(I've found out this was originally published as a serial in digital format only, called the Positron series. Wish I knew about that! I'd love to compare and see what was tweaked with those versions and this final print option.)
The Heart Goes Last follows Stan and Charmaine in a sort of pseudo Mad Max world minus the flaming guitar and Master Blaster. Basically, the world has experienced some sort of crazy economical collapse and it's all just gone to shit. People are scraping by, unemployed, thieving, and, like S and C, living in their cars.
What do you do when you have nothing left to do? Find a way out. For Stan and Charmaine, this comes through the Positron Project. Positron is a prison, located in the town of Consilience, and they offer a glimpse of a hopeful future reminiscence of the past. Like-- the 1950s past. At least on the service.
One month in, one month out, each citizen of Consilience does their time in Positron, sharing their outside home with their 'alternates', i.e. those folks who are in while they are out. Charmaine gets tangled up with Max (not his real name), Stan's alternate. Like, within the sheets (or actually, wherever they can manage to do it) sort of tangled.
Things are not what they seem on the surface of this idyllic solution. Honestly, the solution totally sounds kind of fucked up, but something is better than nothing when you are in dire straits, right? Maybe not.
SO.. Charmaine. This girl, my goodness. Timid, pushing down her past traumas, mousy and overly optimistic, I can't tell if I feel for her or want to smash her head in with a rock. But getting confused and not feeling entirely comfortable with the flow of the book and the characters is kind of what this book seems to be about.
Stan is gruff, short-tempered and feels like a failure. There is a vestige of happiness, once, some sort of life they planned on leading before life became what it is for them today. It's there, just below the surface of these two. The twin cities of Positron and Consilience bring out the characters' inner strengths and turmoils, and this unauthentic, fake place makes them both more real people.
Twists and turns abound, and what you THINK is going to be the main focus and trouble of this book takes an entirely different, way more sinister direction. Babies blood, prostibots, 'procedures', a mention of chicken fucking and lots of actual fucking. Blue knitted teddy bears and big Ed, wow.
I don't want to spoil this for anyone, but I SO want to spoil it for everyone because I really want to talk about it. But I won't. I'll say this though. Go and read this when it comes out. If you are a fan of Atwood (duh), pick it up. If strange dystopian futures and/or relationship stories are appealing to you, pick this up. If you want to read something and then sit there and analyze yourself, love, life and what truly makes someone happy, pick this up. I get the strangeness, the sex (oh my), the simplistic attitude of C. and deceptiveness of so many of the other characters in the novel may make it off-putting for some, but I like to not be entirely comfortable, I like dwelling when the book is done, not feeling 100% certain of what you just read or what just happy. Which is probably why I enjoy movies like Funny Games. Maybe not for everyone, but I think you all should give it a chance.
Thanks, k, bye.
(*this ARC was received free via Shelf Awareness.)
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