Her Fearful Symmetry

A Novel

De: Audrey Niffenegger

Narrado por: Bianca Amato

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

Great Book & Narrator

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 read

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.

Interesting, captivating, great read

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.

Fearful predictability

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.

Disappointing

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.