Recommended Reading: Her Fearful Symmetry

As soon as I read the NYT book review of Audrey Niffenegger’s new novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, I was planning my trip to Borders to pick up my copy (30 percent off right now). 

Before all you The Time Traveler’s Wife haters start hmmphing and questioning my taste, hold it.

While there are some elements to Her Fearful Symmetry that, like TTW, might have you haters rolling your eyes—no, there aren’t any time traveling librarians in this one, but yes, there are ghosts—this is a fast-paced read with clever plot twists. So give it a chance.

Not to mention the characters: Elspeth, the ghost, who becomes jealous when her boyfriend Robert starts falling for…her niece Valentina, one of the twin sisters who has inherited her flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery; Martin, the brilliant, crossword puzzle setting upstairs neighbor…who suffers from such crippling OCD that he can’t leave his flat; Julia, Valentina’s twin, who insists she and her sister keep dressing in matching clothes…did I mention they’re 21-year-old virgins?

The Time Traveler's Wife!

Finally! The movie adaptation of The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger is coming out on August 14. I first read the book when I was studying in London in 2005, and me and my friends there passed this around and gushed about our love for it. Why so much love? It's a great love story and science fiction all in one, it's clever, it's largely set in Chicago...it is just all around goodness.

And to make it all even better, the casting could not be more dead on. Rachel McAdams plays Clare, and Eric Bana is Henry--as if Henry wasn't already my dream man in the book, now he's in the form of Eric Bana?! Yum. And Ron Livingston is playing Gomez? Love. It.

I could do without the uber-cheesy running into each other's arms in the meadow bit, but aside from that, the preview leads me to believe that they've managed to adapt this with a limited gag factor. Let's hope that's the case.




I can't wait! In the meantime, if you haven't read the book, come over and borrow my copy. I actually reread it earlier this year, so all I have to do is wait.

Oh, Henry and Clare!