Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

I really loved the originality of The Time Traveller’s Wife and Niffenegger is trying to replicate something of that here – but it’s a ghost story and while I could accept the time traveller thing, I was less willing to suspend disbelief for this one. I really didn’t like any of the characters much, nor did I find them plausible. The story is about twins whose aunt, the twin of their mother, dies and leaves them her flat in London. And of course she haunts the flat. The twin thing continues with a lot of grief about dependence and jealousy, and when a love affair with the dead aunt’s boyfriend begins, then all sorts of difficulties ensue. The blurb says it’s a book about ‘love, loss, identity’ and perhaps so, but there are so many little hitches in this book – the character of the aunt, the logistics of the action, I don’t know, so many things – that for me the whole thing just didn’t work. Some reviewers have described it as ‘bewitching’ and if you want to explore the fantasy of ghosts and death being only the beginning of another phase of existence, maybe. Very quick easy reading – on a plane perhaps – but not as good as her time traveller tale. 3 stars