By Audrey Niffenegger.
I don't think I've ever had a experience of reading a book quite like this. I went through the following stages while reading it:
- Hm, this is starting kinda slow...
- Hm, this is kinda sweet actually.
- I'm really getting into this.
- Uh...that doesn't sound good.
- Wait, what? No, seriously, THAT IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.
- Holy SHITFUCK, the TWIST. The REVELATION. The revelation on top of that!
- The...oh crap, you really went there. Oh my god.
- Oh dear god, the ending.
I haven't the faintest idea how to put this into a star system. The writing is good, the book starts out pretty good (even if I can't say I was madly in love with any of the characters), and then about halfway through the book the plot goes off the rails into hell.
Here's the plot, about as far as I can go without spoiling. I'll be putting tons and tons of spoiler information below the cut/with stars, and the first half of the book review is going to be a little more hinty than usual because you need to at least have a vague idea of what you are getting into before you read this.
Once upon a time, there were two English twins, Edie and Elspeth. Edie made off with Elspeth's fiance Jack and moved to America with him and had her own set of twin girls, Elspeth never talked to any of them even when she was dying. Now that she's just died of cancer, she left her flat and her millions (note: being a used book dealer makes you milions?) to the nieces she never met. There's a few rules: they can't inherit until they turn 21, they have to live there for a year before they can sell it, and Edie and Jack aren't allowed into the flat or anywhere near Elspeth's stuff. Okay, whatever.
Julia and Valentina turn 21 and move on into the flat, adopt a kitten (The Kitten of Death! No, really, that's what they call it), putter around London not doing much of anything, and develop feelings for their neighbors. The twins have dropped out of several colleges and never actually do much of anything. Julia is the dominant twin who likes to boss her sister around, but insists they must always be together. They're still virgins (and are frequently mistaken for teenagers due to their lack of maturity) because that would involve them doing something with some other guy and not each other at the same time. Valentina actually has some school and career goals/interests, but hasn't acted on them because of Julia insisting they do the same job together, whatever that is. Julia calls her "Mouse." Constantly.
Julia likes to hang out with Martin, a nice man with a whopping case of OCD. Martin's still in love with his wife Marijke and she still loves him, but after 25 years she's way burned out on the OCD and has moved back home to the Netherlands so she can do things like walk where she wants and have a cat. Then there's Robert, who was Elspeth's longtime boyfriend. He avoids the twins for awhile, but once he starts hanging out with them, he develops feelings for Valentina. Meanwhile, the ghost of Elspeth still haunts the apartment, trying to make herself known to her relatives and Robert. Eventually she figures out a method of communication with them all. Valentina is finally hitting her limit on dealing with Julia and just wants to split up already. And then she gets the worst fucking idea of all time as to how to do it--let's just say it's reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, EXCEPT EVEN WORSE*. And despite all signs saying "this is not a good idea," the plot goes to the place of Gothic crazy tragedy.
I don't think any of these characters are stupid idiots. However, the main female characters in this book make some FUCKING HORRENDOUS life decisions that you cannot believe that anyone would go along with, or encourage anyone else to do, or put up with. It's seriously brutal and nasty what these folks do to those they claim to love. That's really the most horrifying part of all, that anyone would think that what they did is a good idea and to go through with it.
I'm not sure what Martin and Marijke's story is doing in this book. It's sweet to watch Martin slowly recover from his OCD (with Julia's help), but one wonders what the heck their plot has to do with the rest of this because it's pretty tangential. As you go on, you figure out that the guy with whopping OCD is the sanest one in the book.
There are several tropes in this I must call your attention to:
Replacement Love Interest: So very, very much of this. Anyone else find it creepy that Robert now has a thing for his girlfriend's young relative? Uh, I sure do. They make it clear that Robert's in his late thirties and Elspeth was older around this point, but that really doesn't make it any less weird. Especially when the twins may be of legal age, but they don't really come off as that mature and it kind of seems a little bit illegal in feeling, if not in reality. Julia gets her own similar replacement goldfish situation toward the end that is similarly freaking weird***. And then there's the part where we are dealing with a book about twins and ghosts...and it gets EVEN WEIRDER.
Also, anyone want to explain to me why two hot 21-year-olds who roam all over London can't find any friends or hot boys their own age to hang out with and pursue? They really can't find anyone else to associate with other than their older male neighbors?
Idle Rich: Seriously, does anyone work here? Robert has tons of money and mostly just diddles about the local cemetery and works on his thesis. Nobody's bothering Julia and Valentina to go back to college (and stick to one this time) and get jobs and a life, clearly. Ironically, Martin, the agoraphobic OCD guy, is the one who actually does work.
Idiot Plot (both averted and played straight): Early-ish on in the book, after Martin tells Julia that part of his disease is that he doesn't want to get help, Julia plucks out her eyebrows and goes to a doctor to get herself a prescription for OCD meds, which she then gives to Martin claiming they are vitamins. Martin is not an idiot, he's taken those drugs before, plus he can read what's on the pills. But he takes them anyway-- hey, whatever works to get him to take the medication. It's a sweet moment, but to me it foreshadowed a much worse revelation in the novel, in which you find out that someone has been aware of a truly fucked up situation.** I cannot comprehend why that person would go along with this situation. Not to mention the whole Juliet plot. For Niffenegger's proving that people are not as easy to snow as her characters seem to think they are, it's all the more horrible that they would agree to be snowed like this and not like, SAY ANYTHING. What the hell?
It also wraps up rather quickly. I guess this is the author's attempt at having Happy Endings for the more uh, deserving characters, but it's a little too fast. Much as I'm pleased to see Martin's improvements, it's a little fast-forwardy. Julia's status at the end of the book is even more so and really improbable given how the character was set up.*** It's just all VERY AGGRAVATING.
Look, it's an interesting story. The writing is done well. For a book that doesn't have a whole lot of swinging plot for the first half of it, I stayed interested in reading it. The Martin story is sweet. If you are into literary, depressing, or Gothic books, this is probably right up your alley. I won't be pitching it against the wall for utter suckitude. But the sheer amount of stupid (and mean) decisions made in this will make you want to slam your head against a wall. I am putting it down as a three star book (recommended with reservations) because despite the stupid decision making it's still somehow done well. But yeah, the second half of the book is freaking infuriating and really, I should be giving this a 2 or something. I can't really explain why I am not.
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* One day Elspeth is playing with the Kitten in a ghostly sort of way and accidentally snags the Kitten's soul out of her body. Elspeth manages to put it back real quick and the Kitten is fine (for now...), but it gives Valentina the HORRIFIC idea that if Elspeth will just yank Valentina's soul out of her body, Valentina can be dead for SEVERAL DAYS and get buried and everything, and then Robert can fish back her body and Elspeth can put Valentina back into it and Valentina can like, sneak off and away from Julia forever.
Seriously, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS FOR AN IDEA? This is easier than telling Julia to go screw and walk out? Making Julia miserable forever because you're dead? Not to mention the part where this plan requires your dead body to be on ice for days and nobody notices (isn't it convenient that you live near a cemetery where your boyfriend has connections) that, and IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE for you to go back into your dead body after several days? I HIGHLY DOUBT IT. And after Elspeth tries the same trick on the poor Kitten again, except this time the Kitten actually dies for good, Valentina STILL WANTS TO DO IT. And Elspeth and Robert GO ALONG WITH IT because they are all "Uh, she must be suicidal, this is a better option than that." Um, what? Also, what kind of an asshole are you to do this to your fucking twin? Even if she's smothery and clingy, she didn't deserve that.
Words cannot express the sheer idiocy of this idea, or of those who went along with it. Especially since it doesn't work...Valentina's soul won't go back in (or not, can't say for sure exactly) and Elspeth decides to take over the body instead. And she comes back to life and wants to get laid.... And Robert is extremely disturbed by the whole thing, but Elspeth-in-Valentina got pregnant and... Oh dear god. So fucked up. Plus Valentina, who wanted to get away from Julia, is now stuck haunting the apartment. Oh, irony, bitch-slapping you in the face there.
** The big Twin Secret with Elspeth and Edie is that they were basically swapping back and forth with Jack for years. (When one of them didn't even LIKE him.) One of them marries him, the other gets pregnant by him and is the one that goes back to America with him. When the twins are 14 months old, the older twins SWITCH BACK and the original fiancee-twin lives out her life with Jack and the kids, while the other ends up preferring the single life. They never have contact again because they're afraid Jack will figure it out if he sees them together. EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE WE FIND OUT THAT JACK KNEW THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME ABOUT THE TWIN SWAPPING. From the BEGINNING. He lived with whatever twin for 20 years and didn't say a fucking thing for all of that time, especially about 1.5 years in when another twin came home. (In another moment of "Men aren't THAT stupid," Jack even says that it was freaking obvious which twin had birthed babies and which hadn't!) Seriously, if you KNOW this shit, WHY ARE YOU GOING ALONG WITH IT? Why does it take you 20+ years to admit that you know which twin you ended up with? WHY WOULD ANY SANE PERSON BE PUTTING UP WITH THIS SHIT instead of being all, "Bitches are crazy" and walking out? This shit was going on even before the pregnancy! What the hell?
*** After repeatedly making moves on Martin and being rejected, his son Theo shows up at the end of the book and Julia goes for him. She's very specific about finding him attractive because he looks like his dad. When you've already made out with his dad? Kinda ew. And somehow getting interested in a boy magically gets Julia over the death of her dead twin? That quickly? Yeah, RIGHT. Julia as written would probably be suicidal or become agoraphobic so she can stay with Valentina in the flat. Instead she goes along with Valentina's idea to get free of the apartment so she can fly off and become a crow or something. (Also, for a girl who wanted a job, boyfriend, and kids, Valentina doesn't seem to even remotely ponder what she just gave up for this stupid fucking idea.)
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