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    Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel
    Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel
    Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel
    Audiobook13 hours

    Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel

    Written by Audrey Niffenegger

    Narrated by Bianca Amato

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateSep 29, 2009
    ISBN9780743599313
    Author

    Audrey Niffenegger

    Audrey Niffenegger is a writer and visual artist who lives in Chicago and London. She has published two novels, The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry, and many illustrated books including The Night Bookmobile and Raven Girl. She is currently at work on The Other Husband, a sequel to The Time Traveler’s Wife, which is now an HBO series. 

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    Reviews for Her Fearful Symmetry

    3.5/5

    2,800 ratings340 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Twins (mirror and identical), an obsessive-compulsive and some just plain shy people trying very hard to connect and/or disconnect. Then, throw in a ghost that's just learning the ropes of haunting. After that, it all becomes rather muddled and whacked out. From the free box (thankfully) and back into it.
    • 3/5
      It was just too strange reading this after The 13th Tale. Both stories have a twin theme and a ghost. I like The 13th Tale better. Her Fearful Symmetry wasn't nearly as good as The Time Traveler's Wife - also by this author. I will say the story moved along well and was interesting, but the big surprise at the end had very little affect on the characters or the story.
    • 4/5
      I definitely don't know how to review this one. For context, I adored Time Traveler's Wife to pieces, and I normally keep my distance from anything that even hints of romance. The entire time I was reading Her Fearful Symmetry, I had a hard time remembering that the same author wrote both books. HFS has a nice gothic atmosphere, which reaches from the tone to the ghostly elements to the setting (London's Highgate Cemetery). I felt like it had more in common with Tana French's (awesome) mysteries than it did with TTW. The style and the writing were all excellent.Not so excellent: the characters. One of the things I loved about TTW is how the main characters felt like real, fleshed out people. The ones in HFS aren't quite as impressive. They're interesting (we have two sets of twins, a man with severe OCD, and people who work in the cemetery), but they never managed to become more than characters in a book. The plot is where I really struggle with how enthusiastic I am about the whole thing. I don't want to give it away, because there are some really good twists and turns, but the whole final portion of the book is the result of a character making a completely ridiculous decision. A decision that's akin to burning down your house to get rid of all the dust rather than just picking up a dust rag. I like what resulted from the decision - the ending is completely satisfactory in a morbid, tragic way - but I keep getting stuck on the absurdity. It's ALMOST enough to make me knock off a whole star, except that I enjoyed my time with the book too much to do so.
    • 3/5
      Julia and Valentina are twins, they do everything together and even dress alike. However, their personalities are quite different - Julia is adventurous and bossy, while Valentina is delicate and shy. When an aunt they have never heard of, their mother's twin, dies and leaves them her flat in London the girls consider it an adventure to leave America and spend a year in England. When they get to London, they find their aunt's lover, Robert, lives in the flat beneath them and gives tours of the neighboring cemetery. Valentina develops a crush on Robert, while Julia finds herself drawn to the eccentric agoraphobe who lives above them. But there is another resident - the ghost of their dead aunt who haunts their flat.I have very mixed emotions about this novel. I was captivated by the descriptions of London and of the historic Highgate Cemetery. The characters were all quite intriguing, especially the twins and the very nature of being twins, which was explored, was fascinating. However, as the plot progressed I felt the characters all behaved in increasingly selfish, despicable and repulsive ways. In the end, I wasn't happy with the way things ended for the main characters. The plot points were all resolved, but they felt unsatisfying and were deeply depressing.
    • 4/5
      Not being much of a fan of "ghost" stories, I wasn't sure what to expect from this story. I had also not read this author before this. One of the descriptive blurbs on the back of the book says, "deliciously creepy"; I'm not sure how delicious it was but it was definitely creepy. The story involves two sets/generations of twins. How their relationships bring them to the point in the story where it begins. Julia & Valentina Poole move to England after their aunt (their mother's twin) leaves them her estate. We meet the people who live in the building with them and those who work in the cemetery next door. Julia & Valentina have what I would call a somewhat "unhealthy" relationship in that they are too dependent on each other. Or are they? As their relationship changes, one of them makes a macabre decision to break away. Creepy book, but I couldn't put it down.
    • 4/5
      Elspeth Noblin dies and leaves her London flat to her twin nieces, daughters of her own estranged twin Edie. They can have it on their twenty-first birthday, and must live in it for one year before they can sell it; their parents are not to be allowed in the flat. Julia and Valentina very sensibly accept this offer (I am mildly hoping that my mother has a rich estranged London twin like this who can conveniently die soon and let me do this exact thing), and take up residence in the flat, which is just outside Highgate Cemetery. The flat downstairs contains Elspeth’s lover, Robert, who is missing her terribly; the upstairs flat contains Martin, whose crippling OCD has caused his wife to leave; and the twins’ flat contains Elspeth’s possessions. And her ghost.For a ghost story, this one isn’t very spooky. That isn’t a criticism! It’s just that the aim of a ghost story tends to be to give you spine prickles, but that doesn’t seem to be the goal here. Remember how Audrey Niffenegger wrote about time travel in a clinical, matter-of-fact sort of way? Time travel was part of the characters’ lives, and they try to figure out the rules and deal with it as best they can in their everyday lives. Some people deal with it perfectly sensibly, and other people do not manage quite so well. The ghosty aspects of Her Fearful Symmetry are handled in a similar fashion – this isn’t what I expected, but I liked it.I loved the theme of identity, creating yourself as an individual, that runs all through the book. The central characters are so vivid (apart from Robert – what is Robert all about? I couldn’t figure him out), and they all struggle to decide who they are apart from the significant people in their lives. It was completely opposite to The Time Traveler’s Wife, how Henry and Clare create themselves as a couple, but equally intriguing. I particularly liked the friendship that develops between Julia and Martin, who are both going through the same thing – trying to be healthy and sane as their main life person is tugged away from them. Martin’s OCD was not quite on, as is often the case when book characters have OCD, but apart from that, Martin was generally a wonderful character. Maybe my favorite character.Except, maybe, for the graveyard. Highgate Cemetery is a character in this novel: the people buried in it and the secrets that it keeps (and Robert knows) are all very much a part of the story. I love the scenes set in the cemetery, and I wish we could have had a bit more of the cemetery people – maybe that would have helped explain who Robert was. Highgate feels like a co-conspirator in the – let’s say, in the slightly sketchier events of the novel, and like a haven for the nicer moments.Her Fearful Symmetry is much more me than The Time Traveler’s Wife – I mean with the ghosts and the graveyard and the sisters – and I thought I might like it better. Right now I am not sure. It is a quieter book than Time Traveler’s Wife. I mean that it doesn’t have that same wrenching emotional pull, and it is more understated about all the things that happen. They are so different it’s hard to compare. Which is great! On with more books by Audrey Niffenegger that will all be individual and different and wonderful!Hey, and this book mentioned David Tennant! The twins one time watch that episode of Doctor Who, “The Girl in the Fireplace” (he does have long fingers), with the horse, and the Doctor gets smashed and Rose says, “Oh look at what the cat dragged in – the Oncoming Storm”, and I love that line and I love that episode! David Tennant, hooray!
    • 3/5
      This is my first time reading Audrey Niffenegger and Her Fearful Symmetry has several of the elements I love in a novel: twins (not just one set but two generations of twins), a cemetery and a ghost.Set in London, this is a slow burn that begins when Elspeth Noblin leaves her flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces after her death. Elspeth and her own twin sister are estranged, so the bequeathment comes as quite a shock to the family. The twin girls must live in the flat for a year before they can sell it and the inheritance begins to transform Julia and Valentina in small and subtle ways.I loved the character of Robert, primarily because it was through him that the reader is treated to so much history of the Highgate Cemetery. Robert volunteers at the cemetery and takes tourists on guided tours throughout the grounds and these were by far my favourite elements of the book.I found the final denouement and the choices made by two of the characters to be such a disappointment that I became quite dissatisfied with the ending. Sometimes a disappointing ending can be provocative and exciting, but I was left feeling angry at two of the characters and wanted to slap one of them, so it cost the novel a star in this review.
    • 3/5
      It was okay. Plot was a tad thin. Nothing really special but not bad. Just okay.
    • 2/5
      Well, I bought this book with high expectations due to the amount of publicity the local bookstores was giving it, not to mention that it was listed quite high in "books to read" and good reviews etc. I wasn't sure quite what I was expecting, except that there's meant to be some form of deep dark secret and it felt all creepy crawley.The book started out slow with some portions of descriptives glossed over. It started out with the descriptions of the twins and their aunt, the main characters of the book, and setting the scene for the feeling of mystery. Firstly, with the weird will, secondly with the twins' physical differences and then with Elspeth (the aunt's) necessary haunting.When the "deep dark secret" was revealed, I was disappointed. by about 30 pages before hand, it was starting to be apparent what it could be. yet, throughout the book, because there was no real closeness mentioned between the characters involved, the twist wasn't as shocking and surprising as it could be.When the twist in the book happen (which is different from the secret), there was a horror of what happened but because it was so simplistically set out, the horror didn't last for more than a few pages.and then, the ending of it all happened so quickly it was dissatisfying. or rather, it wasn't because it was quick as much as it was a huge anti-climax.all in all, I wasn't happy with the book but... maybe it's someone else's cup of tea :)
    • 3/5
      I think I actually give this 3.5 stars. It was a gripping read. The build-up was thrilling, but I found the denouement to be something of a let-down, in comparison. And I don't think it spoils anything to say that I found the ending to be a little drawn out and it was unsatisfying to have everyone get their just deserts. The omniscient narrator spoiled all of the would-be spookiness, too. I largely enjoyed the book, but it leaves me wanting to re-read Beloved.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed Time Traveler's Wife and found this one entertaining (at least enough to accompany me on runs), but not quite as good. It had lots of interesting and compelling components: identical twin girls, one of whom has identical twin girls, but a fall out has left the elder twins estranged... until, after death, the remote twin manages to lure the young twins away; a neighbor with OCD and agoraphobia, whose fed up wife abandons him, who could make a novel of his own; the remote older twin's young lover who feels lost after her death, but then gets caught up with the younger generation. Add a few ghosts and the ability to communicate with them. While it was entertaining and made me want to visit London (again) and Highgate Cemetery, the conclusion left me feeling empty about every single one of the characters although I'd initially enjoyed them. Hmm.
    • 4/5
      Another spooky book for October! This one focuses on a set of twins named Julia and Valentina. They are very dependent on each other and extremely enmeshed. The inherit a flat in London and a large sum of money from an estranged aunt (who was their mother's twin) whom they've never met. The one requirement? They must live in the flat a year before selling it and their mother and father are not allowed to enter the flat.After they move on, strange things begin happening. Bitterly cold winds envelop them, lights begin to flicker, their television set goes out. Aunt Elspeth is in the house with them!There are lots of twists in turns in this, so I don't want to give too much away. I do have to say that it was a tad predictable and I would have liked a bit more spookiness. I would give it between 3.5 and 4 stars, but will go with 4 because I like to be generous!
    • 3/5
      Read based on newspaper review. Wonderful prose but the story, which is fed by the inherent faint creepiness of twins (like THE PRESTIGE), trails off into an empty room in the countryside.
    • 5/5
      Weird but kept me entertained until the end. Something that I've never imagined reading before.
    • 3/5
      Though not in the same league as "The Time Traveler's Wife", "Her Fearful Symmetry" is a twisted and articulate tale about the importance of identity.
    • 4/5
      I was drawn to this book by its creepy cover, and by the setting in Highgate Cemetery, which was one of my favorite parts of London. The book was very interesting, engaging, and I was attached to the characters, but I did feel a little let down by the "twist" and the ending. I saw most of it coming, and wished there could have been a little more suspense and resolution. But all in all, I really enjoyed it. A fast, fun read.
    • 3/5
      The plot of Her Fearful Symmetry was interesting, but the ending was bizzarre. I felt that the ending was rushed and that there was so much going on that the author had to just end it. The relationships between the charaters was the best part of the story. Setting it in London was good and helped make Robert a well rounded character where as some of the others were flat. Overall a good read.
    • 5/5
      Oh what a wonderful book! I can't believe I initially discounted it as 'not my sort of thing'. If I hadn't heard the author read from it at the Edinburgh BookFest this year (she read the opening of the chapter entitled 'The History Of Her Ghost') I might never have picked it up.

      This is a romance cum ghost story which, I have to admit, is not a promising start for me. It starts with the death of Elspeth and from there we are introduced to her lover: Robert, her twin: Edie, twin nieces: Julia & Valentina, quirky neighbours and, most importantly, Highgate Cemetery and it's 'friends'. Elspeth leaves her flat to the girls on the condition that their parents never step foot in it. They take up residence a year later, but so does Elspeth! As her abilities as a ghost grow, so does the way she interacts with her surroundings and with the people she loved.

      Loved the descriptions of Highgate, loved the OCD neighbour, in fact loved all the characterisations if not the actual characters.... particularly loved the 'little kitten of death'! Obviously you have to suspend belief in a ghost story, so didn't see all the twists coming but it kept me interested throughout and was quite a page turner towards the end, waiting to see how it would all pull together.

      Finally, the blurb on the back says:

      'When Elspeth Noblin dies she leaves her beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery to her twin nieces, Julia and Valentina Poole, on the condition that their mother is never allowed to cross the threshhold. But until the solicitors' letter falls through the door of their suburban American home, neither Julia nor Valentina knew their aunt existed. The twins feel that in London their own lives can finally begin but have no idea that they have been summoned into a tangle of fraying lives, from the obsessive-compulsive crossword setter who lives above them to their aunt's mysterious and elusive lover, who lives below them and works in the cemetery itself.

      As the twins unravel the secrets of their aunt, who doesn't seem quite ready to leave her flat, even after death, Niffenegger weaves a delicious and deadly ghost story about love, loss and identity.'
    • 1/5
      I hated this book! I’m not one to leave bad reviews or to dog on any book. I’m sure there are lots of people who would like this book but it made me blindingly mad. If you’re going into this novel expecting the time traveler’s wife or anything similar to it. you will be sorely disappointed.
    • 3/5
      First, let me say that I loved Audrey Niffenegger's novel The Time Traveler's Wife, so I may have started reading Her Fearful Symmetry with unusually high expectations. I really wanted to like this novel, but I just grew more and more annoyed with the plot and characters.First, I didn't like Julia and Valentina Poole at all. Their extreme co-dependence was pathetic; I thought that Niffenegger neglected to explore their psychologies in-depth so that there would be some basis for understanding their abnormal reliance on one another.At first the concept of Elspeth's ghost was interesting, but as the novel wore on I kept picturing Casper the Friendly ghost (sad, I know).I thought that the most engaging characters were Martin, who suffers from OCD, and his wife Marijke. Niffenegger could have based the entire novel on their relationship; Martin's anxiety and Marijke's frustration were successfully portrayed.The plot was at times predictable, and the story felt rushed. I think that overall, Her Fearful Symmetry lacked the well-drawn, sympathetic characters and intricate plot that made The Time Traveler's Wife such a wonderful novel.
    • 3/5
      What retard wrote the back cover of the book? I should know better, but sometimes I can't resist. So I was looking forward to enjoy a novel about love, loss and identity with ghosts. And what I got was a twisted ghost story about identity, lost, but love? Is stealing your own daughter’s life to get a second chance with your younger lover and make a baby because you messed it up the first time, nowadays a synonym for love? It's horrid. And I seriously wonder what Audrey Niffenegger’s intensions with the book were.In addition seem her characters a bit too cut and dried (especially the twins), but the description of the OCD neighbour is quite close to reality and very entertaining as well as her view on London. Audrey Niffenegger is an amazing narrator and I will probably read another novel from her, but this story feels more like a revenge plot of a woman who can't accept she got old and died. Is this the next level for all the Botox addicts?The front cover is perfect chosen though.
    • 4/5
      If you remember my review of The Time Traveler's Wife, you remember how excited I was to read Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger's second novel. When I finally got it through the library hold list, I couldn't wait to dive right in and then...then I wanted to stop.I was expecting a spooky, haunting, twisting book. I suppose it could be thought of in that way, technically, since it takes place in/around a cemetery and deals with ghosts. But really, I just thought it was depressingly sad. And, as a forewarning, I don't handle depressingly sad books very well.Edie and Elspeth Noblin are estranged identical twins; they were inseparable until their young adulthood, when something happened to cause them never to see each other again. Edie married and had identical twin girls, Valentina and Julia, who are also inseparable and about to embark on a very strange journey. The story begins with Elspeth's death and her wishes, through her will, to give all her worldly possessions to her nieces if they agree to spend a year living in her flat in London (conveniently located across the street from Highgate Cemetery). The only catch is that neither their father or mother, Edie, can set foot in the apartment. Thus begins the defining chapter of both of their lives. They meet many characters: Martin, the obsessive-compulsive in the apartment above them; Robert, Elspeth's lover in the apartment below; and even Elspeth's ghost, who haunts the flat. The stories of each person are forever and irrevocably intertwined.Obviously this book is sad because of the overtones of death, but it also was sad because of the sufferings each character experiences. Overall, I believe this is a novel written to warn of the consequences of losing your identity, in all ways possible.There were a lot of twists in this novel that I didn't see coming, which is very refreshing. It kept me guessing and there were definitely some "oh!" moments. However, I didn't always feel the connection to Valentina and Julia that I thought I should. They had their flaws and their great points, but nothing that really made me connect with them and feel for them in a way I felt was needed to really love them as characters. There was also the initial connection I felt with Elspeth that kind of dissipated as the novel progressed and her actions became more and more harrowing.The prose was not as lyrical as I felt it was in her first novel and, while it was a very original story, which is something I greatly appreciate and applaud, I don't feel like it lived up to my expectations. 3.5 out of 5 stars. Worth a read, but I don't know if you're going to love it.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating book, though not for those who are devoted to happy endings. Best read during the winter, as the descriptions of the weather will chill you!
    • 5/5
      American twins Julia and Valentina discover they have an aunt Elspeth only after her death, when they inherit her money and a beautiful flat overlooking Highgate Cemetary. Strange conditions in the will dictate that the twins must live their for one full year before they can sell the property and that their parents must not set foot inside it during that time.Gradually the twins adapt to life in London, vastly different to their Chicago home, and slowly they get to know the other people who live in the building, their Aunt's younger lover, Robert, who lives on the ground floor and gives tours of the cemetary and the OCD sufferer Martin, who lives above them and dreams of conquering his demons and reuniting with his estranged Dutch wife. And Elspeth isn't quite gone, gradually becoming stronger and able to make her presence known in a ghost story that has some not entirely unexpected twists along the way. I enjoyed it and read it quickly, liked the twins more as I progressed through the book, guessed the big plot points before they happened and finished feeling a little bit cheated of the 'right' and 'fair' ending. It is a good book but coming after The Time Traveller's Wife it has a hard act to follow and it will be judged. For me the best character was Highgate Cemetary itself, closely followed by the descriptions of Postman's Park, which made me want to just pack up and drive to London to visit them immediately, demanding tours and information with my own impractical pushchair and child under the age of eight. They sound beautiful and wonderful and sad and full of history that I want to know more about and for that the book gets an extra star.
    • 1/5
      Unintentionally creepy in a way that had nothing to do with ghosts. (Spoilers below)

      The book revolves around several people and how their lives interlock, mostly in a romantic and parental way. Yes, romantic AND parental. Both. Simultaneously.

      The protagonists are two 21 year old women, who look like they're 12 and act like they're maybe 16. They're very sheltered and naive and both end up pursuing men in the apartment they move into who are old enough to be their fathers. One of them, it turns out, was even their mother's partner.

      From insensitive and frequent language regarding mental illness, to the casual acceptance of grooming and pressuring a very young woman for sex, to animal abuse, this was a very unpleasant read and I had to keep checking to make sure that no, it was not in fact written by an old sexist white man in the 1800s.
    • 4/5
      This was a modern day ghost story with a Gothic feel. The characters were believeable and likable. It was an interesting and unique story that kept my interest throughout, however, it ened very abruptly. Still a good read.
    • 3/5
      This didn't have the impact or originality that TTTW had, but I suppose it deals with some of the same themes: human beings attempting to deal with the weird and wonderful situations that life and death throw up at us. I'm still a bit bemused by it but I think this book mainly talks about the mistakes we all make. Various people make lots of decisions in this book, and they generally lead to the situation getting worse and more complicated. But the characters aren't judged for making mistakes; there is no 'baddy' here, Robert, Elspeth and Valentina all make what we outsiders might see as wrong decisions, but no one triumphs; they all have to deal with the consequences, feel remorse, shame etc. Martin and Marijke provide a nice 'normal' flipside to the rest of the characters.
    • 3/5
      I adored "Time Traveler's Wife" but had some problems with the language (I feel like she could maybe not write as much as she does sometimes). I was EXTREMELY upset about the way THAT novel ended and didn't think an author could be so cruel to her characters. And then I read "Her Fearful Symmetry." I thought the ghost stuff would freak me out but it didn't. It was really hard to love any of the characters but the young twins were just so young....the ending was just cruel and unfair. I give this four stars because it was a book that had me anxious to finish it, though it's by no means any sort of literature I'd read in a Lit class....though Niffenegger does do her best to explore a thesis...unfortunately she gives more effort to plot than to really saying anything deep or disturbing about identity (for that I could recommend a lot of lovely and confusing novels).
    • 5/5
      Love the twists, turns, and depth of this story. Poor, poor Robert.
    • 3/5
      I quit enjoyed this booked. Preferred th plot pre-ghost but all in all quite diverting.