Imperfect Women, these 3 are definitely that. It is thestory of 3 women, friends since university. When one of them is murdered their secrets start to come out. Eleanor, Mary and Nancy all led very different lives. They all envied each other and wanted what the others had. But when they really find out about each other they may find that they don’t really.

Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for my advanced copy of this book book is to read.

This book reads more like Literary Fiction than a mystery and I liked that about it. I had the ending figured out within the first third of the book yet it didn't diminish my enjoyment of the book one iota. I’m not sure I feel changed after reading Imperfect Women, but I do feel I learned something. I was reminded about how life is a series of relationships, and how a few of them help shape who we are and how we live our lives. And that thinking about that and acknowledging those who positively influence us is important.

I really enjoyed Araminta Hall first book,, Our Kind of Cruelty and I think fans of that one will enjoy this as well. I was absorbed in the lives of of Nancy, Eleanor and Mary. The events were not always the important part, it was how the characters felt and interacted with others as they grew and learned about themselves ...and some-way, some-how I was enthralled in this book. It was so relatable and real and raw.

I foubd this very gripping. Loved it from chapter one it was a real page Turner. Kept me on the edge of my eat after each chapter

IMPERFECT WOMEN by Araminta Hall is an engaging thriller following the lives of three best friends; Eleanor, Nancy and Mary. This novel starts of with a bang (a murder of course!) and the mystery of who did it was so intriguing! I loved how the novel was told in three distinct parts and even though the chapters are quite long there was a steady progression that kept me hooked to keep reading. The pacing was totally suited to the tone of this book. I loved all the surprising twists! I’d definitely recommend this to any thriller lover like myself!

Sometimes when I'm reading a book, I feel like I'm reading a summary of what the book is about as opposed to reading something that has life breathed into it, that pulls me in and feels "real". This book read to me a bit like a plot treatment. I'm a little baffled. The writing in her first book felt literary; the writing in this one was disappointing in contrast. The protagonist is the only character who felt like she had any dimension to her, the other characters were flat and behaved in expected ways and all the male characters were irredeemably loathsome, made it hard to imagine what any of these women saw in them. I'd go so far as to say that the men being so universally terrible made the women less likeable and less relatable and I was less compelled to care. The more I write here, the more I realize how little I liked this book. I hate giving books low ratings, but this one did not resonate for me at all. I didn't get to the end, I stopped reading when I figured out the "twist" and abandoned. I'm sorry about it because after her first book, I had high hopes. Will still read a third and I hope she writes one, but this one fell flat for me.

I liked this book, but I found the men in it to be so disappointing and not at all worthy of the women. Moreover, I could not, for the life of me, understand what they all saw in the Professor. I did see that twist coming. And eventually, I realized who the murderer was, as well.

This book was really well-written and quite interesting and I liked all the women and the children. I just didn't like the men.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Not one of my favorite mysteries I’ve read this year. Not a likable character in the bunch, except for maybe Irena. Everyone else was pretty horrible. The book started off strong, but then it was like the writing became too descriptive, lengthy, and boring. Things didn’t happen so much as the author described everything at length. It wasn’t for me. That being said, the plot was decent and I could see some people liking the writing style. 2.5 stars.

This is a book about three women who have been friends since university. They all have quite different lifestyles, and they secretly judge and envy each other for the differences in their lives.

What I like about Imperfect Women is the deep character development and the focus on female friendships. I found myself cringing at the choices these women make because, sadly, they are believable.

The book is divided into three parts. The first is told from the point of view of Eleanor after she finds out Nancy has been murdered. What follows is not the fast-paced thriller I was expecting, but more an introspective account of each woman’s regrets and insecurities.

The pacing of this book was very slow. There is a lot of reflecting and introspection, and not much action. It’s not a long book, but the story dragged because of this, especially in the third part.

Thank you to the publisher @fsgbooks and NetGalley for an advance reader’s copy of this book.

I liked this book quite a bit. It was a good story with solid characters and I found that I cared to find out what was going on with them,

I really liked that the story was so interesting to me as a reader that I had trouble putting it down.

I will be reading more from Araminta Hall for sure.

Fantastic! Another terrific thriller by the author of Our Kind of Cruelty. [book:Imperfect Women|51057056] is an astute, intimate look at female friendship and the bad choices (and some good) that are made by the women in the novel. Nancy, Mary and Eleanor have been best friends since college. Now in their late forties, the book reveals what led up to and what happens after one of them, Nancy, dies in a brutal fashion. This is a bit more than a thriller though...[author:Araminta Hall|4412380] really nails how an abusive marriage can make a person shrink into one's life, one's existence. In some circles, bad choices are referred to as AFGOs..."another f#@ing growth opportunity." Yes, the 3 main characters in the novel, these "imperfect women" have their share of AFGO moments! I loved this novel and am grateful to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the opportunity to read this ARC. Thank you to Araminta Hall...I look forward to reading your next one.