Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... Her Fearful Symmetryby Audrey Niffenegger
  
Best Gothic Fiction (18) Best Fantasy Novels (478) » 31 more Female Author (240) Books With a Twist (37) Favorite Romance Fiction (165) Ghosts (35) Books Read in 2013 (580) Female Protagonist (658) Books with Twins (45) Reading 2010 (1) Unread books (463) Simon & Schuster (6) to get (61) SHOULD Read Books! (224) 100 Hemskaste (79) No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) nogomu | Oct 19, 2023 |  This is a tough book to review without giving too much away, so this will be a short review! Quicker read than I thought this was going to be, this is not a repeat of the Time Traveller's wife. It's a straight linear narrative of Elspeth dying, leaving her flat to her twin nieces (one literally the mirror image of the other) and what happens over the next year when they come from the US to stay. Highgate Cemetery makes a great "guest billing". The OCD neighbour upstairs seems to accept new people in his apartment a little to easily (especially since his wife of 20 years has just left him because of his compulsions) but on the whole it's an enjoyable book if I found it a less heart wrenching book the TTTW. nordie | Oct 14, 2023 | Overall, an extraordinary second novel. ( ) settingshadow | Aug 19, 2023 |  ) kevinkevbo | Jul 14, 2023 | ) cathy.lemann | Mar 21, 2023 |
 Niffenegger’s story is written with a lightness of touch and with a great eye for the oddities of human behaviour.  Niffenegger has always identified loss as her main subject, but here at least it’s dissolution: the grim inevitability of decay. The theme of doubleness feeds into this. Valentina wants to break free of the controlling Julia and live her own life, but can she survive without her? Forced togetherness, the “fearful symmetry” of the title, can lead to a diminution of individual identity, a merging of personalities. Sometimes apartness is preferable. Instead of fabricating ghosts and faux-Englishmen, it's a shame that Niffeneggers didn't just cut away all the cobwebby Halloween trappings and write a moving, realistic story about a man with OCD who is trapped for real, rather than ersatz, reasons in a flat overlooking a cemetery. She sustains a mood, but it is vaguely repellent, rather than enjoyably disquieting. Instead of a lingering, unforgettable ghost story, this is the novelistic equivalent of a cut-rate séance, a parlour game complete with Ouija boards and cheap theatrics, as unconvincing as knuckles rapping under tables  Niffenegger is an extraordinarily sensitive and accomplished writer, and Her Fearful Symmetry is a work of lovely delicacy... But Her Fearful Symmetry is not a book of great emotional force, not the way Time Traveler's Wife was. Mysteries and truths slowly unravel as the story progresses. The major plot resolves predictably, but its grim inevitability fits well with the genre, and a few more surprising twists produce an even more satisfying read than Niffenegger’s bestselling debut. AwardsDistinctionsAmazon's Best Books of the Year (#77 – 2009) Whitcoulls Top 100 Books (41 – 2010) Notable Lists
When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves everything to the 20-year-old American twin daughters of her own long-estranged twin, Edie. Valentina and Julia, as enmeshed as Elspeth and Edie once were, move into Elspeth's London flat and through a series of developing relationships a crisis develops that could pull the twins apart. No library descriptions found. 
|
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.54Literature English (North America) American fiction 20th Century 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.38)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English (2)
4