The Unsympathetic and the Dead

Her Fearful Symmetry presents the reader with a pantheon of prisoners. Two sets of twins, all of them imprisoned by their relationships to and with each other. Imprisoned by secrets, lies, and mistakes from the past. Ghosts, imprisoned by the artificial limits placed on their ghostly forms- trapped inside the flat in which they lived as humans. A man, imprisoned by grief and later, guilt. Another man imprisoned by OCD and agrophobia in his flat - and further imprisoned by the OCD in a complex web of ritual and abasement. A wife, imprisoned emotionally by her husband's illness, even though she has escaped physically. And all the corpses rotting away in Highgate Cemetery, imprisoned in their graves, tombs and coffins.

And me. Imprisoned by a poor purchasing decision prompted by the wonderfulness of Niffenegger's previous book, and forced to read this shallow, nasty, poorly paced tale.

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