How to Repair a Mechanical Heart

This book was such a cataclysmic experience for me-it was like two of my favorite worlds combined and then combusted and blew apart. “How to Repair A Mechanical Heart” is a short and sweet YA novel from author J.C. Lillis who apparently has written other novels although I haven’t heard from her before.

I could tell that this was one of those novels where the author took the whole ploy of “write what you know” to the extreme and while sometimes it came across as cheeky and charming other times it just came across as indulgent and ridiculous. 

    But let’s jump in. 

    The novel features primarily our main character Brandon who is going through a repressed-gay-awakening and suffering though crushing amouts of Catholic guilt (same bro, same), crippling self-doubt, and regular bouts of self-loathing and criticism from said Jesus-filled upbringing.

Despite all this, surprisingly, Lillis manages to keep a pretty upbeat, light, and humorous tone, which to some extent is appreciated when discussing all these particularly heavy topics, but also shaves off the gravity of the situations the characters are facing and the depth of the characters themselves. 

    Brandon finds himself on a six week road trip around the US with his best friend Bec and his would-be-crush Abel as they travel the continental midwest for Castaway Planet conventions, the made up fandom that both Abel and Brandon are obsessed with.

The book features at length discussion on fandom culture, including but not limited to merch, action figures, fan vlogs, fangirls, twitter beefs, and fanfiction. Holy Hell, the fanfiction. About ⅓ of this book was about fanfiction and fanfiction culture and norms. 

    Now, I’d like to intercede here to say that I. LOVE. FANFICTION. Honestly, it gives me life. I write it, I read it, I adore it. I have loved fanfiction since I was twelve years old and to this day there are still fanfictions that are dearer and nearer to my heart than actual novels.

That being said, I didn’t really enjoy it here in the novel? I thought I would like it, but Lillis makes fandom and fanfiction culture simplified and almost petty and I didn’t always groove with her portrayal of it. Now, this might very well be her own personal experience with her own fandoms, but it’s not mine and it rubbed me the wrong way even if I can recognize that.

The clash between the fanfiction world and the real world in the novel often collided so much that the line was blurred between what I was reading really being a novel or if it was a glorified fanfiction. Or both. Or consequently neither. 

    And while the love story between Abel and Brandon is cute, it’s just...not anything else? It’s cute and Abel is witty, but them as characters and their story as a whole is highly forgettable.

There wasn’t much about this book, other than the blatant cross-over of the fanfiction trope, that was stunning or memorable to me. And Bec, Jesus (oh, no Father Mike must be condemning me!), the super OC, super bland, could-be-the-poster-girl for Corn Flakes, was about the most useless character I’ve ever seen. I think Lillis used her just to have someone be able to film Abel and Brandon because she had very little to offer in terms of character, personality, or plot. 

    This is one of those books, that while enjoyable in the moment, fades with pleasure as time goes on, like chewing on a piece of Juicy Fruit, it’s sweet and satisfying for a hot second and then turns bland and boring and you spit it out. And while that may seem harsh for “How to Repair A Mechanical Heart” it’s unfortunately true.

I did like the double entendre that the fanfiction Brandon was reading and then consequently finished was also called by the same name-how clever!-again, it just shows the distortion between whether Lillis was writing fanfiction about OC characters that nobody cared about, or about a novel that didn’t quite get the depth or maturity it needed to flourish. 

Recommendation: If you are absolutely starving for some LGBTQ+ fiction and have scrounged up dry then I suppose you can read this. Or if you really get a kick out of seeing your secret fanfiction world come to life in another fictional world than this will really get your socks off. But in general, not the greatest love story, deepest characters, or best writing that I’ve seen, although some of her metaphors were quite funny and well put. 

Score: 6/10