Thursday, December 30, 2010

Book Review: Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Having loved Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, I was really excited to get Her Fearful Symmetry for Christmas.  Excited, but not suprised, since I had put it on my Christmas list.  I've had a difficult time this year finding books that grabbed me and kept me reading, but I sank right into this one.

Julia and Valentina are twins, and the daughters of a twin.  Their mother, Edie, has been estranged from her twin, Elspeth, since marrying.  Now twenty, Julia and Valentina are inseparable, and adrift.  They've been to three different colleges, never staying more than a year, and now live in their parents' house, where they float through their set routines.  All of this is disrupted when Elspeth dies and leaves her London flat to the girls, with some conditions: they must live there, together, for a year, and their parents are never to set foot in the flat.

Moving to London, the girls recreate their aimless ways in a new city, with some notable changes.  Their close tie begins to feel more like a bind to one of them, each developes a friendship "outside" of their twin-relationship, and they begin to realize that they aren't exactly alone in the flat.

The book is a good read and a quick one--I read it in the course of a day.  It would be a great book club selection because there is a lot to talk about.  It's definitely worth reading. That said, I didn't love it the way I loved Time Traveller's Wife.  If you read it, or have read it, I'd be interested in hearing what you think.

3 comments:

  1. Re: Rule on Neil Z's contest...tricky, as you have two blogs....

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  2. Didn't read it, sister. But how bad can a book whose title references Blake's "The Tyger" be?

    Because that's one of my fav poems.

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  3. I liked TTW, and will probably go read this one. Always looking for a good read.

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