I have just finished “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger, and have to say it is a great novel!
It starts off with a death, and then the aftermath of this event. We meet the strange but normal world of twins: the young pair Julia and Valentina, and their mum and her dead twin. Julia and Valentina’s lives are transformed when they inherit their unknown dead aunt’s flat in London, and they move from America to live a new life in England, away from their parents.
We see a power struggle between the girls, both wanting different things, but not wanting to leave the other…. but Valentina starts pulling away. They meet two interesting men in London, one lives above their flat, the other lives below. The kind man whom Julia befriends suffers from OCD and never leaves his flat. Julia is a positive influence on him and changes his restricted life forever. Valentina falls for her aunt’s dead lover living downstairs, and this relationship changes everybody’s lives forever.
The story has ghostly elements to it, and a great revelation and twist in the story. It starts out quite sadly with the aunt’s death, then grows lighter with all the possibilities the twin’s new life in London shows them. There is the constant presence of death in the novel, especially with the cemetery next door to the flats.
The story gets rather dark, mysterious and a little morbid towards the end, but i won’t spoil the ending for you, its really fascinating!
The relationships between the characters are really well written, and particularly that of the twins, which is fascinating in itself.
I really recommend this book, as it’s just beautifully written and has such a gripping storyline. It got into my head and haunted me until i’d finished it, and afterwards too! It makes you consider how far people will go for love, and wonder about life after death for both the dead and the living.
I give it 9/10 because i just loved it. I will definitely read this again, and i recommend it highly!
A World of Randomness 
Great review, Emma 🙂 I’ve been wanting to read this book, even though I wasn’t a fan of the book The Time Traveller’s Wife, I loved the film. I saw a video about this book where Niffenegger was talking about the research she put into writing the book and visiting the cemetery (which is somewhere in England but I’ve forgotten where haha) and it sounded really interesting. I’ll definitely make sure to read this book over summer 🙂
Its really good, you should deffo read it! I havent read The Time Traveller’s Wife yet, but its on my list!