2.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. – Customer review on 07/10/2009

Niffenegger’s new book “Her fearful symmetry” has been eagerly awaited, however unfortunately it does not live up to the expectations. The plot starts too slow. The characters are introduced in painful detail. No real connection to the reader will come up as one cannot relate to any of the characters. The reader is at a loss for the first few hundred pages until the all too predictable plot develops. The characters bravely carry on the nonsensical story line of unbelievable adventures of healing and deceiving. All that comes to mind is WHY are they behaving so irrational? The only likeable and likely real character is Robert. Everyone else seems modelled on real life people with a slight modification. Nothing fits together and dragging Amsterdam into the plot does not help but certainly increases the word count, as the author can indulge in describing even more things.
Meanwhile Niffenegger is struggling to cram in as many adjectives as come to mind while the reader is having short spells of reading enjoyment interrupted by bizarre descriptions such as “the complicated smell of cleaning products”.
Fans of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” can give this one a miss. The target audience seems to be 16 year old teenage girls who don’t mind reading an overly inflated short story.

2.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. – Customer review on 22/02/2010

Has Niffenegger changed editors between "Time Travellers Wife" and "Her Fearful Symmetry"? This is the only logical explanation I can fathom as to why this novel was so disappointing. The ending was bitterly abrupt, and did not integrate with the rest of the story. After the first few chapters I was checking to see if I'd picked up my Mum's copy of a Monica McInerney novel by mistake.

The detail contained in Part One could have (almost) been left out entirely. The appeal of the Time Travellers Wife was the way the plot threw you in from the first page, then flowed like a wild river. Her Fearful Symmetry gently trickled, in a predictable way, like a storm-water gutter, around seemingly boring subjects and characters. English people having tea at a cemetery simply doesn't have the same sex appeal as the rock and roll scene of New York in the 90's. Sorry Audrey.

3.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. – Customer review on 11/11/2009

Like other reviewers, I was disappointed by this book. It wasn't a particularly bad book, just ordinary. After The Time Traveller's Wife, I suppose a second book was always going to be a let down. In short, a nice, forgetable story.

3.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. – Customer review on 29/10/2009

I loved "The Time Travellers Wife" and looked forward to another Audrey Niffenegger novel.

Whilst the premise sounds great, it really doesn't deliver. It was obvious what the ending was going to be and there were a number of very obvious 'holes' in the story line.

In total, I was disappointed.

1.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. – Customer review on 30/03/2010

very boring, poorly constructed, complete waste of time, and paper. you're better off re-reading the time travellers wife.

3.0 out of 5 based on 6 reviews. – Customer review on 05/02/2010

Slow to start (50 pages in and nothing has happened) but overall not a bad read.

It's about mirror image twins Julia and Valentina Poole who inherit their aunt Elspeth's flat in London. So they find themselves in a new city with an eccentric neighbour upstairs (Martin who suffers from OCD) and unbknownst to them at first their aunt's lover Robert Fanshaw downstairs.