Her Fearful Symmetry Audiobook By Audrey Niffenegger cover art

Her Fearful Symmetry

A Novel

 Preview
Get this deal Try for $0.00
Offer ends December 1, 2025 11:59pm PT.
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Join Audible for only $0.99 a month for the first 3 months, and get a bonus $20 credit for Audible.com. Bonus credit notification will be received via email.
1 audiobook per month of your choice from our unparalleled catalog.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at $14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Her Fearful Symmetry

By: Audrey Niffenegger
Narrated by: Bianca Amato
Get this deal Try for $0.00

$14.95/mo after 3 months. Cancel anytime. Offers ends December 1, 2025 11:59pm PT.

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $22.49

Buy for $22.49

Get 3 months for $0.99 a month + $20 Audible credit
From the author of the #1 bestselling The Time Traveler's Wife, a spectacularly compelling novel—set in and near Highgate Cemetery in London, about the love between twins, men and women, ghosts and the living.

Julia and Valentina Poole are twenty-year-old sisters with an intense attachment to each other. One morning the mailman delivers a thick envelope to their house in the suburbs of Chicago. Their English aunt Elspeth Noblin has died of cancer and left them her London apartment. There are two conditions for this inheritance: that they live in the flat for a year before they sell it and that their parents not enter it. Julia and Valentina are twins. So were the girls’ aunt Elspeth and their mother, Edie.

The girls move to Elspeth’s flat, which borders the vast Highgate Cemetery, where Christina Rossetti, George Eliot, Stella Gibbons, and other luminaries are buried. Julia and Valentina become involved with their living neighbors: Martin, a composer of crossword puzzles who suffers from crippling OCD, and Robert, Elspeth’s elusive lover, a scholar of the cemetery. They also discover that much is still alive in Highgate, including—perhaps—their aunt.©2009 Audrey Niffenegger; (P)2009 Simon & Schuster Genre Fiction Ghosts Gothic Horror Literary Fiction Fiction Scary Haunted Mind-Bending

Featured Article: 55+ Quotes About Fear—of the Unknown, Change, Love, and More


Looking for a little confidence boost? These quotes about fear from some of literature’s greatest writers can help bolster your bravado. In moments of fear, it’s natural to turn to others—from loved ones to professional counsel—for comfort, encouragement, and advice. But sometimes, it’s most helpful to hear what people you’ve never met have written on the topic. These quotes offer a comprehensive, reassuring portrait of fear and ways to conquer it.

Featured Article 55+ Quotes About Fear of the Unknown Change Love and More
All stars
Most relevant
I really enjoyed listening to this book. The narrator did a great job with the British and American accents. The story line was odd, just like Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, but it was really a wonderful book! It kept my interest and I found myself trying to find housework to do so that I could listen to the book. A great listen!

Great Book & Narrator

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Picked this book on a whim; it was a great read. Good story line with interesting characters. Sorry to see them go when it was finished.

Great read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really liked this one. It was interesting, captivating, mysterious, and different. An interesting idea looking at souls, twins, and what we are willing to do in moments of desperation. Also I found the relationships between the characters interesting and surprising as well. Ahhh . . . what and who we will betray and settle for - to attain something desired.

Interesting, captivating, great read

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really enjoyed the Time Traveler's Wife quite alot, but this follow-up was quite a disappointment. The novel started strong and about 1/4 of the way in I actually thought I was going to like it more than the Time Traveler's Wife. Unfortunately, when the "plot twists" and "revelations" started to be revealed about 1/2 way though, not a one of them were surprising and I had figured out almost every turn in the book well before the author had the reader arrive there. I found myself hoping something would happen that I didn't see coming throughout the entire second half all the way down to the last couple minutes. That thing never came, and that was detrimental... especially in such a plot heavy narration.
The best part of this novel is the narrator, and for that I gave the audio book an extra star.

Fearful predictability

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Unlike most others, I wasn't a huge fan of _The Time Traveler's Wife_, mostly because I feel that Niffenegger dropped the ending of the book. However, I decided to give her another try with this book narrated by Bianca Amato. The narration was perfect. The different voices and accents were consistent and realistic.

The book was interesting and engaging, in the beginning. However, it quickly became obvious where it was going (so many twin stories do this type of plot line) and the essential greediness of Ellspeth / Edie was too apparent throughout.

Again, the ending was disheartening. As someone who has immense trouble with conclusions, I understand this problem, however I find it disheartening when books reach the status these have without having solid endings.

I wanted to like it more. I was drawn in by Amato's portrayal of the characters. In the end, I felt let down.

Disappointing

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really riveting novel, but narrator not good. Her English accent is overdone, all male characters sound like Bela Lugosi, and the American girls speak in scratchy monotones.
The story is a good one--buy the book and avoid this narrator.

Interesting story over-acted

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I haven't yet read The Time Traveler's Wife, so I can't make a comparison the way most of the reviews do. I can say that I loved this book and found it wondrous and compelling and very much unique.

It reminded me most of The Thirteenth Tale, a book I read on the page and loved. Her Fearful Symmetry took me into a dreamscape of partiality and wholeness, of wonder and horror, and was generally delightful.

wondrous

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
.....but in the end it was a bit of a let down and it was just an okay book. Being a huge fan of Audrey's 1st book "The Time Traveler's Wife"....I was expecting something amazing and thought-provoking and ended up with thinking "what in the heck was that all about?!?!?!"....The 'dark' secret revealed in the book was really not that dark and not that 'scandalous' and was a letdown in the whole grasp of things. I enjoyed the characters....some more than others....but as a whole.....they never lived up to the expectations that I had given them. This book has an interesting theme and subplot and does have some intriguing ideas but it still was nowhere near the genius writing of 'Time Traveler's Wife'.....if you have nothing better to do than read a book....save this one for when you have the patience to read it and knowledge that it is not going to 'blow you away'....

I wanted to really like this book.....

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you read "Time Traveler's Wife", think about all of the bits that tore you apart inside. Don't think about the romance, though that was wonderful - think about the miscarriages, the loss, the parts that made you want to cry. Amplify those gut wrenching bits from 40% of the book to 70%, replace a time traveling husband with ghosts, twins, a cemetery, and an incredibly screwed up family, and you'll come close to "Her Fearful Symmetry."
Note - if you take a drink every time you hear the word "Victorian" in the first 30 minutes, you'll have to pick the book up days later after you've sobered. Otherwise, this was the most satisfying book I've read in a very long time. And every character gets exactly what she deserves.

Fan-Freakin-Tastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I really enjoyed listening to this book. The characters were well-developed and the relationships were interesting and complex. I found myself wanting to see the twin (Valentina) succeed. What a unique concept for a story - the imagination of the author never ceases to amaze me.

What I like about Audrey Niffenager's books is that, they're not always about happy endings, yet you end up feeling satisfied. The characters push through an obstacle, maybe not getting what they want, but appreciating the conclusion and moving on with their lives.

The narration was fine. There are some readers I enjoy more than others, but as long as they're not falsely dramatic, or there isn't too much "background music", I can listen to about anything.

A bit of suspense, mystery, romance and humor

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews