Do Not Read This Book

My book club just read “Her Fearful Symmetry” by Audrey Niffenegger.

I hated it and will, forthwith, enumerate the reasons why.

Number one: Third person omniscient point-of-view sucks anyway, and Niffeneggar executed it particularly badly in this novel, sometimes writing from different characters’ perspectives in the same paragraph.

Number two: Only one of the characters was remotely likable and had a compelling arc. That was Martin, the upstairs neighbor who suffered from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. As you might have guessed, the upstairs neighbor was not one of the main characters. All the main characters were needy, whiny, pathetic, and/or generally uninteresting.

Number three: The author put all the characters’ thoughts in italics…and there were a lot of them. Here’s a sample: “Martin stood holding the letter. The worst thing has happened. He could not take it in.  She’s gone. She would not come back.”

Take out italics; a little shift in tense…Presto change-o! Tell me it’s not better thus: “Martin stood holding the letter. The worst thing had happened. He could not take it in. She was gone. She would not come back.”

Number four: The “twist” was predictable. It had been done better and, more importantly, twenty-five years ago in a Young Adult novel I read called Stranger with My Face by Lois Duncan.

Number five: The denouement was wholly unsatisfying. I’m thinking she was under deadline and wrote the last 30 pages in 30 minutes. “OK, this one has a baby, the guy leaves her, so-and-so gets a boyfriend, and what’s-her-name finds a crow to fly away on. Done! Whew!”

I could give you more reasons why I hated this book, but I hope that gives you enough to go on.

Thanks for asking.