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Product Description
Review
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"An engrossing read by someone who really knows how to keep a story rolling. . . . she makes us really care about her characters, but it’s her storytelling chops that make Her Fearful Symmetry a winner."
— NOW (Toronto)
"[An] awesomely good read."
— Chatelaine
"Quirkily observed and rich on every level: plot, character, mood and theme. . . . She conjures a memorable world, and grants most of her characters happy endings, though perhaps not the ones they would have asked for."
— The Globe and Mail
"Entertaining. . . . The reader is pleasantly carried along by the author’s ability to create credible characters and her instinctive narrative gifts. . . . The most powerful parts of Her Fearful Symmetry . . . deal not with paranormal events but with the ordinary pleasures and frustrations of life."
— The New York Times
"Niffenegger deftly creates and maintains suspense. . . . Niffenegger has created a startling cast of characters whose eccentricities make them both more memorable and more believable."
— The Gazette
"A modern Victorian novel revolving around a London cemetery, ghostly hauntings and a well-kept secret. . . . A bewitching modern-gothic tale that is at once unsettling and intriguing."
— Chicago Sun-Times
"Talk about time travel: The novel blends the history of London’s famed Highgate Cemetery, the remarkable phenomena of mirror-image twins and the question of life after death into a ghost story that feels as if it could have been written a century ago."
— National Post
"Odd and disturbing but intensely mesmerizing and memorable. . . . Niffenegger spins such a riveting story — just like she did in The Time Traveler’s Wife — that suspending disbelief is a pleasure. . . . Niffenegger’s writing is bewitching. . . . Niffenegger delivers with great skill a chilling and haunting story."
— The Miami Herald
"Vivid prose. . . . Perverse fun. . . . The occult-loving Victorians would have been captivated. Her Fearful Symmetry begins slowly, but it ends with a shiver."
— Toronto Star
"Filled with originality and beauty, along with a touch of creepiness. . . . Niffenegger has managed it again, producing another book that is immensely readable, strikingly original and — forgive the pun — simply haunting. It’s a delightful read and well crafted."
— The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)
"Stylish, easy to read and . . . a dark delicious plot which has several neat twists. . . . Clever in its deviousness."
— The Scotsman
"Niffenegger creates . . . marvelous scenes of muted sadness and smothered affection. . . . A disorienting shift into the dark logic of fairy tales. But keep the children away and dust off the Ouija board; you’re about to make contact with something deliciously creepy."
— The Washington Post
From the Hardcover edition.
"An engrossing read by someone who really knows how to keep a story rolling. . . . she makes us really care about her characters, but it’s her storytelling chops that make Her Fearful Symmetry a winner."
— NOW (Toronto)
"[An] awesomely good read."
— Chatelaine
"Quirkily observed and rich on every level: plot, character, mood and theme. . . . She conjures a memorable world, and grants most of her characters happy endings, though perhaps not the ones they would have asked for."
— The Globe and Mail
"Entertaining. . . . The reader is pleasantly carried along by the author’s ability to create credible characters and her instinctive narrative gifts. . . . The most powerful parts of Her Fearful Symmetry . . . deal not with paranormal events but with the ordinary pleasures and frustrations of life."
— The New York Times
"Niffenegger deftly creates and maintains suspense. . . . Niffenegger has created a startling cast of characters whose eccentricities make them both more memorable and more believable."
— The Gazette
"A modern Victorian novel revolving around a London cemetery, ghostly hauntings and a well-kept secret. . . . A bewitching modern-gothic tale that is at once unsettling and intriguing."
— Chicago Sun-Times
"Talk about time travel: The novel blends the history of London’s famed Highgate Cemetery, the remarkable phenomena of mirror-image twins and the question of life after death into a ghost story that feels as if it could have been written a century ago."
— National Post
"Odd and disturbing but intensely mesmerizing and memorable. . . . Niffenegger spins such a riveting story — just like she did in The Time Traveler’s Wife — that suspending disbelief is a pleasure. . . . Niffenegger’s writing is bewitching. . . . Niffenegger delivers with great skill a chilling and haunting story."
— The Miami Herald
"Vivid prose. . . . Perverse fun. . . . The occult-loving Victorians would have been captivated. Her Fearful Symmetry begins slowly, but it ends with a shiver."
— Toronto Star
"Filled with originality and beauty, along with a touch of creepiness. . . . Niffenegger has managed it again, producing another book that is immensely readable, strikingly original and — forgive the pun — simply haunting. It’s a delightful read and well crafted."
— The Record (Kitchener-Waterloo)
"Stylish, easy to read and . . . a dark delicious plot which has several neat twists. . . . Clever in its deviousness."
— The Scotsman
"Niffenegger creates . . . marvelous scenes of muted sadness and smothered affection. . . . A disorienting shift into the dark logic of fairy tales. But keep the children away and dust off the Ouija board; you’re about to make contact with something deliciously creepy."
— The Washington Post
From the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Another brilliant, original and moving novel from the author of The Time Traveler’s Wife.
Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers — normal, at least, for identical “mirror” twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn’t know existed has died and left them her amazing flat in a building by Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin … but they have no idea that they’ve been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the OCD-suffering crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt’s mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the mother of the girls — her own twin — and who can’t even seem to quite leave her flat….
From the Hardcover edition.
Julia and Valentina Poole are normal American teenagers — normal, at least, for identical “mirror” twins who have no interest in college or jobs or possibly anything outside their cozy suburban home. But everything changes when they receive notice that an aunt whom they didn’t know existed has died and left them her amazing flat in a building by Highgate Cemetery in London. They feel that at last their own lives can begin … but they have no idea that they’ve been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the OCD-suffering crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt’s mysterious and elusive lover who lives below them, and even to their aunt herself, who never got over her estrangement from the mother of the girls — her own twin — and who can’t even seem to quite leave her flat….
From the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enchanting, but slightly flat,
By
This review is from: Her Fearful Symmetry (Hardcover)
There's always a mixture of anxiety and excitement when reading the new book by an author whose first book you loved so much (in this case, The Time Traveler's Wife). And, although I tried really hard, I couldn't help but compare the two books while reading Her Fearful Symmetry. Let me just come out right now and say: this book is not as good. But does that mean it's bad? Not at all.Her Fearful Symmetry has an intoxicating idea behind it: the idea of what happens after we die. And this is an idea that has been written about a million times before. What I enjoyed so much about The Time Traveler's Wife was that she took a subject like time travel and gave it a new twist, brought it out in a way that I hadn't seen before. Her Fearful Symmetry doesn't quite accomplish this task. I was still drawn into the world, the characters, the story...but there was something stilted about the whole thing, something a little less magical. This book has many characters and the third person POV oscillates back and forth between their stories. Niffenegger weaves her theme of obsession well into each story. There is also the theme of (obviously) symmetry and mirror-images, of being attached to someone, whether that attachment is love, family, genetic, or otherwise. A few times she pushes this theme a bit too much, leaving her authorial fingerprints behind a few too many times. Niffenegger's writing, as in her first book, is simple and effective. She tells a good story and the pacing works well, leaving me reading for hours on end without boredom. The last quarter of the book, however, contains some plot elements (which I can't delve into here for fear of ruining things) that were a bit difficult for me to swallow, believability-wise. I'm not talking supernatural elements, but more choices characters made. Certain things didn't feel true to the character or the story she had been telling so far, as if Niffenegger had an idea about what she wanted to happen and forced her characters into that idea, even though it didn't seem to fit properly. Obviously, everyone will have their own opinions as to whether the decisions in the last quarter of the book work or not. For me, they didn't. But not in such a drastic way as to ruin the book for me. I was still entranced by the story, enough so that the disappointments I had about the book took a backstage to my actual enjoyment of reading it. I feel as though the pressure of the second novel after the first was such a success has led Niffenegger to perhaps over think and over write this book, and I look forward to her third novel, where I imagine some of this pressure is alleviated.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Lost her way at the end, in a BIG way,
By
This review is from: Her Fearful Symmetry (Hardcover)
When I began Her Fearful Symmetry, I was tickled that I'd finally found a good book to read after three stinkers in a row. Much to my chagrin, I was wrong: it was my fourth stinker. I was so confused by the peculiar turn of events in the last fifth of the book that I felt like I'd fallen into the Twilight Zone. The carefully drawn characters became flat despite improbable recklessness; the story careened from a cogent family mystery and English ghost story to unconvincing, outlandish, incoherent balderdash. I read on, hoping that the ending would somehow make amends. It didn't; it just kept falling further over the cliff. Conversations were truncated, chapters left dangling. The big mystery was so simple-minded and untenable, perhaps Ms. Niggenegger thought some other over-the-top drama was required. I would have been happy to have the foolhardy mystery explained without the insane double climax. Also, the disturbed twin thing is an overused gimmick. The two sets of twins in this novel have created messy dramas of their lives, not because they are twins, but because they are individuals with problems everyone struggles with, like jealousy, obsession, depression, narcissism.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Starts with promise, poor ending,
By Lindsay Marshall (Toronto, ON) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Her Fearful Symmetry (Hardcover)
I, like many, bought this book after enjoying The Time Traveler's Wife. I was very disapointed with the book. As I was reading it, I found it more and more incredulous, and hard to believe, but I merely wanted to just finish it.The relationship between the twins is immature and hard to believe. Then, the relationships they form with the other residents in the apartment in London, are also difficult to accept. The ending was poor, and seems as if it was dashed off in a hurry, so Niffenegger could finish the follow up to her smash-hit. I would not recommend this book to anyone. I was thoroughly disapointed.
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