Reviews tagging 'Bullying'

Nella casa dei tuoi sogni by Carmen Maria Machado

90 reviews

amberleigh838's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Bullying, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

waterbear0821's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.75

This memoir is about lesbian intimate partner abuse. It’s well-written and even if you have not experienced intimate partner abuse and you can’t relate to the author (not all of us are professional writers and academics), you may relate to the stress and grief and confusion the author describes. I found the dream house to be an effective if slightly annoying device for carrying the story. The history of lesbian intimate partner abuse, and domestic violence generally, was very interesting, sad, and important. It was a compelling refrain that abuse in a queer relationships has unique challenges because it doesn’t easily fit our cultural narrative- both because it’s less relatable and therefore less believable and because it carries the special shame of failing to be a model minority. This was captivating and terrible to read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Homophobia

scifi_rat's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Lesbophobia, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Homophobia

Minor: Death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Biphobia, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Cursing, Grief, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, and Torture

yrpalal's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Bullying, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Confinement

Minor: Infidelity

aquakirst's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Lesbophobia, Bullying, Mental illness, Murder, Biphobia, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia

jujuwithbooks's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Bullying, Domestic abuse, Homophobia, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

taylorgraves555's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Bullying, and Emotional abuse

hbeawill's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Fatphobia, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Bullying, and Domestic abuse

quinnjuliac's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Bullying, Emotional abuse, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Sexual violence and Suicidal thoughts

124smilehd's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative tense slow-paced

3.5

It's one of those books that you should read due to its informative and cultural significance but it's not something that I particularly enjoyed on its own. 

It did have a massive impact on how I view queer relationships in a social context, especially as a queer person myself. Early in the story I did lowkey think that this was not the best political time to talk about such a dark subject that could be used as evidence as to why queer relationships are inherently not good, but Machado seems to have taken this into account as she constantly talks about how we as minorities tend to glorify and idolize our identity as a form of survival and this inherently opens the door for abuse. It was a hard reality to swallow but I do think she made a valid and very important point, that our biggest resistance as a community is to be allowed to just be human, flaws and all.

I will say though that the writing style threw me off, it was just hard really commit to the micro chapters. The other big flaw was that she depends a lot on footnotes which seems odd for a memoir type of book. It almost felt as if she had to prove her own existence and memory by using other sources, even though by her own admittance there are very few written works on queer abuse? Idk I felt like this weakened her own voice by depending too much on outside validation. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Gaslighting and Fatphobia