Nancy, Eleanor and Mary have been best friends since college. All three of them hoped for a perfect life but each of their lives are far from perfect.

Nancy married her college sweetheart and is now missing that excitement of her youth. Whereas, Eleanor put her career above all else and hasn't looked back, despite her soft spot for Nancy's husband. While, Mary fell pregnant far too young and is now coping with three children and a mentally unwell husband.

But when Nancy is killed, Eleanor and Mary must align themselves to uncover her killer. And as each of their stories unfold, they realise that there are so many truths that have to be uncovered along the way.

First of all, the title was perfect! These three women are totally imperfect. The book is written in three parts, from the perspective of each of the friends and is filled with infidelity and grief.

I really thought I would enjoy it but I did not. The mystery surrounding Nancy’s death was pushed back as a secondary story with more focus given to the lives of each of the women. Sadly, I never connected with any of them and their husbands were just so intolerable.

So, overall the idea behind the plot was good. But this book was just not for me!

Thank You to NetGalley and Orion Publishing for this ARC!!

This was a gripping read and portrayal of female friendship but I felt it was quite cliquey in that it was a portrayal of white, middle-class, middle aged female friendships and many of the cultural references were very tightly linked to that.

It's not a criticism but I read this right after I had read Reni Eddo-Lodges book and i started to see how much our narratives and understandings of the world are shaped by what we read.

Being a white middle class woman I could 100% relate to the tropes and cultural markers and references in this novel but it made me want more from an author of Hall's calibre - I felt she didn't do herself justice here, particularly as the novel was set in London. It was a reminder though that in some parts of London, there is an almost unconscious segregation and so there is limited diversity in those communities and therefore for the people in Hall's novel, that's there reality. But with such a diversity of cultural inputs in London - art, music, literature, style, food - it seemed that Hall's characters were isolating themselves from that and the novel lacked a fire that it might have had otherwise.

The plot itself was familiar ground - infidelity, grief, obsession, love, death and how that impacts us all. But I didn't feel Hall pushed herself the way she did with her first novel. I'd definitely still read more by her but I liked her transgressive writing in her debut and I hoped for more edginess here and it didn't quite hit that.

‘Imperfect Women’ is a character study of three women – Eleanor, Nancy, and Mary – who met at university thirty years ago and have been best friends ever since. None of their lives have gone in the direction they envisaged, and none of them are particularly happy. The novel is split into thirds – Eleanor’s point of view, then Nancy’s, then Mary’s – and we get to know each woman from their own perspective and the perspective of those closest to them. Naturally, these differ significantly. They’re all flawed, brilliantly human characters, and whilst I disagree with many of their actions I love how real they always feel.

The novel starts with Eleanor receiving a phone call from Nancy’s husband, Robert. Eleanor has always been close to Nancy’s family – she has no partner or children of her own, choosing to focus on her career – but receiving a phone call at 4am is still unusual. Robert is concerned as Nancy has not returned home after having dinner with Eleanor. Eleanor drives to Robert’s house and confesses that Nancy has been having an affair and went to meet her lover after the dinner. Robert is shocked – and shock turns to horror when the police suddenly arrive. Nancy’s body has been found by the river in Hammersmith, and suddenly the bubble of normality which Eleanor’s been living in for the past thirty years shatters. Nancy’s death sets in motion a chain of events which expose every crack in Eleanor, Nancy, and Mary’s lives – and by extension, the lives of those closest to them.

This is a character study, so I don’t want to give too much away about these characters. I adore them, even though on paper they might not always seem pleasant. At first, they seem like three stereotypes – Eleanor, the woman who sacrificed everything else for her career; Nancy, the woman who married into money and never had enough to be satisfied; Mary, the woman who gave everything up to raise her children and doesn’t know who she is without them any more – but as the story unfolds they become so much more. Eleanor is probably my favourite, possibly because – as a twenty-something student – I find her easiest to relate to, but Nancy and Mary are also captivating in a different way. Their lives are car crashes, but you can’t look away.

The supporting cast – Nancy’s husband Robert and daughter Zara, Eleanor’s elderly neighbour Irena, and Mary’s husband Howard and children Marcus, Maisie, and Millie – have varying degrees of importance depending on the perspective at the time. Robert and Howard especially get a great deal of screen time, and it’s fascinating to see how each character views them differently. I dislike both of them – Howard especially – but given the lens through which they are viewed this is almost inevitable. In contrast, I had a huge amount of sympathy for Marcus – his life is a disaster, but at heart he’s a vulnerable child who truly cares about those around him, which is more than can be said for most of the cast.

I find it much harder to find contemporaries that I’ll love than I do science fiction and fantasy novels – and on paper, a novel about three women in their fifties undergoing mid-life crises shouldn’t appeal to me, but for whatever reason I loved it. The writing is excellent, and the characters are so believable you wouldn’t question meeting them on the street. Every terrible decision they make seems perfectly justifiable in their eyes, and you can believe that events would actually unfold this way in real life.

Overall, this was an excellent book. I’d recommend it to anyone who loves a character-driven story.

i so enjoyed this book . Nancy and Eleanor meet up for a meal . Robert rings Eleanor to ask if his wife is with her she never came home ,Nancy is found dead murdered .there other friend Mary is devastated but how this story comes together is just so good .Eleanor and Mary do there own investigation in to there friends murder is so recommend

Imperfect Women was extremely engaging, a character driven friendhip drama with an intriguingly unpredictable mystery element. 

Three women, an intertwined story of friendship and betrayal - Araminta Hall writes realistically flawed female characters with deep insight and an ability to create a bond between them and the reader that is really excellent. 

Nancy, Mary and Ellie have been friends since college, the bond between them firmly held even as life pulls them apart. Then Nancy dies...But what lead up to this tragic event and how will it affect those she left behind.

That's the main premise and whilst the mystery of what exactly happened to Nancy gives it an added edginess that digs deep the appeal here is strongly within the personal discoveries of Ellie and Mary as they reassess everything they knew not just about each other but about themselves. 

It is utterly riveting, a page turner of a read that offers up much to contemplate as you hear from all three of these friends and discover all the good and the bad that makes them who they are. 

Excellent. Very much recommended.

This book is about 3 university friends. It starts with the death of one of the women, Nancy and is written in three parts, from the perspective of each of the friends. Although I enjoyed this book and there were plenty of twists to the story,I found the division of the book into parts and not chapters irritating. The first part set the story and seemed a bit long, necessarily so because you got to know all of the women at the beginning of the story . The story of the "murder" is of secondary importance to the story of the friendships between the 3 friends and the history between them and after the initial investigation the reader is not informed about any leads / investigation that would resolve the case . Not a bad story, but if you are hoping for a tale of crime investigation , this may not be the book for you .
During part 1 , I got a little irritated with the self-absorption of Eleanor, but as the story moved on, I found myself emphasizing with the characters more. Still not sure about the final resolution though .
Thank you to Net Galley for an ARC in exchange for a honest review .

This book keeps the reader intrigued to the last as it takes us through the relationships of three friends who met at university. Controlling husbands, awkward teenagers, illicit affairs and the three women, all intelligent but all unfulfilled to some degree make for an interesting mix. I was initially disappointed that Nancy's lover was revealed quite early in the book, but then realised that there was much more to come as the story was taken up by first Eleanor and then Mary.

** spoiler alert ** Full of unlikable characters,and for me,a murderer that was spotted in the very early pages of the book.
Yet,I read the whole book and enjoyed it. 
The fleshing out of the characters after the initial murder was good,I think this came into it's own when voiced by Nancy.
Three very imperfect women,but then non of us are perfect.
With an ending that was fairly inevitable,I was still pleased to see things worked out how I thought they would with no extra twists.

Imperfect Women is about three old friends - Eleanor, Mary and Nancy - and the impact on the other two when one (Nancy) dies violently at the very beginning of the story.

I don’t think it grabbed me quite as much as Araminta Hall’s first novel, Our Kind of Cruelty, but it was a good read nevertheless with a few things to say about women - and men. Although there is a mystery involved - who is responsible for Nancy’s death - this isn’t a mystery story; the focus is less on finding out who killed Nancy and far more on the three women and their relationships with each other and with the (also decidedly imperfect) husbands of two of them, Robert and Howard.

Which is not to say that who killed Nancy is unimportant. The suspicions and theories of those left behind play a crucial role. I had theories too but didn’t guess the truth until shortly before it was revealed.

I liked the characters of the three women - particularly Eleanor - although Mary’s story was perhaps the most compelling and was painful reading at times.

#ImperfectWomen #NetGalley
Araminta is very very clever. Highly recommended.
Eleanor and Mary, are shocked when their BFF, Nancy, is found dead Eleanor decides to probe her friend's death on her own, when the police investigation stalls, but finds herself confronting painful truths of her own.
Who killed Nancy? And are these two women safe? Read this fantastic novel to know about it.
I loved the character of Eleanor. Other characters were just ok.
Narration of the story feels slow in the middle but it becomes pacy at the end.
Thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for giving me an advance copy.

Thank you to netgalley for this advance review copy. (For reference I read this during Covid 19 lockdown)

This is not realistic fiction however it is compelling and I was turning the page to find out what happens next. The story is split into three sections each corresponding to a friend in the triad of friendship between three women. A woman dies how and why but also how the people surrounding her life respond to her death. I thought this was an interesting read. If a bit predictable.

Loved this one, well written, lots of twists and turns. Great characters, some likeable, some less so!! Shows how both friendships and marriage can hide lots of secrets, nothing is as it seems! Thank you for letting me review this book

To describe ‘Imperfect Women’ as a murder mystery or a psychological thriller is to miss the heart of this novel. It is a thought-provoking and absorbing study of female friendship, forged at university and still strong decades later.
Nancy, Eleanor and Mary lead very different lives. Araminta Hall suggests that they should not have much in common, so different are their careers (or lack of), their domestic lives and their concerns. However, their emotional connection is complicated and intense, developed over many years, and they appear utterly devoted to each other. When one of them is murdered, the other two feel adrift. The death forces them both to look closely at their own behaviour, and that of the dead woman they mourn.
Hall is particularly successful at building the women’s interior lives, helped by structuring her story so that the opening third is narrated by Nancy, followed by Eleanor and, finally, Mary. All of these characters are ‘imperfect’ and all the better for being so. Whilst the reader may not recognise anyone in their life who is similar, it’s likely that we all have friends whom we love dearly, warts and all! Her use of dialogue is realistic; witty, occasionally cruel, sometimes wise and honest. The business of everyday life is mixed seamlessly into the mystery of the murder and it’s easy to picture the various different settings – from the graveyard to the bonfire party, the overheated flat to the elegant dining room.
At the end of the novel Mary muses that ‘…for maybe the first time ever, that they knew each other so completely they didn’t have to pretend they’d got it right. They didn’t have to lament the people they never became or wonder at what might have been. They understood the words each other said, and knew each other’s stories. Their strengths lay in their weaknesses…’ Wise words. Through her central characters, Hall makes the case for acknowledging the fallibilities and shortcomings of our friends and loving them nevertheless.
My thanks to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orion Publishing Group for the Arc of this book for an honest review!!❤️

Also thank you to Araminta Hall for writing this amazing book!❤️

Follows 3 women who met each other while at college with each other, but now are which is now middle aged women,... They when one of the women disappear and then ends up being found dead..to be believed to people as very suspicious circumstances.. in which is a brutal death.. then things start to spiral and go out of control and secrets start to unravel and intercepting lives and 2 of their husbands too.

Then there was a big relevation which hits you like a bomb!!💥

I enjoyed this book a lot, I love Araminta's writing style and I can't wait for her next book, it had me enthralled and gripped to the very end and couldn't put it down read within 1 night! ❤️

Definitely recommend!!
5 star rating⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Big little lies meets Expectation” they said. They were not wrong! That perfectly sums this book up. The trio of strong, likeable but flawed women, one of whom is found dead, are Nancy, Mary and Ellie. True story is told from each of their point of views, as we gradually uncover the mystery killer and the secrets in all of their lives.
A page turner from the very get go and the pace doesn’t drop off throughout. Female friendship and murder. What more do you need!