Reviews tagging 'Drug use'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

106 reviews

ashely_56's review

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

This books was as lyrical as it was heart wrenching. This memoir is a very raw and personality story of one woman experiences in an abusive. Yet it's not the stereotypical domestic abuse as her abuser was her girlfriend.

This book dives deeping in the nuances of their relationship and explain how queer must have the space to be nuances and un heroic. This story of abuse within queer love, demonstrates just how deeply human these relationship are and how woman are just as likely to be abusers as men.


Carmen is an incredible writer her prose entranced and pulled me deep into her mind. I highly recommend the audio as it is recorded by the author herself. 

Like poetry this is a story that demands me be heard out loud as well as read.

She explores with us throughout the story the pain of loving someone who harms you, and even emphasizing and pitying  her abuser.

As she knows that she was not born this way but rather made into an abuser by her painful upbringing.

This book holds your attention from the prologue to the epilogue. 

For anyone who as every been harms by those who were meant to make you feel safe. This is the book for you!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Cursing, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Lesbophobia, and Gaslighting

Minor: Bullying, Drug use, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Vomit, and Grief

tales_told_in_gold's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Drug use

blueacorn1991's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

Absolutely beautifully written memoir about a subject that I (thankfully) didn't know much about. I loved the structure of the book, with the short chapters centered around a subject, writing style, perspective or tangent. Machado manages to tell her story in a very emotional way, while also educating you about queer history and abuse.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Drug use, Physical abuse, and Alcohol

mary_wyrd's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

In the Dream House you are a prisoner to your own heart; trapped, wanting to leave. But you can't, because the house is part of you now, a house that haunts. A dream that became a nightmare. This memoir is part exorcism part rebellion and a full-throated yell against the tyranny of abuse. Machado's full range of creativity is used in excising this chapter of her life and analysing its impact. The format is inventive. Each section is told in a different genre style or trope. Each section is also short, like a glimpse through the windows of the Dream House, seeing a tense, intense relationship from various angles, before the curtains are drawn. Many chapters are told in second person present tense, placing you in the author's position, living through that relationship.  You are both victim and witness. You are Machado. You are all the women in this position who couldn't get out until they did - fatally or finally free. This is a personal study of abuse with reflections on how society has historically treated both lesbians in love and lesbians in abusive situations; with silence, disgust and distrust.  In the Dream House as personal journey is certain to join the canon of lesbian non-fiction exploring love and loathing within a lesbian context.  In the Dream House as memoir already plays a part in unravelling the lie that women can't abuse other women. They can, and those abused need to be believed.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Abandonment, and Alcohol

dcepeda's review against another edition

dark emotional funny inspiring sad tense fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Gaslighting, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Body shaming, Drug use, Fatphobia, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Sexual harassment

sarasimper's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Lesbophobia, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Drug use, Infidelity, Mental illness, Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Injury/Injury detail

rusina's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Body shaming, Drug use, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Violence, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Fire/Fire injury

litoreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Bullying, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Grief, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

ghast's review

dark reflective tense fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Homophobia and Lesbophobia

Minor: Drug use, Fatphobia, and Suicidal thoughts

woodlandbookdragon's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective fast-paced

4.75

Carmen Maria Machado writes beautifully about the dark subject of abuse within a lesbian relationship. Her direct openness blow the subject out of the shadows and into the light. Though this is not a happy subject Carmen Maria Machado includes sprinkles of joy that occurred throughout. I appreciated that she refers to her abuser only as "the woman in the dream house" and never by name. It is a wonderful tool too keep all power from the abuser and center Carmen Maria Machado in the memoir. A fast read despite the darker subject matter.

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Sexual content

Minor: Drug use