Housebreaking

LoveReading Says

Simmering with caustic one-liners and searing observations, Colleen Hubbard’s Housebreaking debut is a read-in-one-sitting triumph. Laying bare the worst and best of humanity — small town small-mindedness, family greed, forming fresh bonds, and finding a way to rebuild — its depth creeps up to leave a formidable impression.

Del is something of a drifter, a lost soul without purpose, and now she has no job, and no place to live. As a result, Del decides to return to her New England hometown to claim her deceased parents’ house, a house her Uncle Chuck and cousins want knock down for development.

In the words of her mother’s old friend, 74-year-old Eleanor, “I know what your mother would say to old Chuckie Small Balls…She’d tell him to fuck himself.” Which is exactly what Del does, in her own way. She agrees to sell the land, but it won’t be transferred for them to develop until she’s dismantled her house and moved it across a frozen pond.

As Del disassembles the house, an unlikely bunch of allies assemble around her. Memories are unearthed, truths are revealed, and a new connection is made in a town packed with people who’ve let her down, culminating in a glowing sense that it might be possible to break the pain of the past and move on. 

This novel is cleverly magical — it’ll make you laugh out loud while breaking, melting and mending your heart.

Reviewed by Joanne Owen
Joanne Owen’s lifelong love of reading and writing began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, and very much wished that witches (and Mrs Pepperpot) were real.
More reviews by Joanne Owen

About Housebreaking

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.

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