Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry

by Audrey Niffenegger

When Elspeth Noblin dies she leaves her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother is never allowed to cross the threshold. But until the solicitor's letter falls through the door of their suburban American home, either Julia nor Valentina knew their aunt existed. The twins hope that in London their own, separate, lives can finally begin but they have no idea that they've been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them and works in the cemetery itself.

As the twins unravel the secrets of their aunt, who doesn't seem quite ready to leave her flat, even after death, Niffenegger weaves together a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity.

Reviewed by empressbrooke on

4 of 5 stars

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I definitely don't know how to review this one. For context, I adored Time Traveler's Wife to pieces, and I normally keep my distance from anything that even hints of romance. The entire time I was reading Her Fearful Symmetry, I had a hard time remembering that the same author wrote both books. HFS has a nice gothic atmosphere, which reaches from the tone to the ghostly elements to the setting (London's Highgate Cemetery). I felt like it had more in common with [a:Tana French|138825|Tana French|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1243599201p2/138825.jpg]'s (awesome) mysteries than it did with TTW. The style and the writing were all excellent.

Not so excellent: the characters. One of the things I loved about TTW is how the main characters felt like real, fleshed out people. The ones in HFS aren't quite as impressive. They're interesting (we have two sets of twins, a man with severe OCD, and people who work in the cemetery), but they never managed to become more than characters in a book.

The plot is where I really struggle with how enthusiastic I am about the whole thing. I don't want to give it away, because there are some really good twists and turns, but the whole final portion of the book is the result of a character making a completely ridiculous decision. A decision that's akin to burning down your house to get rid of all the dust rather than just picking up a dust rag. I like what resulted from the decision - the ending is completely satisfactory in a morbid, tragic way - but I keep getting stuck on the absurdity. It's ALMOST enough to make me knock off a whole star, except that I enjoyed my time with the book too much to do so.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 8 October, 2009: Finished reading
  • 8 October, 2009: Reviewed