MixedThe New York Journal of Books\"Perhaps it is left up to readers whether they will be interested in the secondary storyline in the novel: the ins and outs of graduate students in a writing program, the stories they write for class, and how they all vie to impress a curt well-known literary agent who pays them a visit. This is Leah’s other world, the one she should be grounded in and focused on. At times, Halperin’s I Could Live Here Forever loses tension and immediacy in Leah’s day-to-day life at the university. While Leah’s self-destructive relationship with Charlie is the dark heart of the narrative, it is Leah’s gradual self-discovery of her own worth that breathes like a fresh new life. This, in the end, is a relationship well worth reading about.\
Araminta Hall
RaveNew York Journal of BooksIn Imperfect Women Araminta Hall uncovers the realistic and dangerous flaws of her three female protagonists by showing the reader why they chose the man who shares their bed. At times surprising and other times disturbing, Imperfect Women is a suspenseful mystery with depth, a frightful look at domesticity gone awry, intricately written with layers of female frailty and ferocity that are impossible to turn away from.
Fiona Barton
MixedThe New York Journal of BooksThe narrative is told through a flurry of brief chapters, told in various perspectives from one of the mothers of the missing girls, to the British inspector on the case, Kate the reporter, and Alex leading up to her death. And while this style should help to accelerate the pacing, it oftentimes slows down due to Barton’s incessant need to detail each character’s every move ... Readers may grow frustrated with how long it takes the author to finally reveal why the girls are killed. The tell-tale clues and descriptions of certain characters along the way make things a little too easy to figure out. The Suspect may falter at times as a thriller yet it steadily succeeds as a story about mothers, how fierce their love can be when their children’s lives are in jeopardy and how it surpasses right or wrong, even in death.
