Her is the story of Emma and Nina, Nina remembers Emma, but Emma doesn’t remember Nina. When their lives come together once again after years of being apart, Nina intends on causing chaos in to Emma’s seemingly perfect life. But in the end, will Emma remember the chaos she caused on Nina’s?
Title: Her
Author: Harriet Lane
Genre: Psychological Thriller, Thriller, Contemporary
Publisher: W&N
Publication Date: 1st January 2015
Pages: 256 pages
Summery : Two women; two different worlds.
Emma is a struggling mother who has put everything on hold.
Nina is sophisticated and independent – entirely in control.
When the pair meet, Nina generously draws Emma into her life. But this isn’t the first time the women’s paths have crossed. Nina remembers Emma and she remembers what Emma did.
But what exactly does Nina want from her?
And how far will she go in pursuit of it?
A few years back this book seemed to have a lot of hype around it. It remember seeing it almost everywhere. When I found a copy pretty cheap and read the synopsis I was completely hooked. It was one of those books that only sat on my shelf for a week or two because I really could not wait to get started with it. It’s a shame that the story really disappointed me.
First of all, the actual characters in this novel were incredibly written. Harriet Lane gave a true sense of these women and the kinds of lives they lead. Emma and Nina could not be more different, complete opposites and that really came through in the writing of them. That was probably the one part of this novel that I enjoyed the most. The side characters such as Nina’s daughter and Emma’s husband were included enough in the story for you to have a true sense of them. It worked pretty well.
But as for the actual storyline and set up/pay off, it did not work at all for me. The premise suggests that Emma has done something awful to Nina in the past, making Nina act somewhat insane towards Emma. However I didn’t feel like there were enough clues during the story as to what happened, how the rest of the novel will build up, and also, how does Emma not recognise Nina for the whole two years they were friends at an older age? There were just so many unanswered questions that I struggled to keep up, or even be bothered reading to the end.
The ending itself was plain and simply confusion. It didn’t make much sense, and when we finally got a pay-off for the amount of information was give, I was left thinking “was that it?” and the story just seemed completely pointless. As a thriller novel, it didn’t work. I was never thrilled.
The last thing that really did wind me up about this novel was the disjointed point of view writing. I enjoy novels that have numerous points of view, especially crime/thrillers. However this just didn’t seem to work very well. It’s told from Nina and Emma’s points of view throughout, however each chapter was an overlap. Whereas it was interesting to see one situation from both points of view, it often became boring and dull to read having read the same scene for 30 pages.
So overall, the story was average, writing was just above average and the pay-off from all the extensive describing was less than pleasing. It was a pretty disappointing book, and I don’t usually think that about a novel. Maybe I hyped it up too much.
The Little Contemporary Corner 