Her
A Novel
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2.9 • 112 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
You don't remember her -- but she remembers you.
Two different women; two different worlds. On the face of it, Emma and Nina have very little in common. Isolated and exhausted by early motherhood, Emma finds her confidence is fading fast. Nina is sophisticated and assured, a successful artist who seems to have it all under control. And yet, when the two women meet, they are irresistibly drawn to each other. As the friendship develops, as Emma gratefully invites Nina into her life, it emerges that someone is playing games-and the stakes could not be higher.
What, exactly, does Nina see in Emma? What does she want? And how far will she go in pursuit of it?
A gripping novel about friendship and identity, about the wild hopes and worst fears of parenthood, about the small and easily forgotten moments that come to define a life, Her is unputdownable-compelling and hauntingly discomfiting.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Her is a creepy stalker story involving two London women whose childhoods had intersected for a fleeting moment. Harried stay-at-home mother Emma first meets chic artist Nina when the elegant older woman returns her lost wallet. From there, the women’s paths keep crossing and a somewhat formal friendship develops. Author Harriet Lane—whose unsettling Alys, Always featured another dangerously complicated female protagonist—elegantly sustains the goosebumps until the story’s shocking end.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lane follows her debut, Alys, Always, with a gracefully written psychological thriller about friendship wielded as a weapon. Affluent artist Nina Bremner glimpses a lovely but disheveled pregnant woman shopping with a toddler one day and experiences a shock of recognition. She once knew Emma Nash and her hatred for the other woman simmers, though it's not clear why. When Nina lifts Emma's wallet and pretends to have found it on the street, Emma does not recognize her. Alternating chapters in the women's viewpoints reveal the friendship Nina proffers like a fairy tale's gleaming, poisoned apple. Nina's acts of sabotage rifling through Emma's possessions, surreptitiously beckoning her son away when he strays from Emma's side in the park, taking and discarding the toy bunny he clings to go undetected until Nina offers Emma's family a vacation stay at Nina's father's opulent home. There she waits patiently to tear Emma's world apart. Woven through the details of the women's very different lives are suspenseful questions: how Emma has injured Nina, whether she will discover her frenemy's duplicity in time, and whether evil is created or inborn. Cannily, Lane leaves some of the answers ambiguous; like Nina herself, the novel is subtle, deliberate, chillingly effective, and hauntingly sad.
Customer Reviews
Her - love/hate
Love the author's writing style and beautiful prose!
Hated the "conflict" (which when finally revealed was ridiculous) and the ending which was as pointless as the conflict.
Boring, absurd, anticlimactic
First of all, I persisted through this boring tale because it was compared to Gone and Girl on a Train. I was sorely disappointed. Secondly, the supposed betrayal behind all of Nina’s vengefulness was absurd! Emma wasn’t even aware of the eyes she was attracting and most importantly, nothing even happened! Nina and Emma were only acquaintances over a 1-2 week period one summer. And don’t get me started on the end. The way it ended didn’t leave me wanting more; I was just glad it was over. It ended with a huge belly flop
Horrible Book! I want my money back!!!
First off, I had to give this jumble of nothing 1 star because I was unable to post review without it. If I could give negative stars, I would!
So reading this book was a TOTAL waste of my TIME and MONEY. Refund please!!! I ended up skimming through some of the paragraphs because it was just useless information, on top of that, the useless information was often REPEATED by the other character! I kept on waiting to find out what the revenge was all about and it was the stupidest thing ever because NOTHING HAPPENED!! The character even says that nothing happened...so how do you write a book on revenge about nothing?
Don't waste your time or money.