Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger

I read this book with great anticipation, The Time Traveller's Wife being on my list of TOP 5 favorite books. And it let me down.

There is no denying that Niffenegger is an amazing writer. She tells a story beautifully. Like The Time Traveller's Wife, the plot is preposterous. But she so eloquently asks you to suspend your disbelief that you don't mind doing so. The plot was fascinating and I had no trouble reading this book quickly. But I was left unsettled and unsatisfied. And there was just no falling in love with these characters, like Henry and Claire in The Time Traveller's Wife. Probably because it was hard to believe their love for each other.

There was an overload of romance: Robert and his lost Elspeth, Robert and Valentina, Valentina and Julia, Julia and Martin, Martin and Marijke, Edie and Jack, Elspeth and Jack, Julia and Theo as a p.s., blah, blah, blah. There was no need to intertwine these characters to this degree. I think I could have gone for some more ghoulish vengeance rather than all of the ambiguous romantic emotion. The ending called for some good revenge rather than the sort of riding off into the sunset thing that happened with one of the characters.

I did love Martin as a character. His OCD was so charming. And I did fully believe the love between him and his wife - him "taking her out to dinner" over the phone was lovely.

SPOLIERS AHEAD: I am going to try to talk in vague terms to have this be a very mild spoiler, but stop reading if you want to be on the safe side.

The Edie, Elspeth, Jack triangle was a BORE. And confusing. The original Elspeth tried playing both parts to bait him, but he knew and rebuffed her. But she thinks he didn't rebuff her? Because he started to play along. And then he had sex at a party with the original Edie? But he doesn't think he ever bedded the original Edie? So, did he think the woman at the party was a stranger altogether, or did he actually get twin confused and think it was his Elspeth he'd been with? And if he didn't think he'd gotten original Edie pregnant, and knew they'd pulled a switch and sent pregnant Edie along to America, why'd he go along? Did he know they'd eventually switch back? He couldn't have, so he must have been OK with switching gals after all. So, he says to himself, my insecure girlfriend has been playing tricks on me, trying to trap me, I think I'll play along, make her think I like the other one, then I'll take the other pregnant one to America with me, and when she's done nursing whoever's spawn those kids are, I won't say anything if they switch back. What?!?

My biggest problem with this book was Robert's failure to heed his own warning. He knew his Elspeth could be cruel and calculating. He gave the warning to not trust her. And then went right along with very feeble convincing. And after things went badly, he did nothing to try to reverse it all. I can think of a couple of ways they could have reversed it.

A lawyer's note: Julia does not get to stay in the flat. The flat reverts to the second named beneficiary because she did not honor the condition of not having her parents there. Yes, they said that the ban seemed inappropriate at that time, but there were no loopholes in the will. The triggering event happened, so, sorry Julia, you're out.