Reviews with content warning for Misogyny - In the Dream House

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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fieldofhats's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

“Once, when I was a kid, I stood in that wonderful sand right at the lip of the tide—the kind that could be wet and pliable or go hard like damp cornstarch—and yelled to my parents that I was standing on the line of the map. When they didn’t understand, I explained that there was a line on the map between the land and the water, and I was on it, precisely.”

Read for Queer Lit and Theory.

Such a powerful book about the intricacies of queer relationships and history. The structure is perfect, the writing is engaging, and the themes are gut-wrenching and harsh, but not entirely hopeless.

First, I wanted to speak on the structure of the book, which is one of the main reasons I love it so much. I have nothing but whole-hearted love for short chapters. A book can be 600 pages, but if the chapters are short I will devour it. Likewise, if a book is 200 pages of straight, unbroken prose, I will struggle to even pick it up. For this book specifically, the short chapters serve a very specific purpose; Machado has a point to make with each chapter, one that stands on its own. Each chapter portrays one scene or vignette of their relationship, and while they are all connected and create a cohesive story, the chapter ends when the scene is done. This format also makes it easy for her to interrupt the narrative for the folktale chapters in a way that isn't jarring. The short chapters do a great job of keeping me engaged since I'm not committing to much when I begin to read a chapter, which subsequently keeps me reading.

But the short chapters serve a purpose even beyond that. In the "Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure" section of the book, Machado uses the short chapters as a means to lure the reader into an immersive game that demonstrates the everyday abuse that went on within Machado's life. In this section, there are choices that center the narrator and choices that center the partner; an example of the former would be the choice to “tell her to calm down”, or theatrically drive away from the house; an example of the latter would be “apologize profusely” or “do as you are told.” If you always choose the latter options, you will find yourself in a loop. You literally can’t get out unless you choose one of the former, of which there are very few. The grim reality is that the options you have for centering the narrator are all unrealistic; they would never happen at that point in the narrative, and she says this whenever you choose them. But those are the only ways to get out. The only exception to this is the “dream about the future” option, which leads to a positive refrain from the existential dread, until it asks you to turn to a page which has you waking up and starting all over again. The structure of this book allowed for Machado to do this, and the book is all the better for it.

The theme of Archival Silence is such an interesting, sad, almost looming presence throughout the book. in the introductory chapter, “…as Overture, she asks what authors are trying to hide with prologues — and in the prologue chapter, she speaks on hidden, forgotten, and lost texts. In a way, Archival Silence is a form of humanities collective prologue.

I love themes of fate and destiny, and while this is a true story, Machado uses the narrative theme of fate to connect the dots of her life, which is no clearer than at the end “…as Sex and Death.”

The shock of having narrowing avoided such a dire event by mere coincidence puts the whole thematic structure of the book into perspective; Machado’s life hinges on the various fortunes of fate, which are often as cruel as they are rewarding. The Dream House, a symbol of safety tarnished by circumstance and abuse, is representative of this.

I really love that Machado shares the nuances of sexuality in this book. She spent most of her life as bisexual before she realized that she preferred women, but she still has a fondness for non-women. In “…as Sex and Death,” she says, “I don’t miss men, but I did miss you.” It’s a good reminder that sexuality isn’t a static, black-and-white thing. It’s fluid and has multitudes of nuance.

Give this book a read. Seriously. Check the trigger warnings, of course, but if you can you need to read this book.

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thewrongalice's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.25

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iwishihadmoretimetoread's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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ieotter13's review

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0

a pretty intense, yet powerful memoir on queer domestic violence. a must read for anyone trying to understand the intersection of identity in domestic violence cases

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