Imperfect Women
By Araminta Hall
Blurb
Nancy, Eleanor and Mary met at college and have been friends ever since, through marriages, children and love affairs.
Eleanor is calm and driven, with a deep sense of responsibility, a brilliant career and a love of being single and free - despite her soft spot for her best friend's husband.
Mary is deeply intelligent with a love of learning, derailed by three children and a mean, demanding husband - she is now unrecognisable to herself and her friends.
Nancy is seemingly perfect: bright, beautiful and rich with an adoring husband and daughter - but beneath the surface her discontent is going to affect them all in terrible ways.
When Nancy is murdered, Eleanor and Mary must align themselves to uncover her killer. And as each of their stories unfold, they realise that there are many different truths to find, and many different ways to bring justice for those we love...
Everyone wants a perfect life. But there is no such thing...
Our Review
Imperfect Women is about three women who have been friends since university: Eleanor, Nancy and Mary. They have been through a lot together but in the last year they have grown apart slightly.
The three women live very different lives but Nancy’s life is seemingly perfect. At least it is on the surface.
When Nancy turns up dead her friends find themselves examining not just her life but their own in the search for her killer.
Imperfect Women is not just a book about a murder. It is about the dynamics that exist in friendships and also about the ways in which life is unfairly balanced to favour men. This final aspect is a suggestion I struggled with as I don’t think the situation is as bad for women as this book portrays, that is not to say though that I think it isn’t this bad for some women. I don’t agree that women’s lot in life is so bleak.
Imperfect Women is written in split narrative form divided between the three friends and this is one of the things that works well in the novel.
Let’s take a moment to talk about the characters. If you struggle to get into books where the characters are not likeable people, then this isn’t the book for you. The women were selfish, self-centred or simply weak. The men were intolerable and definitely not endearing. Having said this I still wanted to know what happened.
On balance I enjoyed reading the book but can’t claim to have loved it as it felt like a bit of a struggle at times.
Our Final Rating...
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