The book was very interesting. The storyline is very strange. The characters are very odd and confusing. Everything was weird

Following a long-standing feud and looking to settle the score, a woman decides to dismantle her home - alone and by hand - and move it across a frozen pond during a harsh New England winter in this mesmerizing debut. Home is certainly not where Del's heart is. After a local scandal led to her parents' divorce and the rest of her family turned their backs on her, Del left her small town and cut off contact. Now, with both of her parents gone, a chance has arrived for Del to retaliate

Her uncle wants the one thing Del inherited: the family home. Instead of handing the place over, and with no other resources at her disposal, Del decides she will tear the place apart herself - piece by piece. But Del will soon discover, the task stirs up more than just old memories as relatives-each in their own state of unravelling - come knocking on her door.
This spare, strange, magical book is a story not only about the powerlessness and hurt that run through a family but also about the moments when brokenness can offer us the rare chance to start again.

I spent much of yesterday afternoon in the attic searching for Christmas decorations and our tree, but inevitably raving through boxes unearthed an awful lot of history. As usual I found myself poring over my old high school yearbook, reminiscing on other lives such as the time I spent in Milton Keynes with my late husband, and having that strange bittersweet feeling. It’s smiling about memories of the past but also a pang of sadness because it’s so long ago and there was the realisation that I’ve now spent more years without him than with him. When I return to Milton Keynes that feeling of nostalgia is even stronger and I even get the feeling I might bump into him, having a coffee and living a life that carried on without me. It’s these feelings we have when we return to a place that has huge significance in our lives and for Del that’s her home town and the family home she’s now inherited. Fate seems to be laughing at her though, because she’s never wanted to return to the small town in Maine where she grew up but she has nowhere else to go. Her friend and room mate Tym would like his boyfriend to move in and since Del has been sacked she can’t pay the rent anyway. Her uncle wants to buy the house and develop the plot, but with no other choice Del finds herself on a bus back to a place she’d left behind long ago and holds some of the worst memories of her life.

After dreading the house for a long time, Del is surprised. Although it’s in a terrible state of repair, the house is conjuring up some good memories too. All relate way back, to the time before the scandal that forced her parent’s divorce. She’s surprised to find that she’s loathe to give the house up, even though she’s desperate for the money. Her uncle has inherited a lot of land around the house, but the house itself was the only thing her mother inherited from Del’s grandparents. Then an idea presents itself, what if she sells the site but keeps the house?

To me, Del’s idea feels like an act of protest at first. However, as time goes on, I can see that the physical exertion seems to illicit a change in Del. I loved her grit and determination in taking the house apart, especially during the Maine winter. Her family can’t believe that she will succeed, fully expecting her to abandon the project and disappear again. Del surprises them all, but she also surprises herself. The house is almost a metaphor for the wall Del has built up to cope with mental anguish. With clients I always equate our ‘selves’ as wall built up of bricks, each one represents something about our development or experience. Here and there, are bricks that represent a trauma and they are often unstable. If we continue to build on top of that trauma without dealing with it, the foundations of the wall will be unstable. It’s only by dismantling the wall, brick by brick, that we can go back to the trauma and process the pain. Then the wall can continue on a strong base that will last. Del’s dismantling of her family home is the equivalent of therapy. Each brick represents a memory and Del needs to make peace with each one before she can move on.

I really enjoyed Del as a character. She’s beautifully written and is a bit of a ‘hedgehog’ person - covered in prickles, not to hurt others but to protect herself. She’s not great at sharing her feelings, with Tym being her only friend she’s effectively isolated herself. I really enjoyed Tym, who is a wonderful friend to Del despite his own sadness and tragedy. I thought the author depicted the physical and mental struggle that comes with working on ourselves really well. It’s wonderful to watch as Del puts down these huge burdens she’s been carrying and sloughs off those prickles and extra skins she’s used as a defence. I loved how more people started to form relationships with Del as she becomes more approachable and open. Her determination to move the house and move on in her emotional life touches other people. This is a quiet book, but don’t mistake that as a criticism. I love quiet books that follow the pace of life, that takes us into the heart of real life and how we make human connections. What I loved more than anything, after the reality of hard psychological graft, were the little glimmers of hope. It made me think of a couple of my favourite lines of poetry.

‘Hope is a thing with feathers, that perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all’.
Emily Dickinson.

Sadly I really struggled with this book. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for a review.

Housebreaking by Colleen Hubbard is about a long-standing family feud, an inheritance and an attempt to settle old scores.

I’m sorry to say that I struggled to finish this book. I couldn't relate to the characters and was not drawn into the story in the first few chapters. I like to get hooked into the storyline quickly or I lose interest. I wasn’t sure where the story was going and nothing happened to hold my interest and make me feel I wanted to keep reading.

Housebreaking sees Colleen Hubbard’s main protagonist hit on a novel way to prevent the family she detests from taking possession of the house she’s inherited from her mother, long regarded as a renegade for marrying her father.

Unemployed and about to be homeless, twenty-four-year-old Del is offered a deal by her property developer uncle who wants to demolish the family farmhouse. It seems the obvious solution but she finds herself reluctant to agree so easily. Instead, she negotiates a six-month delay in which she will disassemble and move the house, wreaking as much damage on her uncle’s construction company as possible, camping out in the house with no electricity or phone. Meanwhile, the town is all agog, many cheering her on. Six months later, better off than when she arrived, she leaves with a new friend to say goodbye to an old one.

Del's an engaging character who proves very much more resourceful than you might expect when the novel opens, battling on at what is essentially a pointless, seemingly insurmountable task. The supporting cast of characters is well done – I particularly like the five-times divorced Eleanor and the jaded waitress who keeps tabs on Del’s progress, two of the surprising alliances she makes. By the end of the novel, she’s no longer a rootless young woman, seemingly unable to kickstart her life. An easy, enjoyable read with an eye-catching premise, it would make an excellent Netflix movie

2.5 stars


I failed to connect with this story, struggling to visualise the work in progress, the motivation, the characters way of behaving.
There were some moments of humour that helped, but it fell into a predictable plot.
Yet it kept me going to the end, so there's clearly something about it I liked.
Del's single minded determination maybe