This book defies genre and logic in so many ways. I was under the spell of 1980's music references, the mysterious location we're never entirely sure about, and the cult-like community we enter.
Billie Jean Fontaine hasn't left her home in almost three months. She abruptly walks out without shoes or a coat on a freezing evening and takes off in the family truck. The community begins to whisper about her absence and though she arrived 17 years ago and became a part of the 'territory', she has remained the outsider.
Billie Jean's story unfolds for us through three surprising narrators. Her dramatic and often heartbreaking tale is woven into the electric atmosphere of the mysterious territory that is described with vague details that left me with so many questions! From the 1980s pop culture references to the bizarre traditions of the community, I was never sure what was truth and what was fantasy. A sci-fi drama/mystery/dystopia that I can only compare to an alternate reality version of My So-Called Life if it had taken place in a cult-like compound in the wilderness in the mid 80's and was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Heartbreaker crosses so many genres but never fits comfortably into one.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This book was well written and very fun to read. The characters were great and I enjoyed the world building. The author does a great job at introducing the characters and moving the plot along. There were a few things that I didn't like, but it wasn't enough to really sway me one way or the other. It's definitely a story that I can get lost in and both feel for the characters. It is definitely a go-to novel that I highly recommend to anyone who loves a great read. Definitely a highly recommended read that I think everyone will enjoy.

How often have you wanted to simply run away from your life? Heartbreaker deals with the story of Billie Jean, who suddenly appeared in “the territory”, and then disappears without a trace 15 years later. This novel was written in three parts, as told by three of the characters: Billie Jean’s daughter, Pony; Billie Jean’s dog, Gena Rowlands; and Supernatural, a teenage boy in “the territory.” From what we can gather, the town was founded by a religious zealot and has been stuck in the 1980s since. No one ever leaves the boundaries of the territory, and there is no contact, essentially, with the outside world.

I loved the writing in this book. Great writing can overcome many things, and Claudia Dey certainly achieves that. Frustrating me was the fact that I truly had no idea where this territory was. I knew it had to be someplace north, but north where? The territory has television, telephones, cars and fuel, but how? Some of the mysteries of this story are never explained, and perhaps to some that is charming, but for me it left a lot of unanswered questions. Perhaps part of the charm of this book is not knowing all the answers.

Even with the unanswered questions, I did enjoy this book. The story was interesting, that in this day and age a group of people could be so isolated in a place like North America. The characters were written in a way that truly allowed a visualization of their looks, and a depth that made them whole. Pony is a teenage girl, going through her own awakening and teenage strife, that reminded me of my own teenage years. Supernatural is a boy/man looking for answers in a world that doesn’t really have any. Billie Jean is clearly damaged, but why? Dey’s writing keeps the pages turning so that you can find the answers.

This is not a love story, though parts of it are. This is not really a thriller, though there are revelations and mysteries to the story. This is a story about running away and starting your life over again, when you simply cannot face things that have happened in your past.

At the end of this book, I found myself wanting more. I wanted to keep turning the pages and learning more about these people. That is evidence of a good story. I think Dey has a winner here, and in reading this book, I am going to read some of her previous work. If it is quirky and unusual like this book, I am sure to enjoy it.

'This was the smell my mother was giving off now in our front hallway- an unfinished space, an open body cavity, an open grave.'

A cult trapped in the 1980s makes for one strangely unique read. Told in three parts by Girl, Dog and Boy, what does it say about me that I devoured the chapters told in the dog’s voice? Well, I did. When not scavenging through discarded junk or trying to be hot like that ‘girl in the Whitesnake video’ our narrator Pony is trying to understand what happened to her mother who has disappeared. Living on a tract of land called ‘the territory’ that the Leader and his followers landed on, we are told that Pony’s mother ended up their seventeen years ago, always an outsider, after a car accident. Her father, ‘the Heavy’ a solid, tragically scarred man doesn’t understand his beautiful mysterious wife, Billie Jean (not likely her real name) and the others never fully trust her. Isolated from the rest of the world, how far could her mother have gone?

In truth, her mother had been folding in on herself for months, tormented by some inner turmoil and not noticing that Pony too is facing her own emotional ‘storms’ coming of age, the only virgin ripe for the sons. Her father is already set apart from the other men, a mystery. Supernatural is the only boy Pony finds interesting, because of his intelligence not because he is the best looking, he seems nothing like the other boys who think only of sex. Supernatural has everyone in his thrall, simply for being touched by perfection, light, even if he doesn’t feel that way. The relationship between Pony and her mother wasn’t always strained, they shared a separate life for themselves through swimming but Billie Jean’s past before the territory remains shrouded in mystery, prevents a deeper bond between mother and daughter. A life Billie Jean only wants to forget, erase. Was it all about disappearing, just what is out there, beyond the territory? What was she escaping?

What about the dog, what does dog know? Why was it speaking to her mother and her mother to it? “She was always in motion. Always between things. Talking to herself.” All Pony wants is for her mother, the mother both she and her father remember, to surface.

Dog knows a lot of things, shares an intimacy with Billie Jean beyond any human relationship, even if daughter Pony has been the one tracking her mother. Pony, the only child dog can tolerate because, dog tells us ‘Children are manipulators, hysterics, vaudevillians.’ This pet, whom we do not name because in the territory only people get named, is closest to Billie Jean in the three months she hid away in her bedroom. Dog is wise and witty, loyal. Dog tells us how the territory began, who John (the leader) was and how he escaped Suburbia only to recreate it. It is with deep pleasure Dog has a name, a name bestowed upon by Billie Jean. Dog knows her sorrows and her history, all the secrets of her tragic past.

But what does Boy know? How is he involved? Maybe the territory has secrets of its own, maybe boy’s secret is the biggest. Just who is the Heartbreaker? This novel is an original to be sure, the people are weird, of all the decades for a cult to cling to this leant humor to a moving, sad tale. There is satisfaction in uncovering what led Billie Jean to remain in the territory all those years ago and her choices, mistakes then and now are easy to relate to. Mother as mystery, how many daughters look at their mother’s just this way? How many daughters will themselves be mysteries to their own children one day? Billie Jean wants escape, but instead takes great risks that leave her far more vulnerable, create bigger secrets and deceptions that pull others in and leaves a hell of a mess in her wake.

Publication Date: August 21, 2018

Random House

The dystopian setting for this novel was fascinating, and it left me wanting more. Overall, the story stood out in its accounts of a woman struggling to find herself through her assimilation to a remote territory where teenagers blood is mined and sold to provide for the community. Although the premise was intriguing and the writing was eloquent, I struggled at times to stay invested in the plot with the narrative jumping in a stream of consciousness style with incomplete thoughts.

What a strange, interesting book!

Can a novel be vaporwave? If so, this one totally is. From the 80's TV and music to the sunglasses at night to the constant mentions of weird, off-brand stores located in town--at some points I felt like I was watching a Max Headroom video! And all the little bits of worldbuilding within the town were so unique, from the funerary customs to the nicknames given to the boys.

The narrative voice was also unlike anything I'd read before. You get three POVs--Pony, the dog, and someone else I don't want to say. The dog's part was by far my favorite, though I liked the others as well. Dey somehow managed to create an animal character who was sympathetic and relatable, but still VERY much an animal; some of the funniest bits were in this section. How do you even come up with a dog's voice? (I asked myself this question a lot as I was reading: "How did she even come up with that?")

The novel hinges around a mystery, and the timeline jumps around a lot. As you read you begin to piece together the whole story, which involves nearly everyone in town. Some may have trouble getting into the book at first--because you're thrown in the middle of all this without much context--but things become much clearer about 20% in.

The one thing I wasn't super into was the way the book ended. Without spoiling anything, the solution seemed rather pat. I also wondered how on earth a few of the particularly complicated relationships were going to progress given they were at odds with one another. I hope there will be a sequel, because although none of my questions from the main story went unanswered, the ending opened up a whole other can of worms. Additionally, I'd like to get back into Pony's head a second time and find out how she felt about the way the events transpired.

I would definitely recommend this book to others; the originality of the author's world is enough reason on its own to give it a shot, and the writing is phenomenal. I'll be picking up more of Claudia Dey's books as well.