Her Fearful Symmetry

A brilliantly inventive story told with feeling. Really wanted to find out what happened to the characters and it kept me turning the pages. It even had a "gasp out loud factor" which is rare for me in books these days, you know what I mean, something you had just not seen coming! Not as good as Time Travellers Wife in my opinion but up there near the top. Fantastic, well done Audrey, another...more

A brilliantly inventive story told with feeling. Really wanted to find out what happened to the characters and it kept me turning the pages. It even had a "gasp out loud factor" which is rare for me in books these days, you know what I mean, something you had just not seen coming! Not as good as Time Travellers Wife in my opinion but up there near the top. Fantastic, well done Audrey, another cracker.   hide

If like me you loved The Time Traveller's Wife and are thinking of reading this wanting it to be as good, I'm sorry to say it may disappoint you. I found it just too far fetched (despite totally buying in to the previous time travel plot!!!). It's about identity, death, ghosts, cemeteries, twins, love and the bizarre outcomes you can produce mixing those things together. It's all rather random,...more

If like me you loved The Time Traveller's Wife and are thinking of reading this wanting it to be as good, I'm sorry to say it may disappoint you. I found it just too far fetched (despite totally buying in to the previous time travel plot!!!). It's about identity, death, ghosts, cemeteries, twins, love and the bizarre outcomes you can produce mixing those things together. It's all rather random, but to be fair I would have to say readable too. It's not the next TTW, but if you like your books out of the ordinary and slightly spooky, it may be for you.   hide

After The Time Travler's Wife, this book was very disappointing. Took forever to get into. And main characters, the twin sisters who inherit home from their 'Aunt' are hard to connect with because rather than acting like young adults they seem more like children. I had to make myself finish this book.

Warning: Major spoilers. If Audrey had stopped at p256 I would have said, 'Wow, what a fantastic book. Strange to stop in the middle of a story like that, but hey, she wrote The Time Traveler's Wife, she must know what she's doing.' But she didn't stop there. She kept going. The first 256 pages were full of the most wonderful writing, beautiful - but strange - characters, glorious locations...more

Warning: Major spoilers. If Audrey had stopped at p256 I would have said, 'Wow, what a fantastic book. Strange to stop in the middle of a story like that, but hey, she wrote The Time Traveler's Wife, she must know what she's doing.' But she didn't stop there. She kept going. The first 256 pages were full of the most wonderful writing, beautiful - but strange - characters, glorious locations (I want to go and live on the edge of Highgate Cemetery NOW). I was in love with everyone. I couldn't read the book fast enough. And then it all went bad. I don't know where I thought it was going to go, but it wasn't where it went. It made me so sad. Characters that I had loved moments before did awful things. I no longer liked them. Such sadness, but not a good sadness, like in TTTW, where the inevitable happens to people you love and it feels right. Heartbreaking, but right. This just felt wrong. Obviously it ends badly. And I didn't care. Even where it ended well for a couple of characters it didn't feel like it ended well. I was nothing like satisfied. But, what do I know? How many million books have I sold? None. What about Audrey? Quite a few. But after TTTW I was expecting so much, but HFS left me feeling, well, not really feeling at all. A book that started off so brilliantly ended so badly. Such a disappointment.   hide

An intriguing premise, and a page turner, but ultimately not nearly as satisfying as "The Time Travelor's Wife". At the end of the book, I still felt as though I didn't really understand what made the main characters tick. The author's interest in the Highgate Cemetary is laudible, but, for me, too much time was spent on the cemetary and its "inhabitants", to the...more

An intriguing premise, and a page turner, but ultimately not nearly as satisfying as "The Time Travelor's Wife". At the end of the book, I still felt as though I didn't really understand what made the main characters tick. The author's interest in the Highgate Cemetary is laudible, but, for me, too much time was spent on the cemetary and its "inhabitants", to the detriment of the book. Niffenegger's gratuitous Bush-bashing and unneccessary insertion of Marxism will be off-putting to some of her readers.   hide

Hmmm… the third ghost book I've read in 2009 (Little Stranger and Sepulchre being the others). The good thing about this book, as with Time Traveller's Wife, was the characterisation and writing style. As other people have written in their reviews, the first half of the book – I'd say rather more than half actually – is very enjoyable. You get a good picture of the characters and their...more

Hmmm… the third ghost book I've read in 2009 (Little Stranger and Sepulchre being the others). The good thing about this book, as with Time Traveller's Wife, was the characterisation and writing style. As other people have written in their reviews, the first half of the book – I'd say rather more than half actually – is very enjoyable. You get a good picture of the characters and their lives, all set against the obviously heavily-researched backdrop of Highgate Cemetery. Brownie points to (American) Prof. Niffenegger for the many London details. Like TTW, the plot pivots on a very implausible basis. The time hopping in TTW would never be accepted in science fiction circles as it was way too far from possible but the strength of the characters, and their humour, carry the story along. The soul/body swapping in Her Fearful Symmetry seems way too outlandish for me and sadly the rest of the book isn't strong enough to quite pull it off. So all in all I'd say this is OK – but it ain't as good as I had hoped it would be having so thoroughly enjoyed TTW.   hide

I really enjoyed this book even though it is nothing like what I generally enjoy reading, at least with regard to subject matter. The premise of the book greatly involves departed spirtis, seemingly with no where to go. If I release my hold on reality though, I can enjoy a good story simply for the sake of a good story! And this is one. While I can't say I was happy with the end of the book I can...more

I really enjoyed this book even though it is nothing like what I generally enjoy reading, at least with regard to subject matter. The premise of the book greatly involves departed spirtis, seemingly with no where to go. If I release my hold on reality though, I can enjoy a good story simply for the sake of a good story! And this is one. While I can't say I was happy with the end of the book I can certainly understand why the author wrote the ending the way that she did. The author also wrote Time Traveler's Wife. I think that this, too, could be made into a film and would certainly go to see it if it is. I very much enjoy AN's writing voice. Her ability to twist a plot just right really grabs me. I didn't figure out the twist in the plot until just before she revealed it which is a very exciting place to be as a reader. I guess that's what I most appreciate about her writing. If you're like me, step aside from reality for a bit and give the book a chance. I enjoyed it.   hide

Oh dear, although I think The Time Traveller's Wife was hyped out of all proportion I did love it and am a fan. The trouble with this book is that the "fantastical" element is too much and you don't believe in the events that unfold - whereas, in TTTW even though it was preposterous the characters were so well drawn and it was so well plotted and involving that you did believe in it. Here there...more

Oh dear, although I think The Time Traveller's Wife was hyped out of all proportion I did love it and am a fan. The trouble with this book is that the "fantastical" element is too much and you don't believe in the events that unfold - whereas, in TTTW even though it was preposterous the characters were so well drawn and it was so well plotted and involving that you did believe in it. Here there is never enough time spent developing the characters or telling us the early plot (back story), to get that sense of involvement. She clearly wanted to write a novel about High Gate Cemetary, and those bits work well, and all the rest was a bit secondary. The kooky outweighs the rest.   hide

This book was made worse by the fact that "The Timetraveler's Wife" was so good, but it was still a bad book if you ignore that. It was very slow and the only characters I felt any connection to were the twins, the ghost and (ironically) the cat: the others I found hard to keep track of. If you want to read hers: read Timetraveler's Wife. This is slow and has too many dull characters to make it...more

This book was made worse by the fact that "The Timetraveler's Wife" was so good, but it was still a bad book if you ignore that. It was very slow and the only characters I felt any connection to were the twins, the ghost and (ironically) the cat: the others I found hard to keep track of. If you want to read hers: read Timetraveler's Wife. This is slow and has too many dull characters to make it interesting.   hide