Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffeneger

Summary and Review:

Okay here, in a nutshell is the plot of Her Fearful Symmetry: A woman dies, leaving her inexplicably large estate, including a large furnished apartment in London, to her twin nieces. The only catch: the girls must live in the apartment for a year before inheriting it, and their mother, who is the dead aunt's long-estranged twin sister, and their father are not allowed to step foot in the place. Oh, and the dead aunt has also become a ghost who is trapped in her former residence and is becoming increasingly obnoxious. And her creepy cemetery-obsessed younger lover is going to stalk the girls when they show up and then seduce one of them, either because he has some pedophilic tendencies (there are constant references to the 21-year-old twins looking like they are 12 or 16) or because the niece looks just like her dead aunt, his former lover with whom he is still obsessed.

(Having read this book and The Time Traveler's Wife, I think that Audrey Niffenegger may have a thing for old men romancing younger women (Henry and Claire, Robert and Valentina, and Julia and Martin. Which is creepy. And no, I don't feel like I'm giving away any plot spoilers because, come on, it was SO obvious what was going to happen.)

Okay, now for my thoughts on Her Fearful Symmetry (I think you can tell where this is going, can't you?). No, it really wasn't that bad. Well, okay the plot actually was that bad. But Audrey Niffenegger writes well. Has it ever happened to you that you're reading, just cruising along, lost in the plot, when suddenly you come to a clunky, poorly-written phrase or a tired cliche, and the narrative just comes to a halt, like you've hit a huge pothole while driving along on the freeway? That never happens in this book. Audrey Niffenegger is a great writer; the writing itself is enjoyable to read. I also enjoyed the little tidbits about the "residents" of Highgate Cemetery. However, the plot is kind of a mess.

It started out promisingly. The mysterious feud between the aunt and the twins' mother, the prospect of the girls alone in London, and in a haunted apartment next to a graveyard, no less, obviously lent a lot of suspense and anticipation. However, it the intensity never really picked up. There was never a moment when I felt concerned about the fate of the characters. I mean, I knew that bad stuff was about to happen, but...I just didn't really care all that much.

It's hard to overly sympathize with characters that seem to have absolutely no point in life--the twins were obnoxious. They didn't have jobs, didn't have any real interests or connections...I don't know. I think that if I were Elspeth watching these two girls loll around my apartment watching reruns on TV without any occupation or purpose would have really gotten on my nerves.

Furthermore, I wasn't sure who the protagonist was supposed to be. Was I supposed to be rooting for Julia, the 6-minute-older, pushy, bossy, manipulative twin? Or were my loyalties supposed to be with Valentina, the meek, shy, sickly sister. Valentina supposedly had talent, interests, and a way of attracting people to her (although how she managed to do that was never fully explained) but she let herself be dragged around by Julia until she just kind of exploded in fury. She went from "I'd like to order my own sandwich, thank you very much" to "death is better than living with you" in like three pages. Why didn't she ever speak up for herself before? If the girls knew each other so well, how is it likely that in 21 years Julia never clued in on the way Valentina was feeling. And let's just talk about the name Valentina for a minute. It was so incompatible with the rest of the book, I felt. Every time I read it I was like, "Valentina? Really? You name one twin Julia and the other one gets Valentina?" Looking back, I wonder if it was actually more appropriate, in a symbolic way, than I originally thought. I would be surprised if it weren't an homage to Valentine from Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. The name seemed to fit a character who very much acted the gothic/romantic heroine, pushed and pulled about and helpless in the face of tragedy. Except that she wasn't really helpless. She could have just told Julia to back off and everything would have been fine.

And the book never really explained why the girls were this way. They were so bizarre--dressing the same, never leaving the house without the other, finishing each other's sentences, even sleeping in the same bed and spooning all night long (there were some way creepy undertones), and the only explanation the book seemed to give for this behavior was that they were twins. This idea was reinforced by the fact that their mother and aunt had apparently behaved similarly at one time. I'm sorry, but I've known a lot of twins, and none of them have ever acted like this. There was some weird and unhealthy stuff going on, and sharing the same womb for nine months was not enough to explain it. In fact I kept waiting for a reason, something a la "House of Usher" preferably, but it never happened.

The same with the reason for Edie and Elspeth's estrangement. After a few pages, I kind of forgot/didn't care about the reason they separated, which greatly contributed to the lack of suspense in the book, and when the reason was finally revealed it was just...unbelievable. And I mean unbelievable not in an "Oh my gosh I can't believe that happened!" sense, but in a "yeah right, there is no way that would have happened" sense.

Finally, I just thought that the ending was really unsatisfying. I think Audrey Niffenegger was going for some kind of poetic justice, but it didn't feel right. Furthermore, it felt like the plot dragged for about 80% of the book and then all of a sudden was on fast-forward for the last 10 pages.

Again, I don't think that this was the worst book I've ever read. Far from it. Audrey Niffenegger writes well and the plot had potential. It just wasn't pulled off well, especially after the incredibly tightly-woven plot in The Time Traveler's Wife; in all it was just a bit of a letdown. ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆ (4/10)

Content:

Blood and gore: N/A, although the plot does kind of revolve around death

Sex: No explicit sex scenes, although there are numerous references to sex.

Offensive Language: Three uses of the F-word, which come of out nowhere. Much, much cleaner than The Time Traveler's Wife, thank goodness, but still more than necessary.