Books
by Audrey Niffenegger
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Her Fearful Symmetry |
The setting is brilliant - Highgate Cemetery where Niffenegger worked for a year to get background for her book. But somehow for me it never took off. I found the characters - the weird American twins, the agoraphobic man whose wife has fled to Amsterdam, the ghosts and the hauntings, all too unbelievable and disengaging. It's not a patch on The Time Traveler's Wife. (bwl 29)
(Jenny Baker - bwl 57 Summer 2010) |
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Her Fearful Symmetry |
A ghostly tale, centred around the gothic setting of Highgate Cemetery, which follows the life and after-life of Elspeth, sensitively exploring loss, desire, control and sacrifice through its array of intriguing characters including her lover and her estranged twin's twin daughters who, as a condition of her will, move from America to her London flat. Mystery and suspense build with promise but I was left unconvinced by the sinister elements which come to the fore.
(Rebecca Howell - bwl 61 Summer 2011) |
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The Time Traveler's Wife |
An extraordinary book which took some getting into, but I could not put it down by the end. Deeply in love with Clare whom he marries, Henry - due to a clinical disorder - travels into the past and the future. His ability to know the future (his own death for example) and the anguish caused by his frequent disappearances makes for an intricate and poignant story. Best read in large chunks, rather than dipping into!
(Veronica Edwards - bwl 29 April 2005) |
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