Reviews with content warning for Torture - In the Dream House

I have not felt this immersed in a book in a long time. This book broke me down and taught me so much at the same time. I felt like I was there with the author because of the intimate use of second person POV. The intense and honest details of the relationship were terrifying to read, knowing that this is biographical. I don’t have the right words to describe what this book made me feel, but I think that it’s one everyone should read because it’s life changing.

𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
• I’ve already raved about this author’s writing but I’m obsessed with her writing!! I was mesmerized by the vivid imagery and the creative and unique metaphors. I could try to describe how good the writing is but I don’t think I would do it justice. And I loved the second person POV and how it addresses the reader.

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬
“How do we do right by the wronged people of the past without physical evidence of their suffering?”

• A lot of this book centers around domestic abuse, psychological abuse, and abuse in queer relationships. It talks about how so many people aren’t believed when they speak out about their trauma because it isn’t physical or visible.

• I went into this expecting a story about an abusive relationship, but it was so much more. There’s a lot about queer history, queer characters, stereotypes, and much, much more. I felt like I learned a lot from this. It immensely changed the way I view so many different things from abusive relationships, to heteronormative relationships, to villains, and a lot of other things I never thought about.

𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭
• This book has the most genius format ever. The author was able to capture how abusive relationships are a never ending cycle through the format of this book and it’s one of the most creative things I’ve ever seen.

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rieviolet's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

3.5

This book deals with an extremely important topic that needs to be voiced and discussed. That said, as a piece of work itself, I liked it so-so.

I did not get along with the narrative structure, I found the rapid-fire succession of chapters (supposed to show different genres and narrative styles) too much disjointed and confusing. The writing style is a bit too much experimental for me.

I liked much more the chapters that were "essay-like", exploring queer history and theory. However, I think that this mixing of informative chapters together with more literary and elaborately written ones was a bit jarring, it felt like two different books mashed up.

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toffishay's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

What an amazing, powerful, interesting, and informative read. The formatting of this book pulls you in, with each "chapter" representing the story of this relationship from a different literary genre or device. I read this book so quickly and you are pulling in with every word. It is certainly emotional and I teared up more than once. This is a memoir about domestic abuse, so I would certainly look up trigger warnings. But, I find this to have been such a valuable and engaging reading experience that I absolutely have to recommend.

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salt_'s review

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challenging emotional reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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sweetmusic22's review

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dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

5.0

I thought this was an amazingly beautiful and tough book. It destroyed this narrative that all queer relationships weren't abusive. This is a rare story for me because I never knew that domestic abuse can happen in same sex relationships. In The Dream House was just so powerful and poetically beautiful.

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