Her Fearful Symmetry is Frightfully Bad

I really wanted to love this book the way I adored The Time Traveler's Wife, but it just didn't work for me.

Audrey Niffenegger's second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, only offers snippets of the imaginary prose and compelling story that made her first one of only two books I recommended to my book club the year it was released (the other was The Kite Runner).

Despite several elements I find fascinating - creepy old cemetery, London, twins, ghosts and a dash of mystery, the book falls flat, lags in the middle and delivers a predictable ending that completely disappoints.

Elspeth Noblin dies and leaves her cemetery adjacent London apartment to the twin daughters of her own, estranged, twin sister Edie. Julia and Valentina arrive, don't do anything of interest and interact with the building residents - Robert, their dead Aunt's former lover; and Martin, an agoraphobic crossword puzzle setter whose wife has just left him. We soon learn that Elspeth's ghost still haunts the place and that a mystery surrounds her non-relationship with the twin's mother.

The muddled plot goes from bad to worse when a jealous Elspeth hatches an improbable plan to help save Valentina from the suffocating influence of Julia while getting her out of Robert's bed. From there, it's one bad passage after another leading to the sort of ending that makes one happy to put the ultimately unremarkable book down. Even the dash of sex-with-the-recently-dead made me yawn.

It's not all terrible. After all, it takes a bit of skill and a keen observation of people to pen a novel. Niffenegger hits her highest notes when describing the anguish Robert feels as he tries to adjust to life without his lover, and the nutty behavior of Martin the shut-in. But, the thing is, this book was not about surviving the death of a loved one or dealing with a life shattering break-up while wrestling with mental illness. It was supposed to be about the otherworldly connection between twins, the struggle for individualism, and the secrets of sisterhood. Instead, it was just a mess with a lot of cemetery history thrown in. Apparently, Niffenegger worked as a guide at the featured cemetery (Highgate) and through much of the book she trots out what she learned.

While Niffenegger's past success will garner plenty of readers, this novel is a forgettable mess.