Reviews tagging 'Car accident'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

18 reviews

angievansprang's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Wow. This book was written in such a unique short-snippet style that I have not seen before in a memoir. Machado is a masterful wordsmith, even when telling a devastating tale. Parts of this book resonated with me a lot, I think I will need to sit with it more before making a truly complete review.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

thebigemmt505's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

Clarity is an intoxicating drug, and you spend almost two years without it, believing you were losing your mind, believing you were the monster, and you want something black and white more than you’ve ever wanted anything in the world.

In The Dream House is a memoir from the author Carmen Maria Machado that details her experience with an abusive, queer relationship. It uses narrative tropes to explore the complex perspectives and emotions from this time in her life, with each chapter introducing a new trope. 

In The Dream House is incredibly written. Not only does it show an impressive knowledge of literature and queer history, but the knowledge is used not in a pretentious way, but instead is used to deeply and profoundly explore the many complicated feelings around an abusive relationship. Many sentences are beautifully sad and achingly relatable, while others are darkly funny. The order of the story and the choice to often interrupt the narrative is unique and genuine, as if we follow Machado’s exact lines of thinking. The pacing is relatively well done, and the recounting flows smoothly. 

The trope structure does get a bit stale after awhile. The chapters are short, and because each chapter is short, the punches feel a bit less punchy in the later chapters. Granted, there’s only so much “punch” to be expected from an autobiographical story, so it’s not a massive criticism. There are also moments of repetition that feel a bit unnecessary. The ending is a bit messy, though it was probably intentional (and my bias shows given I’m a “clear beginning clear ending” person.) 

On a personal note, my own traumatic history fortunately lacks an abusive relationship, despite my many brushes with horrible people and traumatizing events. Even despite this, the book offered so much solace in its depiction of queer interpersonal conflict and abuse. It’s true that the queer community is more hesitant to expose its humanity to the world, dark and disgusting and horrific as it can be (like all of humanity ever), and having had my share of not-so-great gay community experiences myself it’s nice to see it explored in this book. In addition, so much of the talk on trauma is raw and real and too familiar. The pain of and shame and self-blame are all such familiar feelings. It’s heartbreaking to read and to know we’re not all alone. 

I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice and measure the emptiness by its small sound.” 

It’s an emptiness that I hope will be filled by more books like this one. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

squidknees's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

veeples's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.75

The beautiful, dreamy prode Machado employs is a brilliant and sharp contrast to the devastation that she experiences. It reads like poetry, though it’s not. It’s fluid and heartbreaking and gorgeous, and I am so glad to have read it. If you are a queer person, and even if you’re not, I think it’s a valuable read as a narrative that describes a mentally and emotionally abusive relationship and how its just as harmful as a physically abusive one.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

sapphicmuscaria's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

love book

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.75


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

librarymouse's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging emotional funny reflective fast-paced

5.0

This book was so easy to consume and so upsetting to digest. Carmen Maria Machado has gorgeous way of defining and then sharing horrifying truths. The sections reflecting on the love of her friends and the people who valued around her was beautiful. I had to take a few breaks while reading this, but I'm glad I did, and I appreciate the shared resources at the end of the book and citations throughout, giving further information and history for queer domestic violence.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

rieviolet's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

hannibanani29's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings

embervleo's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


Expand filter menu Content Warnings