Her Fearful Symmetry

Critics

• HER FEARFUL SYMMETRY by Audrey Niffenegger

  Review by Debbie Lee Wesselmann (OCT 25, 2009) Audrey Niffenegger’s successor to her immensely popular The Time Traveler’s Wife centers around a London cemetery and the people drawn, both voluntarily and not, to its intimacies. When Elsbeth Noblin di ... (read full critics)

  mostlyfiction published on Thu, 30 Sep 2010

• Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

  Like Henry David Thoreau, Audrey Niffenegger seems to view time as but the stream in which her characters go a'fishing. Her enormously popular first novel, The Time Traveler's Wife, was the story of a man who involuntarily time-travels through his ow ... (read full critics)

  guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

18 Reviews

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  I loved Time-Traveler's Wife. Can't say the same for this. Found it annoyingly self-indulgent for Niffenegger, and not much happens.

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  kmccormi said on Feb 17, 2010 | Add your feedback

• 2 people find this helpful

  

  I got so drawn in and the twists really surprised me. I didn't find it that spooky for a ghost story though.

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  Valentine said on Oct 20, 2009 about the Hardcover edition | 1 feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  

  very, very nice ghost story. it feels very gothic and modern at the same time. i liked it and got drawn into the story little by little, the last 150 pages i basically read in one go. you could say it is predictable sometimes, some of the twists of the story maybe are... but i still liked reading it ... (continue)

  very, very nice ghost story. it feels very gothic and modern at the same time. i liked it and got drawn into the story little by little, the last 150 pages i basically read in one go. you could say it is predictable sometimes, some of the twists of the story maybe are... but i still liked reading it. if a book manages to constantly drag me to itself - on the metro, on the tram and today even while i was walking, it means it's good.

  i read some reviews that are critical of the book because it's nonsensical, or unrealistic... but since when are ghost stories supposed to make any sense? the unrealistic twists are part of the whole game, for me at least!
  i liked it, not only because of all the ghost story archetypes in it and the eerie atmosphere that permeates the novel; but also because the characters were interesting, Martin was my favourite.
  this author seems to be very good at writing about loss, at least she was in the two books i read by her - i find what she writes touching and beautiful, and i can really relate to it. a very good read, absolutely recommended!

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  natalia said on Nov 6, 2010 | Add your feedback

• 

  Interesting twist

  I enjoyed 'Her Fearful Symmetry' and the array of characters it presented. I was quite happy with the cast of characters being fairly small - the twins, their upstairs and downstairs neighbour, and a certain ghost. It was interesting to read about OCD, as well as grief and the feelings surrounding t ... (continue)

  I enjoyed 'Her Fearful Symmetry' and the array of characters it presented. I was quite happy with the cast of characters being fairly small - the twins, their upstairs and downstairs neighbour, and a certain ghost. It was interesting to read about OCD, as well as grief and the feelings surrounding the life of twins. The tale is one of raw humanity, of coming to terms with life and what it presents.

  I thought the novel was well written, and almost lived up to my view of Niffenegger that I formed from 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. 'Her Fearful Symmetry' is powerful and thought-provoking, but not on the same scale as Niffenegger's debut novel. It is definitely worth a read - it was a real page-turner for me, as I couldn't wait to find out what happened next.

  Before I read this book, I read other people's reviews here on Goodreads. Some people said that the "twists" within the story were completely transparent and expected. I must disagree. The twists and turns of the novel had me gripped, and I was completely shocked at the revelation near to the end of the book. I physically gaped.

  When I finished reading, I was not entirely satisfied, but that was probably because the ending wasn't, "And they lived happily ever after". There was some sense of closure, but as a reader I felt slightly jilted out of a suitable ending for all the characters. Such is the dilemma of reading a realistic novel.

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  Jemma said on Mar 28, 2012 about the eBook edition | Add your feedback

• 

  What a mess of a novel...all started reasonably well, with a death, two sets of twins and the promise of family mystery all dealt out in the opening chapters. But after the premises were efficiently set up, the author seems to have no idea where to take her story. The major character of the ghost wa ... (continue)

  What a mess of a novel...all started reasonably well, with a death, two sets of twins and the promise of family mystery all dealt out in the opening chapters. But after the premises were efficiently set up, the author seems to have no idea where to take her story. The major character of the ghost was introduced rather awkwardly into the stagnating plot, which was as trapped inside this London apartment as itself. A whole chunk of time and space was then dedicated to the interaction with the ghost and the joint exercise of figuring out the logic of the afterlife. This entire portion of the book was thoroughly unexciting to put it mildly.

  When another plot twist finally came, it was so absurd and laughably implausible that you couldn't believe the author really went along with it anyway. What followed was one ridiculous development after another. In fact, the last third of the book is so boring, illogical, substance-less and preposterous it's painful to bear.

  The book is a huge disappointment after Niffenegger's wildly imaginative and fabulous brain scratcher "The Time Traveler's Wife". They are similar in the sense that both deal with the fantastical and absurd, but in this one, you get the feeling that the rules of the ghost world were made up as the book went along and the plans and intentions of the characters also appear totally whimsical, defying all common sense. When the author tried to stir things up in the final part of the book and complicated everything by playing with the identity of the older twins and the failed resurrection attempt, the result is still hopelessly lifeless and not in the least intriguing. Apart from one vividly depicted character who suffers from OCD and is confined within his own personal ticks, there's almost nothing worth salvaging in this fangless, tepid ghost tale.

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  Tony Su said on Nov 28, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

• This was a disappointment and I was particularly sorry to spend precious holiday time reading it.

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  Top of the pile said on Sep 27, 2011 | Add your feedback

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Book Details

• Rating:
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• English Books
• Others 304 Pages
• ISBN-10: 022408562X
• ISBN-13: 9780224085625
• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Pub date: Oct 01, 2009
• Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover and eBook
• In other languages: other languages 繁體書, Deutsche Bücher, Libros en Español, Livros em Português, Libri Italiani, Danske bøger, Nederlandse Boeken

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