Rating:  ☆☆☆☆

Recommended by:  Boulder Librarian

Author:   Harriet Lane

Genre:  Fiction, Thriller, Suspense, Mystery

272 pages, published January 6, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Emma and Nina, the two main characters in Her, appear to have very little in common.  As a relatively new mother, Emma is isolated and exhausted.  She has mixed emotions about leaving her job, her marriage is strained and her self-confidence is on the decline.  Nina, who is sophisticated, generous, and effortlessly in control stands in stark contrast.  When the two women strike up an unexpected relationship, something seems a bit off.   We soon learn that there is more to Nina then meets the eye and a dangerous game of cat and mouse develops.  

Quotes

“Emma is the engine of this home, the person who propels it forward, keeps everyone fed and clothed and healthy and happy—and yet she’s entirely alone within it, and getting lonelier with every item ticked off her checklist. This is what it comes down to: the flat-out invisible drudgery of family maintenance, the vanishing of personality as everyone else’s accrues.”

 

“Over time, I’ve come to see that so much of a personality boils down to confidence: whether you have it, or not.”

 

“I once heard someone on the radio saying that a bee is never more than forty minutes away from starving to death, and this fact has stayed with me because it seems to have a certain personal resonance. My children are in a perpetual proximity to catastrophe: concussion, dehydration, drowning or sunstroke. Keeping them safe requires constant vigilance.”

 

“I turn my back and look out to sea, the sun so low and molten that my eyes fill with tears, and yet I can feel it: a cooler wind is coming in, the edge of evening approaching. Dusk is gathering along the coast, in the coves and quaysides and marinas, where in an hour or so the long strings of coloured bulbs will twinkle and sway; and then it will pass over us-like a visitation: a plague or a blessing….”  

 

“I found the final plot twist unsatisfying, as plot twists often are: nothing like life, which – it seems to me – turns less on shocks or theatrics than on the small quiet moments, misunderstandings, or disappointments, the things that it’s easy to overlook.”

 

“I’m already someone else, but the person I turn into at these low points is someone I never imagined I could be a few years ago: someone with a hot knot of fury where her heart used to be.”

My Take

There are several things that I really liked about Her.  First of all, it’s a page turner.  Lane infuses the story with a something is not quite right creepiness that makes you want to learn more.  Secondly, I really liked Lane’s writing style.  She is a pleasure to read.  Finally, the set pieces of London and the French countryside are two places that I love and Lane does a great job capturing these locales.  Highly recommended and an especially good vacation book.