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.

Silver Linings Playbook

Silver Linings Playbook By Matthew Quick:

I decided to read this after I saw the movie because I thought it would be fun. I have a bit of a girlcrush on Jennifer Lawerence and since I loved the movie so much I'd read the book. I wasn't disappointed at all. I finished it in a day! The story is about Pat Peoples (probably the dumbest name for any character ever) as he is being taken out of the neural facility he has been in for the past  four years. His mother who is pretty much his everything brings him home where he finds almost a complete gym in the basement. Pat has a theory that to end "apart time" with his estranged wife Nikki he has to show everyone especially her how he has changed, physically and personally. He practices the theory "practice being kind rather than right" and he strives to read more in an effort to deliver lines from books on Nikki's syllabus. He will not watch movies anymore as he is watching his own movie and it's director/producer/writer is God. He spends most of his days obsessing about his body, his future encounter with his wife and the literature. His mother is his everything and does everything for him while his father pretends he doesn't exist. His brother ashamed he hasn't come to see him in the "bad place" but they make up. The world of this family revolves around The Eagles some football team, which I am not sure even now where they are from. The dad only makes communication with Pat through football. His therapist happens to be a huge football fan and so it is easy to bond with him. Pat's best friend Ronnie introduces him to Tiffany who is equally jacked up. Everyone pretty much walks on eggshells with Pat but won't tell him why,oh and his trigger is a Kenny G who is his nemesis. He is obsessed with physical fitness as he says that this is the reason why his wife has left him, this and the fact that he was emotionally abusing her.
Bitch Please!
Ok the book was an easy read, especially when you take into consideration that it is basically about one man trying to reunite with his wife, who if you ask me doesn't deserve him and the Eagles football team. Now say what you will I dislike football, because it's the one sport I don't really understand, there's some stupid ass rules in football and then there is something about yards and other shit I'm just like gah, fuck this. However because I am fond of Pop culture i recognize one of the players names who happened to be a big fucking deal in the book. Hank Baskett is married to Kendra Wilkinson, former girl friend of Hugh Hefner and star of the tv show "Girls Next Door". In the spin-off Kendra and Hank get married and have a baby. So I know something of Hank and I think he's a fucking nice guy. I was pleased I wasn't completely out of the loop for the football references and I personally think that football fans are way too angry, (I'm a huge football fan, or soccer as you Americans say, and we are crazy but not angry, unless you count the English and the Irish.)
                      *SPOILER ALERT*
Anyway that being said I really did enjoy the book especially the Tiffany bits, now that bitch is cray. I read a review that said that the episodes that brought about the mental breakdowns were a bit of a let down but i disagree. I mean first of all the guy that ends up with Nikki is may I remind you the same asshole who calls him an illiterate buffoon and she always laughs when he says it too, which is a tell tale sign she was always going to takes Phillips side over Pat who was her husband! When he discovers that day that she was cheating on him with a friend of theirs, someone who he has invited into their homes, permitted them into the sanctity of their personal bubble to be betrayed by someone who knows how intimate you have been with the person, its a HUGE breach of trust. Not only was Nikki cheating on him but she was replacing him, she was playing their song on while fucking this guy! WTF! Now here's what I think about Nikki and in turn this Phillip guy, HUGE FUCKING DOUCHEBAGS! I get it Pat nearly beat the shit out of Philip but Nikki tried to kill him back in an attempt to stop him, if she had just not cheated and asked for a divorce well then Pat would not have been deemed fucking insane and therefore had to spent four years in a mental institution wasting his life. That was first, second of all why the fuck does she get to keep the house and his money, in California cheating is not ok, they don't give you anything if you cheated and broke the marriage, Pat had a terrible lawyer. Third, fucking Nikki the whole reason for the problem doesn't even make an effort to apologize for her actions or to come and see how he is doing, I understand how upset the family is and or was but honestly Nikki your a bitch. But as the book has taught me to look at the silver lining in everything I suppose I will. If Nikki hadn't royally screwed up then Pat would never have excelled to be a better person and would never have met Tiffany and Tiffany is kind of a bitch but she owns it so, she is, in my book anyway , kind of freaking awesome. Tiffany is crazy but not because someone cheated on her but because of her guilt. Her husband Tommy who was so in love with her and wanted to have sex all the time died trying to help an old lady coming home from the mall after he had bought his wife, Tiffany, some lingerie. Now why she went all sexaholoic I don't know, what I do know is that in some way she got her closure which is what Pat is striving for. All in all I really liked this book, it's an easy read, entertaining, and it leaves you with the sense that everything is as it should be, you fall you get hurt, but you get up and keep going it's the only way to survive. I like Happy Endings.