Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - In the Dream House

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

28 reviews

mad_scaper's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

an expertly-crafted memoir that is beautiful and heart wrenching and hopeful and everything i could ever want from one of my favorite writers

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sarasimper's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

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giasbookhaven's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Carmen's account of her upbringing and identity even as she is involved in her relationship was raw and unrestricted. I was aware of the contents of this book when I picked it up but there were still things that surprised me.

I cannot speak on the specifics of domestic abuse history among Queer relationships. In The Dream house is really my first introduction to the subject specifically.

It's an important narrative on the topic and a good book to explore.

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finnthehuman217's review

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dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Carmen María Machado is incredible and her writing speaks for itself but her voice in the queer world being a survivor of DV, I am so proud of her getting out but also being brave enough to tell her story. It’s fucked up that this happens at all but the people who are bringing it to light are amazing for making this issue visible. The first time I heard about this book I put it off because it is jarring and I recognize those moments of anger from a childhood of a parent with a short fuse and bipolar. I hope the woman from the dream house got help because she seems very unstable and it makes me want to cry my eyes out thinking about it.

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klsreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

In the Dream House is a masterpiece. Told in vignettes structured around literature tropes, this memoir follows the rise and fall of a profoundly abusive relationship. Machado is brave, vulnerable, and unflinchingly honest as she exposes the abuse she suffered across a 2 year relationship with another woman. She asks: if we view queer relationships as utopia divorced from patriarchy and hierarchy, are we being homophobic? Are lesbians not humans - complex, hurting, and capable of inflicting extreme harm? If we flatten a group of people into a monolith, we dehumanize them. This book is a necessary addition to the growing work on the incidence of abuse in queer relationships.

I've never read anything quite like this - I loved the vignette narrative structure. The book moved quickly because most sections were short. A couple of the tropes dragged on for me/didn't hit 100%, but I was enthralled and could hardly put it down. A few standouts for me - "Dream House as Deja Vu" (x3), "Dream House as Queer Villainy" (!!!), "Dream House as Bluebeard", "Dream House as the River Lethe", "Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure" ...... ok, I have to stop or I'm going to quote half of this work.

Even more wild: I was in Iowa City as an undergrad during the events of this book. Did I see Carmen and the Woman from the Dream House at a coffee shop, at Obama's speech, in a bookstore? It makes me shiver, the ways people suffer out of view.

Brilliant. Carmen Maria Machado is an absolute force and a genius of prose and innovative structure. I HIGHLY recommend this book, but mind the CW's. Machado doesn't shy away from the gore at the heart of her story.

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