Her Fearful Symmetry

 

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger:

The story revolves around two different sets of twins. The latter twins are 21 years old and haven’t really decided what to do in life or how to go about it. They are content with sitting at home and watching the tube, reading and enjoying each others companies. The other twins are the mothers of the younger twins. Elspeth and Edie are twins who let a horrible secret keep them apart for years. Julia and Valentina are a product of Edie and her husband Jack. While on her deathbed Elspeth bequeaths her apartment and all her worldly belongings to her nieces. So Valentina and Julia make the valiant decision to move to England and inhabit the home of an aunt they never knew. There’s all the side story of the other residents of the building, Robert, Elspeths lover/life mate. Martin and Marijke a couple whom are basically the silver lining of the book. Without them the book would be a dreary history of a cemetery, selfish people and body robbing oh and twin things.

Bitch Please!

This is where the book ends being interesting and begins to get boring because the story seriously starts to get boring. The man upstairs Martin has OCD and he can’t leave his apartment the annoying twin Julia goes to visit him and discovers that she likes him immensely so she keeps going to keep him company. Here’s the thing the guy Robert who was in love with Elspeth is afraid of going to see the twins and avoids them and finally goes to see them and falls in love with Valentina. Remember I had just read Flowers in the Attic so this was the overall theme of the week. Uncles marrying nieces. What I hated most about this book was that Elspeth who was dead came back as a ghost. I wanted the twins to go on an adventure and figure out the dark secret their mother was hiding and then live a fulfilled semi separate life. But Valentina my initial favorite sister turned out to be selfish and stupid. *Spoiler Alert*

Valentina is a fucked up bitch, in her desperate attempt to leave Julia’s side she decides to kill herself with the help of Elspeth’s soul. She deserved to never figure out how to get back into her body because she was selfish. She didn’t care that she was making her parents heart break or that she was going to abandon Julia. I hate Elspeth for knowing beforehand she was never going to let Valentina back into her body and befriending her anyway. I hate that Julia was left alone and sad and couldn’t move on with her life. My favorite part of the book was Julia’s interaction with Martin. I definitely liked the idea of a man living with OCD and aided by a young curious girl who was determined to help him trump his fear and reunite his wife. In fact I vote for Ms. N to take this story and revamp it with different names and then make it a book. It would have been better than what she eventually presented in manuscript. This was really frustrating to read. I didn’t like how it ended, not even how Valentina figured out how to be free. I wish I hadn’t read this before Cather in the Rye and after Flowers in the Attic. Vomit.