IMPERFECT WOMEN :: Araminta Hall

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

One premise of Araminta Hall's horrible yet lovely Imperfect Women is that women absorb tragedy so others don't have to. Best friends Nancy, Eleanor and Mary each absorbed plenty as life took them down unexpected paths. Twenty-eight years after their friendship began at Oxford, Eleanor's phone wakes her at 4 a.m. It's Nancy's husband, Robert, concerned she never came home the night before.

Rather than worried, Eleanor is irritated. She alone knows that Nancy is embroiled in a year-long affair she's been trying to end. To keep Robert from involving the police, Eleanor comes clean, sure that Nancy is just off with her lover. Then Nancy is found dead on the path by a river bridge, a large wound on the back of her head.

Hall's unwinding of the mystery behind Nancy's death is so masterful the whodunit becomes a backdrop to the women and their plights. As in her prior novel, Our Kind of Cruelty, Hall's skill is highlighted in the inner workings of her characters. The author takes a different angle on the multi-perspective, multi-timeline theme; her approach serves to focus marvelously on each woman's internal struggles and her view of the others. Eleanor takes readers through Nancy's death and its aftermath, and Nancy jumps back to describe what led to her affair and death. Mary's section provides answers about Nancy's killer, and how Eleanor and Mary might move forward with the understanding that goddesses are false and they are entitled to live life to the messy full as imperfect women.

STREET SENSE: I know we don't have time for every book and often make decisions based on past reads, but this book served me up a huge helping of "Don't always write an author off after one shot." When I was assigned this book I groaned a little because I was not a huge fan of Hall's debut, which garnered a ton of pub and praise. I thought her character work was great and the premise fantastic, but I just never got it. This sophomore effort really knocked me back and I have to give Hall credit for taking the character work to the next level while also banging out a really meaningful story. The differential made me like this book all the more. I'll definitely be in for Hall's next offering.

COVER NERD SAYS:  I like it. I'm a sucker for birds and while the palette is stark and starts to lean into Florida-esque territory, it stops just short of that read. I love how the branches just barely make it to the page. To be honest, I can't even remember now if the coloring or crows connect with the material itself (I read it some time ago), but I like this cover regardless. (That's my brain failure, not a book/cover failure, by the way.)