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Breaking and Entering
In the midst of the hottest summer on record, a woman tests the increasing tension between our social contracts and our selves.
At 49, Beatrice Billings is rudderless. Her marriage is stale, her relationship with her son Thomas is limited to text messages—hostile haikus that he sends from university—and she is the primary caregiver for her mother, who is in the early stages of dementia. She has a complicated relationship with her older sister Ariel, with whom she carries on ongoing arguments in her head. Bea laments the loss of momentum she remembers feeling in her thirties, when she and everyone she knew was busy buying houses, having children, and renovating kitchens. Now she is reflecting on her life, worried about her inability to memorize a simple yoga sequence, and about the fact that she enjoys the idea of many things more than the actual things themselves (teaching, reading, sex). When Bea finds that she has both a talent and a passion for picking locks, the sense of anticipation that had been missing from her life returns. Breaking into other people’s houses is something she’s good at: she is a quick study, subtle, discreet, and never greedy. It's a dangerous hobby that makes her feel alive—and so she begins the guilty analysis of other people’s lives, and eventually, her own.
At 49, Beatrice Billings is rudderless. Her marriage is stale, her relationship with her son Thomas is limited to text messages—hostile haikus that he sends from university—and she is the primary caregiver for her mother, who is in the early stages of dementia. She has a complicated relationship with her older sister Ariel, with whom she carries on ongoing arguments in her head. Bea laments the loss of momentum she remembers feeling in her thirties, when she and everyone she knew was busy buying houses, having children, and renovating kitchens. Now she is reflecting on her life, worried about her inability to memorize a simple yoga sequence, and about the fact that she enjoys the idea of many things more than the actual things themselves (teaching, reading, sex). When Bea finds that she has both a talent and a passion for picking locks, the sense of anticipation that had been missing from her life returns. Breaking into other people’s houses is something she’s good at: she is a quick study, subtle, discreet, and never greedy. It's a dangerous hobby that makes her feel alive—and so she begins the guilty analysis of other people’s lives, and eventually, her own.
240 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 15, 2023
35 people are currently reading
571 people want to read
About the author
Don Gillmor
32 books36 followersAuthor and journalist Don Gillmor was born in Fort Frances, Ontario in 1959 and presently lives in Toronto, Ontario. Don possesses a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the University of Calgary. He has worked for publisher John Wiley & Sons, and has written for a number of magazines including Rolling Stone, GQ, Premiere, and Saturday Night.; where he was made a contributing editor in 1989.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
October 21, 2023
I read the synopsis for Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor on Libro.fm and thought it sounded interesting, so I decided to listen. I'm honestly still not sure how I feel about it and many times I wasn't quite sure what was going on. I thought maybe it was the writing, but I think the reality of the situation was that I just couldn't connect with the story. I think a lot of male authors do a great job writing a woman's viewpoint and I love that the author came up with this idea from conversations with women in his own life. Beatrice's lock-picking club was such an interesting aspect of the story and Gillmor weaves it into the storyline in a very unique way.
The audiobook itself was good, and I didn't really have any complaints about Karie Richards. I did find it strange that she pronounced asphalt like ash-fault, and it drove me crazy for a minute, but besides that, I enjoyed listening to her and thought she did a fine job with the narration. This would probably make a great pick for a book club, as Gillmor makes climate change and self-reflection large themes in the novel. I just think I didn't get to know Bea as well as I should have, and the pacing was just painfully slow, and the end felt a little lacking of any kind of closure. If you enjoy books that make you think though and don't mind the slow pacing, you might want to give Breaking and Entering a shot!
Thank you to the publisher and Libro.fm for my complimentary listening copy of this book. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
The audiobook itself was good, and I didn't really have any complaints about Karie Richards. I did find it strange that she pronounced asphalt like ash-fault, and it drove me crazy for a minute, but besides that, I enjoyed listening to her and thought she did a fine job with the narration. This would probably make a great pick for a book club, as Gillmor makes climate change and self-reflection large themes in the novel. I just think I didn't get to know Bea as well as I should have, and the pacing was just painfully slow, and the end felt a little lacking of any kind of closure. If you enjoy books that make you think though and don't mind the slow pacing, you might want to give Breaking and Entering a shot!
Thank you to the publisher and Libro.fm for my complimentary listening copy of this book. All opinions and thoughts are my own.
September 8, 2023
As her 50th birthday approaches, Beatrice, a Toronto woman, undergoes a number of slow-boil existential crises: her beloved mother is succumbing to dementia; her husband of almost 30 years may be having an affair; her son, her only child, has left for university in Montreal; and her older sister constantly nags from Chicago about what a bad job she’s doing of taking care of their mother. All of this unfolds against the background of the hottest summer on record, which frays everyone’s nerves to the breaking point. Bea googles “escape” and stumbles across a nearby group of amateur lock-pickers, discovers she has a talent for it and develops the rather alarming habit of letting herself into the homes of strangers just to poke around. An intelligent and offbeat look at a midlife crisis set against the burgeoning climate crisis.
October 11, 2023
On stall at about twenty five percent. Wanting to sit back with a caffeinated beverage and spend some time with lately, but I've been busy. I'm partial to day reading and well that can get complicated as other things. Also I've read a lot recently. It's good, although shite occurs in books and it's still too early to tell.
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I'm at about 25 percent still. I think this may be a slow read, so I can have a break, too. I've been reading a lot lately. Without adding it to a list. It's good; I'm reading paper. I can't read on Kindle as I prefer book holding. The book is about a con, and climate change during a hot summer a woman who just turned 50 feels shitty. The AC cover is a bit of paradox. Canada is in a heat wave right now. October 2nd.
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I'm at about 25 percent still. I think this may be a slow read, so I can have a break, too. I've been reading a lot lately. Without adding it to a list. It's good; I'm reading paper. I can't read on Kindle as I prefer book holding. The book is about a con, and climate change during a hot summer a woman who just turned 50 feels shitty. The AC cover is a bit of paradox. Canada is in a heat wave right now. October 2nd.
September 11, 2023
I had this book on my TBR for a while so when I finally picked it up I started reading immediately.
Maybe twenty pages into it, I suddenly thought "this book was written by a man" and the character of Beatrice fell apart for me. She felt like a man's idea of a woman at that age.
Maybe twenty pages into it, I suddenly thought "this book was written by a man" and the character of Beatrice fell apart for me. She felt like a man's idea of a woman at that age.
May 1, 2024
I was so excited to read this book but I’m very disappointed. The book is such a drag to read and I found myself force feeding chapters just so I can finally return it back to the library. Also, why is there no quotation marks????😭
February 2, 2024
Longlisted for the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize US & Canada
It isn’t a crime, Sang. Just a hobby.
On an otherwise impressive list of genre-defying and innovative novels, this is an oddly conventional inclusion.
The story, set in a Canadian city, is narrated by Bea, about to turn 50, with a son struggling at university in Montreal, a marriage that is increasingly loveless as well as sexless, her mother, suffering from mild dementia, in an assisted living facility., and her friends largely going through their own mid-life crises.
And so much could go wrong. It was odd that at the age of forty-nine Bea was just beginning to understand that. That life was a long parade of unintended consequences. There was a moment in her thirties when she and her friends all seemed to be moving toward a fixed point. There was a linear quality to everyone’s lives; they bought houses, had children, renovated kitchens. But that sense of momentum had vanished. Her world now looked like the birth of the universe, random upheavals, black holes that sucked in the light, a loosely structured chaos that might produce anything.
...
In the wake of her second glass of wine (limit of three, and only at dinner parties, and only because it was a necessity, something a doctor might prescribe) she forgave them all. Forgave Philip his intellectual bullying and family money, forgave Katherine her prescribed magazine life, forgave Penelope her clenched, tentative engagement with the world, hiding behind the outgoing bulk of her husband. She forgave Roger his enviable and undeserved ease in the world, and forgave her husband though she wasn’t sure what she was forgiving him for.
There is also a background to the story of extreme climate change - the city, like her life, increasingly uninhabitable - which feels a little bolted-on.
This was how it started: Sitting in her gallery in deadly June, staring at the sun-bleached desert of west Toronto thinking about how claustrophobic her life had become, how she and Sang had wandered into different parts of the forest, how her son had vanished, how her mother was a sweet, broken harbinger of her own future, how she had somehow slipped into a modern coma that so many people were in, a hazy limbo with undefined borders and lingering ennui, and how all this was being played out in an end-of-days climate that increasingly resembled an Old Testament Hell, Bea googled “escape.”
Her googling leads her to the world of lock-picking which in turn leads her to a new hobby - breaking it to the houses of people who catch her attention to get an insight into their lives and hidden secrets.
But, quirky details of lock-picking aside, this is a relatively conventional tale of turning 50, and one where the author’s (via the narrator’s) insight seems more penetrating on the male characters, including her husband Sang, than herself. From the acknowledgements:
I don’t in fact know any middle-aged women who break into houses, but Beatrice Billings is informed by countless conversations with women friends over the years. I am grateful for their friendship and their insights.
The publisher
Biblioasis is a literary press based in Windsor, Ontario, committed to publishing the best poetry, fiction and non-fiction in beautifully crafted editions.
It isn’t a crime, Sang. Just a hobby.
On an otherwise impressive list of genre-defying and innovative novels, this is an oddly conventional inclusion.
The story, set in a Canadian city, is narrated by Bea, about to turn 50, with a son struggling at university in Montreal, a marriage that is increasingly loveless as well as sexless, her mother, suffering from mild dementia, in an assisted living facility., and her friends largely going through their own mid-life crises.
And so much could go wrong. It was odd that at the age of forty-nine Bea was just beginning to understand that. That life was a long parade of unintended consequences. There was a moment in her thirties when she and her friends all seemed to be moving toward a fixed point. There was a linear quality to everyone’s lives; they bought houses, had children, renovated kitchens. But that sense of momentum had vanished. Her world now looked like the birth of the universe, random upheavals, black holes that sucked in the light, a loosely structured chaos that might produce anything.
...
In the wake of her second glass of wine (limit of three, and only at dinner parties, and only because it was a necessity, something a doctor might prescribe) she forgave them all. Forgave Philip his intellectual bullying and family money, forgave Katherine her prescribed magazine life, forgave Penelope her clenched, tentative engagement with the world, hiding behind the outgoing bulk of her husband. She forgave Roger his enviable and undeserved ease in the world, and forgave her husband though she wasn’t sure what she was forgiving him for.
There is also a background to the story of extreme climate change - the city, like her life, increasingly uninhabitable - which feels a little bolted-on.
This was how it started: Sitting in her gallery in deadly June, staring at the sun-bleached desert of west Toronto thinking about how claustrophobic her life had become, how she and Sang had wandered into different parts of the forest, how her son had vanished, how her mother was a sweet, broken harbinger of her own future, how she had somehow slipped into a modern coma that so many people were in, a hazy limbo with undefined borders and lingering ennui, and how all this was being played out in an end-of-days climate that increasingly resembled an Old Testament Hell, Bea googled “escape.”
Her googling leads her to the world of lock-picking which in turn leads her to a new hobby - breaking it to the houses of people who catch her attention to get an insight into their lives and hidden secrets.
But, quirky details of lock-picking aside, this is a relatively conventional tale of turning 50, and one where the author’s (via the narrator’s) insight seems more penetrating on the male characters, including her husband Sang, than herself. From the acknowledgements:
I don’t in fact know any middle-aged women who break into houses, but Beatrice Billings is informed by countless conversations with women friends over the years. I am grateful for their friendship and their insights.
The publisher
Biblioasis is a literary press based in Windsor, Ontario, committed to publishing the best poetry, fiction and non-fiction in beautifully crafted editions.
Read
December 4, 2024If you want to be depressed and hopeless about humanity, read this book. I really hope these vacuous people aren't our future, but I think we might be... Well written, but depressing. I wanted to kick every character in the pants and tell them to stop whining and do something good for others or themselves. Maybe that was the point of the book. :)
August 5, 2023
Surprisingly racist???
Via libro.fm ALC influencer program
Via libro.fm ALC influencer program
December 31, 2023
Heartbreaking, tender, and often very funny, a slice of one woman's life during a brutally hot summer in Toronto. Bea, 49, an art dealer is married to a history professor, with a son in college whom she no longer knows, with an aging mother whose dementia is worsening, with a sister who loves to boss from 500 miles away in Chicago, with friends who are divorcing, with aging upon her, tries to find some sense of control. I so enjoyed it despite the harrowing look of how we live now.
August 21, 2023
A perfect summer read based in Toronto, mostly during an oppressive heatwave. About family, love and how one woman’s relationships have changed and morphed around her over the years, without her really noticing.
I enjoyed this book and will be thinking about it for a long time!
I enjoyed this book and will be thinking about it for a long time!
December 2, 2023
Did not finish, the character was too complaining and it was hard to care
May 12, 2024
1/5 (2/10)
I picked this book up at random when I was at the library because the premise seemed interesting: a woman has a midlife crisis and starts breaking into houses. Ok, fun. I am disappointed to announce that this book was horrible. There is some breaking and entering, but this book somehow makes breaking into houses boring since Bea doesn’t even do anything while in the houses (except steal a dress once), and the whole thing just feels pathetic. This book is way too pessimistic to the point where it makes you feel like shit while reading it. All of the middle-aged characters in this book hate everyone younger than them and also the world and it’s just the worst. Like, god, if I wanted to lose faith in humanity, I didn’t need to sit and read a book. Going off of this, there are consistently weird and tone deaf metaphors, including one where they relate a lost shirt to the Israel/Palestine conflict? I can’t make this up. Not to mention, there’s a really strange preoccupation with sex, like, at all times, which is ridiculous. Add in some weirdly racist comments that had absolutely NO need to be included, and you get a really shitty book. This book is essentially pointless, like, I don’t think that I accomplished anything at all from sitting and reading the whole thing. It’s pretty confusing at the start, too, to the point where I was convinced that Bea lived in BOSTON for the first roughly hundred pages and was super confused as to why they were listing temperatures in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit (this book actually takes place in Toronto, which is NOT clear). This book also inexplicably takes place in 2015 for no reason. This is only discernible by the fact that they only mention 2015 releases when Bea and Sang go to the movies. In addition to this, the two films they want to see, Room and Sicario, a) came out a month apart from each other (Sicario released in early October, with Room releasing in early November) and b) when they’re discussing these movies, it’s supposed to be May/June of the year (2015, presumably) so WHY would these movies be in theaters before they were even released? This might sound like nitpicking, but if you’re going to explicitly name movies like that, and the entire timeline of your book can be thwarted by a simple google search of movie release dates, that’s a problem. It’s as if Don Gillmor (the author) just googled “popular 2015 films” and picked two at random.
Now that we’ve covered the issues with the general setting and overall vibe of the book, let’s dive in to the fact that I hated how this book was written. For starters, there are NO QUOTATION MARKS in this entire book, at all, which is INFURIATING. This, combined with the fact that speaker tags are often dropped, makes it, about 75% of the time, absolutely impossible to figure out who’s talking and when the dialogue starts and ends. It’s horrible. On top of that, this book over uses appositives and asyndeton to a ridiculous degree. Now, I’m not saying that these rhetorical devices are bad, I actually like them, but if you’re using them in every third sentence, it takes away all the cool rhythm they bring to a sentence and just makes it sound repetitive. In a similar vein, this book contains WAY too many sentence fragments (which is cool when it’s used SPARINGLY) to the point where I literally could not understand points of this book. Like, if you’re going to do that, at least make it coherent. Finally, and this is definitely a nitpick, but I don’t care, Gillmor somehow manages to misuse the word “chiaroscuro” which pissed me off.
Now, onto the character of Bea. She is, possibly, one of the WORST examples of a woman being written by a man I have ever seen. She feels like a shell of a person, and she is literally a horrible person, but it’s played off as “hahaha women are weird when they have a crisis.” Shut up. For starters, Bea is weirdly preoccupied with the assumption that people were on drugs (it happened randomly like, at least three times), and she is also weirdly focused and judgmental of random side characters’ tattoos that literally don’t even matter at all. It all feels very much “the world is being ruined and it’s all the youngster’s fault,” which is so fucking stupid. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for this book, but like, give me a break. Bea and Sang (her husband) have one of the most pathetic and annoying relationships I’ve ever seen in literature. The only real and actual moments of Bea’s and Sang’s relationship kept being ruined by the weird preoccupation Gillmor seems to have with their sex life. For example, one time, they had a good joke going about ordering weird things in a restaurant and then it was totally ruined by Bea saying “Seriously, if you eat it, I’ll blow you.” Uh….what? Bea also like delusional convinces herself that her husband is having an affair and sleeping with one of his students, and it ends up being true, but not with a student. She essentially makes her obsession with the fact that her husband is cheating on her her whole personality for a good half of the book and THEN SHE NONCHALANTLY STARTS CHEATING ON HIM ALSO?????? Like. She spends a GOOD 75 pages MINIMUM complaining about Sang and how he cheats on her and how their relationship is gone and blah blah blah only to GO AND DO THE SAME THING TO HIM!!!!! It’s infuriating. Sang and Bea together, also, are horrible parents. Remember what I said about the adults hating young people in this? Well, this is also the case, apparently, for their own 20 year old son. They are constantly worried about him, but they (especially Bea) resent him and say all of this negative stuff about how he’s not doing anything with his life and how he’s so distant and blah blah blah, like, shut UP! It’s not like either of you are saints. Here’s an actual quote from Bea about her own son “Those early years when he was helpless (as opposed to useless).” ??? Why the fuck would you think that about your own son?? Also, IT’S NOT EVEN A REAL SENTENCE. Oh my god. Finally, possible the most unoriginal aspect of them all, is the overdone, overused, mediocre casual alcoholism trope. If I had to pick something that Bea things about a lot (but less than sex), it would be wine. Like wow, you made your middle-aged female character drink wine literally all the time. How original. It also did basically nothing for the plot and was essentially useless and for the sake of stereotyping only.
This last bit will just cover specific moments that I had adverse reactions to, and absolutely despised. First up, there’s a line that lists a bunch of examples of things Ariel and Bea could argue about since they can “argue about anything”. Why ON EARTH was the first example “whose city had more lesbians”?? Why the FUCK would they be arguing about that???? It comes off as super weird, especially since the author (male) is writing this as if a woman is thinking about it. WEIRD. And in addition to the fact that almost all of the examples like this are just as weird, not good at all. Secondly, the Billings sisters’ (Bea and Ariel’s) proclivity for spelling complicated words correctly is called an “almost autistic ability”. Are you joking? Like, what would possess you to write that? Ugh. This review is long and angry, I know, and maybe I’m looking into it too deeply, but this book was so horrible that I kept a list of things I dislike so I could write this review. I literally only finished this book so I could write this scathing review because god, this book is awful. I will be more careful of the books I pick up at random form now on.
Breaking and Entering? More like Boring and Excruciating.
I picked this book up at random when I was at the library because the premise seemed interesting: a woman has a midlife crisis and starts breaking into houses. Ok, fun. I am disappointed to announce that this book was horrible. There is some breaking and entering, but this book somehow makes breaking into houses boring since Bea doesn’t even do anything while in the houses (except steal a dress once), and the whole thing just feels pathetic. This book is way too pessimistic to the point where it makes you feel like shit while reading it. All of the middle-aged characters in this book hate everyone younger than them and also the world and it’s just the worst. Like, god, if I wanted to lose faith in humanity, I didn’t need to sit and read a book. Going off of this, there are consistently weird and tone deaf metaphors, including one where they relate a lost shirt to the Israel/Palestine conflict? I can’t make this up. Not to mention, there’s a really strange preoccupation with sex, like, at all times, which is ridiculous. Add in some weirdly racist comments that had absolutely NO need to be included, and you get a really shitty book. This book is essentially pointless, like, I don’t think that I accomplished anything at all from sitting and reading the whole thing. It’s pretty confusing at the start, too, to the point where I was convinced that Bea lived in BOSTON for the first roughly hundred pages and was super confused as to why they were listing temperatures in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit (this book actually takes place in Toronto, which is NOT clear). This book also inexplicably takes place in 2015 for no reason. This is only discernible by the fact that they only mention 2015 releases when Bea and Sang go to the movies. In addition to this, the two films they want to see, Room and Sicario, a) came out a month apart from each other (Sicario released in early October, with Room releasing in early November) and b) when they’re discussing these movies, it’s supposed to be May/June of the year (2015, presumably) so WHY would these movies be in theaters before they were even released? This might sound like nitpicking, but if you’re going to explicitly name movies like that, and the entire timeline of your book can be thwarted by a simple google search of movie release dates, that’s a problem. It’s as if Don Gillmor (the author) just googled “popular 2015 films” and picked two at random.
Now that we’ve covered the issues with the general setting and overall vibe of the book, let’s dive in to the fact that I hated how this book was written. For starters, there are NO QUOTATION MARKS in this entire book, at all, which is INFURIATING. This, combined with the fact that speaker tags are often dropped, makes it, about 75% of the time, absolutely impossible to figure out who’s talking and when the dialogue starts and ends. It’s horrible. On top of that, this book over uses appositives and asyndeton to a ridiculous degree. Now, I’m not saying that these rhetorical devices are bad, I actually like them, but if you’re using them in every third sentence, it takes away all the cool rhythm they bring to a sentence and just makes it sound repetitive. In a similar vein, this book contains WAY too many sentence fragments (which is cool when it’s used SPARINGLY) to the point where I literally could not understand points of this book. Like, if you’re going to do that, at least make it coherent. Finally, and this is definitely a nitpick, but I don’t care, Gillmor somehow manages to misuse the word “chiaroscuro” which pissed me off.
Now, onto the character of Bea. She is, possibly, one of the WORST examples of a woman being written by a man I have ever seen. She feels like a shell of a person, and she is literally a horrible person, but it’s played off as “hahaha women are weird when they have a crisis.” Shut up. For starters, Bea is weirdly preoccupied with the assumption that people were on drugs (it happened randomly like, at least three times), and she is also weirdly focused and judgmental of random side characters’ tattoos that literally don’t even matter at all. It all feels very much “the world is being ruined and it’s all the youngster’s fault,” which is so fucking stupid. Maybe I’m just not the target audience for this book, but like, give me a break. Bea and Sang (her husband) have one of the most pathetic and annoying relationships I’ve ever seen in literature. The only real and actual moments of Bea’s and Sang’s relationship kept being ruined by the weird preoccupation Gillmor seems to have with their sex life. For example, one time, they had a good joke going about ordering weird things in a restaurant and then it was totally ruined by Bea saying “Seriously, if you eat it, I’ll blow you.” Uh….what? Bea also like delusional convinces herself that her husband is having an affair and sleeping with one of his students, and it ends up being true, but not with a student. She essentially makes her obsession with the fact that her husband is cheating on her her whole personality for a good half of the book and THEN SHE NONCHALANTLY STARTS CHEATING ON HIM ALSO?????? Like. She spends a GOOD 75 pages MINIMUM complaining about Sang and how he cheats on her and how their relationship is gone and blah blah blah only to GO AND DO THE SAME THING TO HIM!!!!! It’s infuriating. Sang and Bea together, also, are horrible parents. Remember what I said about the adults hating young people in this? Well, this is also the case, apparently, for their own 20 year old son. They are constantly worried about him, but they (especially Bea) resent him and say all of this negative stuff about how he’s not doing anything with his life and how he’s so distant and blah blah blah, like, shut UP! It’s not like either of you are saints. Here’s an actual quote from Bea about her own son “Those early years when he was helpless (as opposed to useless).” ??? Why the fuck would you think that about your own son?? Also, IT’S NOT EVEN A REAL SENTENCE. Oh my god. Finally, possible the most unoriginal aspect of them all, is the overdone, overused, mediocre casual alcoholism trope. If I had to pick something that Bea things about a lot (but less than sex), it would be wine. Like wow, you made your middle-aged female character drink wine literally all the time. How original. It also did basically nothing for the plot and was essentially useless and for the sake of stereotyping only.
This last bit will just cover specific moments that I had adverse reactions to, and absolutely despised. First up, there’s a line that lists a bunch of examples of things Ariel and Bea could argue about since they can “argue about anything”. Why ON EARTH was the first example “whose city had more lesbians”?? Why the FUCK would they be arguing about that???? It comes off as super weird, especially since the author (male) is writing this as if a woman is thinking about it. WEIRD. And in addition to the fact that almost all of the examples like this are just as weird, not good at all. Secondly, the Billings sisters’ (Bea and Ariel’s) proclivity for spelling complicated words correctly is called an “almost autistic ability”. Are you joking? Like, what would possess you to write that? Ugh. This review is long and angry, I know, and maybe I’m looking into it too deeply, but this book was so horrible that I kept a list of things I dislike so I could write this review. I literally only finished this book so I could write this scathing review because god, this book is awful. I will be more careful of the books I pick up at random form now on.
Breaking and Entering? More like Boring and Excruciating.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 12, 2024
When I started this book, I wasn’t sure what it was about. A plot based on picking locks seemed rather lame. At the start it’s all about locks & tumblers, sex & flings, and seemed to be going nowhere. As I continued in the book, I realized it was about a lot more than that, a lot more than breaking and entering.
It’s actually a very good book that is brought to life by the excellent narrator Katie Richards. This is an example of where the audiobook may actually be better than reading the book.
This is a book about how history makes us who we are and why sometimes you need to break in to see what is going on behind the obvious. It’s a book about life, about relationships that are built and fall apart, about parents who taught so much that shaped us and are now fading away.
It’s about infidelity and affairs, boredom and excitement, art and good coffee. At the end, you decide whether it was a good idea to pick locks or not.
It’s actually a very good book that is brought to life by the excellent narrator Katie Richards. This is an example of where the audiobook may actually be better than reading the book.
This is a book about how history makes us who we are and why sometimes you need to break in to see what is going on behind the obvious. It’s a book about life, about relationships that are built and fall apart, about parents who taught so much that shaped us and are now fading away.
It’s about infidelity and affairs, boredom and excitement, art and good coffee. At the end, you decide whether it was a good idea to pick locks or not.
April 8, 2024
This book was a slow burn for me. It took a few pages to catch me, but then I just loved it. A lot of women will relate to Bea (well, maybe not the lock picking) and understand this phase of her life all too well. It’s a really sympathetic book.
June 9, 2024
What was even the point of this book?
It was "too artistic" for me to appreciate.
There was absolutely nothing exciting about this story, and I dislike Bea Billings' boring life as much as she does 😑
It was "too artistic" for me to appreciate.
There was absolutely nothing exciting about this story, and I dislike Bea Billings' boring life as much as she does 😑
January 1, 2026
My shock when I have learned it was written by a man! The main character is so easy to feel for, and the novel got me feeling unsettled and hopeful all at the same time. Another bonus, it is set in the city I just moved to! Great read to end the year with.
September 19, 2024
I read this because it was longlisted for the US/Canada 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize. Perhaps because a few of my GR friends were a bit underwhelmed, I likely went in with lowered expectations.
I tend to expect a bit more in terms of experimentation or novelty when it comes to this prize (although I'm quickly learning that the original UK prize's mission seems much more focused on the experimental side of things in comparison). The only things sort of novel about this novel were: a male author writing a female main character; an older female character; and the premise, which is more quirky than avant-garde (main character deals with midlife crisis by breaking into people's houses). Setting aside expectations, I found this a rather entertaining read with a charming voice (sort of less snarkish Dorothy Parker feel---definite disdain for common humanity, but not quite mean in its delivery).
Gillmor convincingly pulls off the female character and does an interesting job of exploring aging and marriage. Fifty-year old Bea seems to be going through middle class mid-life crisis. She reflects on where she's been, bristles at the kind of dullness her relationship has sunk into, and stumbles upon lock-picking as a hobby. Her age and race cast a non-threatening presence (if not entirely unnoticeable), affording her the opportunity to test her new found skills on actual homes. These transgressions become a burst of fresh air compared to the suffocating everydayness of her life.
It's a book that asks how we live in today's world and how we react to disappointment and apathy. I enjoyed the strong voice and poignant scenes, but it didn't really seem to challenge or expand me as a reader in any way.
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STUFF I MIGHT HAVE LOOKED UP (OR SHOULD HAVE... )
Cotard’s Delusion | vernissages | avuncular | proterandrousness | crassulaceous
I tend to expect a bit more in terms of experimentation or novelty when it comes to this prize (although I'm quickly learning that the original UK prize's mission seems much more focused on the experimental side of things in comparison). The only things sort of novel about this novel were: a male author writing a female main character; an older female character; and the premise, which is more quirky than avant-garde (main character deals with midlife crisis by breaking into people's houses). Setting aside expectations, I found this a rather entertaining read with a charming voice (sort of less snarkish Dorothy Parker feel---definite disdain for common humanity, but not quite mean in its delivery).
"Everyone had trouble sleeping, another silent epidemic, like pornography or debt. But there was an even quieter epidemic, an epic numbing, everyone whittled by time and technology and unhappy commutes and weather that evoked an Old Testament God with too much time on His hands.
Gillmor convincingly pulls off the female character and does an interesting job of exploring aging and marriage. Fifty-year old Bea seems to be going through middle class mid-life crisis. She reflects on where she's been, bristles at the kind of dullness her relationship has sunk into, and stumbles upon lock-picking as a hobby. Her age and race cast a non-threatening presence (if not entirely unnoticeable), affording her the opportunity to test her new found skills on actual homes. These transgressions become a burst of fresh air compared to the suffocating everydayness of her life.
It's a book that asks how we live in today's world and how we react to disappointment and apathy. I enjoyed the strong voice and poignant scenes, but it didn't really seem to challenge or expand me as a reader in any way.
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STUFF I MIGHT HAVE LOOKED UP (OR SHOULD HAVE... )
Cotard’s Delusion | vernissages | avuncular | proterandrousness | crassulaceous
May 22, 2025
I had a lot of trouble finishing this book, which is rare for me. The premise was very interesting, but so many elements ruined it :
The characters are boring and unoriginal, and I can’t give a clearer example of a “woman written by a man” than the main character in this book. All the women are pictured as unhappy alcoholics who hate their husbands. There is literally no personality to any of them.
So many subplots are mixed in but NONE of them are resolved by the end of the book. I finished it in hopes of some kind of plot twist that just never came.
The writing is absoluterly delirius: there are so many “sentences” that don’t have any verbs, no quotation marks for dialogues, weird references to sex/racism every 2-3 sentence and the same “quirky” words repeated all the time (please count how often the author uses “perspiration” instead of sweat).
Very disappointing read which I could not recommend any less.
The characters are boring and unoriginal, and I can’t give a clearer example of a “woman written by a man” than the main character in this book. All the women are pictured as unhappy alcoholics who hate their husbands. There is literally no personality to any of them.
So many subplots are mixed in but NONE of them are resolved by the end of the book. I finished it in hopes of some kind of plot twist that just never came.
The writing is absoluterly delirius: there are so many “sentences” that don’t have any verbs, no quotation marks for dialogues, weird references to sex/racism every 2-3 sentence and the same “quirky” words repeated all the time (please count how often the author uses “perspiration” instead of sweat).
Very disappointing read which I could not recommend any less.
October 21, 2023
Well it is really well written. I periodically shouted to my partner, in another room, "hey, listen to this...." and read a paragraph out loud. However. The ennui that was this book was beyond the pale. I have read a few really stellar books this year and in comparison, well this wasn't. There were interesting contrivances like basically making the weather a character in itself. Climate change was a bit theme, but then what? None of the characters did anything with or about it. The friends from the beginning just petered out. Did Gillmor lose interest in them? So. I liked the settings in Toronto and Montreal, bringing me back to my own student days. I would not rush to another by Gillmor but let me know what you think.
March 26, 2024
I found this book so authentic to the inner voice of a middle to older age something. At times, it was both heart breaking and laugh out loud funny. I found the content so refreshing - different but familiar. The main character is a woman and I had to keep checking to see the gender of the author, because - wow - there was so much that I didn't expect a male author to be able to express! I really, really enjoyed this read.
May 28, 2024
It took me a moment to get into this book, partly because I couldn't relate to a lot of it. Bea is a woman in a stagnant marriage, whereas I am months away from getting married myself - so my outlook on love and romance and marriage is in a completely different place than Bea's. But this is a great slice-of-life book, really well written and engaging and interesting.
November 28, 2023
I cannot recommend this book. The storyline is boring and the characters are flat. A bored middle aged woman randomly breaks into a few homes to "look around" and that's it. Don't bother with this read.
March 24, 2024
i was primarily drawn to this by its premise (woman reaching her 50s watching her world deteriorate who starts breaking into homes to break up the monotony) but it really falls flat in the execution of this idea. a lot of half baked ideas that don’t really go anywhere meaningful
the main character bea is generally pretty introspective but not in a way that provides any sustenance. she’s aware of her flaws (and the flaws of those around her) but doesn’t dive into any way of solving them. i found this really frustrating which is what i think contributed to her “whiny” attitude
the novel opens a lot of threads that are interesting but go absolutely nowhere. there are subplots about her relationship with her friends, sister, husband, mother, and son and an unresolved subplot about a brother who died at a young age; all of which are pretty much left unresolved. i really didn’t understand the point of touching on all of these points and not having them interweave in any meaningful way
finally, the whole lock picking premise is not nearly as interesting as it seemed at first glance. bea doesn’t learn anything or progress as a character after each break in and we never really feel any stakes or risks of her getting caught when she goes into a house. i don’t know what the author was trying to say around this or what point he was trying to get across
i did really like the depiction of toronto and how canadian this novel feels. i will admit i’m a bit biased as a torontonian myself but media about the city has a soft spot in my heart
didn’t totally hate this but think the novel is flawed in a lot of ways. it’s relatively short but can’t really recommend as the premise leaves a lot to be desired
the main character bea is generally pretty introspective but not in a way that provides any sustenance. she’s aware of her flaws (and the flaws of those around her) but doesn’t dive into any way of solving them. i found this really frustrating which is what i think contributed to her “whiny” attitude
the novel opens a lot of threads that are interesting but go absolutely nowhere. there are subplots about her relationship with her friends, sister, husband, mother, and son and an unresolved subplot about a brother who died at a young age; all of which are pretty much left unresolved. i really didn’t understand the point of touching on all of these points and not having them interweave in any meaningful way
finally, the whole lock picking premise is not nearly as interesting as it seemed at first glance. bea doesn’t learn anything or progress as a character after each break in and we never really feel any stakes or risks of her getting caught when she goes into a house. i don’t know what the author was trying to say around this or what point he was trying to get across
i did really like the depiction of toronto and how canadian this novel feels. i will admit i’m a bit biased as a torontonian myself but media about the city has a soft spot in my heart
didn’t totally hate this but think the novel is flawed in a lot of ways. it’s relatively short but can’t really recommend as the premise leaves a lot to be desired
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2023
Offering a “slice of life” glimpse into Beatrice Billing’s life, Breaking and Entering poses to the reader the question of what happens when our lives become a shadow of what we once hoped and dreamed they’d be, only to leave us with a mere imprint of what was or could have been; a life, but one devoid of living.
Rating: 2.0
SPOILERS BELOW
Overall, Breaking and Entering—both in title and content—is intended to act as a metaphor for seeking interest and excitement outside of our everyday lives, and the incongruity that we feel when we access the thing that was different, unknown, and expected to create fulfillment but ends up being unfulfilling as the piece that sends us seeking, and which we continue to bring into these spaces, is our unfulfilled selves.
As such, instead of looking inwards to herself to find the answers she needs, Bea looks inwards to others lives—literally a figuratively—but continues to feel unfulfilled and flat because she is finding answers which are irrelevant to her. Doing so then creates the illusion of action when in fact she continues to operate from a place of stasis.
This is demonstrated time and time again by the actions she engages in beyond breaking and entering, but does so without the intention of changing their course; having an affair as Sang—her husband—also cheats on her, maintaining a surface level relationship with her sister and mother, etc.
Rating: 2.0
SPOILERS BELOW
Overall, Breaking and Entering—both in title and content—is intended to act as a metaphor for seeking interest and excitement outside of our everyday lives, and the incongruity that we feel when we access the thing that was different, unknown, and expected to create fulfillment but ends up being unfulfilling as the piece that sends us seeking, and which we continue to bring into these spaces, is our unfulfilled selves.
As such, instead of looking inwards to herself to find the answers she needs, Bea looks inwards to others lives—literally a figuratively—but continues to feel unfulfilled and flat because she is finding answers which are irrelevant to her. Doing so then creates the illusion of action when in fact she continues to operate from a place of stasis.
This is demonstrated time and time again by the actions she engages in beyond breaking and entering, but does so without the intention of changing their course; having an affair as Sang—her husband—also cheats on her, maintaining a surface level relationship with her sister and mother, etc.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 4, 2025
An interesting premise that didn’t come to anything. The story has a removed quality about it, as though the author couldn’t really imagine what this would be like, so he just presents a novacained version — the actions were correct, you could see it but not feel it, there is zero emotion. Also, there are far too many instances of people sweating to remind us that this takes place during a severe heatwave.
The audiobook, oh boy. I thought it was an AI-generated voice for the first two hours. Then I looked it up, and nope, it’s a real person. There’s something of the “uncanny valley” about it, peculiar intonation and the timing is just a touch off. Also, the sound quality was weird, like the microphone didn’t cover the entire range of human speech. A few weird pronunciations, but I’m willing to chalk that up maybe to a Canadian accent? E.g. “Ash-phalt” for “asphalt” — is this a thing? Also, there was one word that was flat-out the wrong word (sadly I deleted the bookmark by mistake, so I can’t tell you what it was, although it was 3-4 syllables and started with either an “a” or an “e” which is super helpful!) — not sure if it was an author error or reader error, but does no one ever proof-listen to audiobooks?
Anyway, between the too-accurate depiction of her average life, the anesthetized portrayal of potentially intriguing experiences, and the unpleasant listening experience, I can’t recommend this book.
The audiobook, oh boy. I thought it was an AI-generated voice for the first two hours. Then I looked it up, and nope, it’s a real person. There’s something of the “uncanny valley” about it, peculiar intonation and the timing is just a touch off. Also, the sound quality was weird, like the microphone didn’t cover the entire range of human speech. A few weird pronunciations, but I’m willing to chalk that up maybe to a Canadian accent? E.g. “Ash-phalt” for “asphalt” — is this a thing? Also, there was one word that was flat-out the wrong word (sadly I deleted the bookmark by mistake, so I can’t tell you what it was, although it was 3-4 syllables and started with either an “a” or an “e” which is super helpful!) — not sure if it was an author error or reader error, but does no one ever proof-listen to audiobooks?
Anyway, between the too-accurate depiction of her average life, the anesthetized portrayal of potentially intriguing experiences, and the unpleasant listening experience, I can’t recommend this book.
October 25, 2025
The prologue is clever, insightful, and beautifully written, and I thought I’d found a book I would be able to relate to. Unfortunately, just a few pages into the first chapter, it became clear that something was off with Bea’s voice. One look at the cover confirmed it—the author was a man. From there, the story lurched forward in fits and starts. There were moments when he demonstrated an almost uncanny ability to articulate thoughts I’ve had myself, but there were others when all I could think was, “No woman would say that.” Overall, the tone was so unmistakably masculine that it drained the book of its credibility. The sexual comments especially, and there was an abundance of them, could only have been written by a man. Don can certainly write, but I recommend that in the next book, he should stick to male narrators.
I also couldn’t tolerate the book’s unrelenting negativity. Thank goodness, I don’t live in a world where couples talk to each other so rudely, where adult children send profanity-laden texts to their parents, where friends insult each other at dinner parties. I especially disliked the way Bea talked to her mother, who deserved to be spoken to with patience and love. I wanted to tell her to smarten up and show some respect.
The last straw was the unabating use of profanity, which I’m guessing may not bother some other readers, but I find off-putting. I couldn’t bring myself to finish the book.
I also couldn’t tolerate the book’s unrelenting negativity. Thank goodness, I don’t live in a world where couples talk to each other so rudely, where adult children send profanity-laden texts to their parents, where friends insult each other at dinner parties. I especially disliked the way Bea talked to her mother, who deserved to be spoken to with patience and love. I wanted to tell her to smarten up and show some respect.
The last straw was the unabating use of profanity, which I’m guessing may not bother some other readers, but I find off-putting. I couldn’t bring myself to finish the book.
January 22, 2024
First of all, I'm an absolute easy target for books that are set in a place I've lived, and I'm a Toronto girl from generations of a Toronto family. So that was a win with the Hogtown location of this story. The book resontated with me and yet I've struggled to express my thoughts succintly and went to my trusted source for reviews of books (and decades of solid recommendations) and that was my Toronto-based (yet national focus) newspaper, The Globe and Mail. And in a review of Breaking and Entering by Don Moscrop, I found thoughts that matched mine and of course he expressed it so well: he wrote in his review "Breaking and Entering is a fitting book for the moment in which we are living, staring down a housing crisis, a health-care crisis, a climate crisis, an affordability crisis, and, no doubt, a crisis or two of our own personal variety. Reading it won’t make you want to emulate Bea, taking up lock picking and breaking into homes. At least, it shouldn’t. But it will strike a chord. It will connect you in one way or another, to one character or another. And it may even bring into focus your own struggles, perhaps in a constructive way – a way that makes you want to do the life work that so many in this novel don’t. No lock picks required." My review would be the same, and I'm off to read other books written by Don Gillmor.
April 8, 2024
Beatrice Billings who is on the cusp of turning 50 and doesn’t quite know what she’s doing with her life. She lives in Toronto and it’s one of the hottest summers on record. She daydreams about all the milestones from her past : buying a house and getting married and having a child and now she’s bored and on the brink of divorce and sweating a lot because it’s flipping hot out. She wonders what other people’s lives are like. So what’s a girl to do but learn how pick locks and break into people’s homes in order to see how other people live. What can she glean about their lives from their interiority and the things they possess. This is a quick read, it’s definitely a deep dive into one character’s psychology, if you like those sorts of books, which I do…actually now that I think about it, I feel like reading as an experience is like breaking into someone else’s home. We’re voyeurs in their lives and in characters’ heads. So maybe this is really a book about what it means to be a reader. I have to ponder this a little more.
July 22, 2024
Somehow…while reading this book, I was struck by how much it reminded me of Indians On Vacation. It might be the writing style. So similar.
On the story front…it’s fascinating how much Art Imitates Life. We think we’d be better off knowing all there is to discover. Only to discover, sometimes, we wish we had known less. Here’s Bea, feeling completely disconnected from her life…searching for meaning, looking to see the secrets others conceal. Only to discover that her own life is filled with secrets. And those secrets are no different than those of the lives of the peoples’s homes she’s invading. The story does not end happily. So, if you like happy endings, this is not a story for you. However, if you’re drawn to stories that, in a way, mirror many realities…this book will give you something to walk away with.
Or maybe that’s just me.
On the story front…it’s fascinating how much Art Imitates Life. We think we’d be better off knowing all there is to discover. Only to discover, sometimes, we wish we had known less. Here’s Bea, feeling completely disconnected from her life…searching for meaning, looking to see the secrets others conceal. Only to discover that her own life is filled with secrets. And those secrets are no different than those of the lives of the peoples’s homes she’s invading. The story does not end happily. So, if you like happy endings, this is not a story for you. However, if you’re drawn to stories that, in a way, mirror many realities…this book will give you something to walk away with.
Or maybe that’s just me.
August 18, 2025
Not exactly sure when I read this book, but I’m sure the dates I’ve listed are close. I hesitate to say that I identify with the story, but I kinda do. The shitty family relationships and the neighbours Christmas tree being thrown off the porch and then ignited sound vaguely familiar. No fire here, but certainly a similar level of rage. It’s been a while since I read it, but do recall looking at the author’s photo a number of times, wondering what kind of a man could so accurately depict a midlife woman’s crazy obsessions. Maybe time to read it again. Hope I haven’t loaned it and lost it. This kind of story gives me hope. Everyone is fucked up. (comme moi). You just have to scratch the surface!
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