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veepopp's review
5.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Physical abuse, Sexual violence, Domestic abuse, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Fatphobia and Body shaming
Minor: Lesbophobia and Adult/minor relationship
books_withblooms's review against another edition
4.25
Graphic: Emotional abuse and Gaslighting
Minor: Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, and Domestic abuse
jordynkw's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, and Sexual content
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Mental illness, and Sexual violence
sar_letsread's review against another edition
4.0
I read this for my Literary Studies class and I do NOT regret it. This book was so emotionally rewarding as the protagonist, Carmen Maria Machado, was taking the reader through an impactful journey. However, no matter how much I really enjoyed this book, I will not recommend this to someone who cannot handle stories involving emotional abuse. This book was hardcore and some may think not, but I truly am glad I had a wonderful Prof. to help navigate me and my peers through this book and Carmen’s story.
Graphic: Emotional abuse and Bullying
Moderate: Fatphobia
Minor: Adult/minor relationship
edgaranjapoe's review against another edition
4.75
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Alcohol, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Cursing, Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Confinement, Grief, Homophobia, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Rape
Minor: Sexual harassment, Misogyny, Animal death, Car accident, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Eating disorder, Vomit, Murder, and Medical content
neverlandpages4's review against another edition
5.0
I have not felt this immersed in a book in a long time. This book broke me down and taught me so much at the same time. I felt like I was there with the author because of the intimate use of second person POV. The intense and honest details of the relationship were terrifying to read, knowing that this is biographical. I don’t have the right words to describe what this book made me feel, but I think that it’s one everyone should read because it’s life changing.
𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠
• I’ve already raved about this author’s writing but I’m obsessed with her writing!! I was mesmerized by the vivid imagery and the creative and unique metaphors. I could try to describe how good the writing is but I don’t think I would do it justice. And I loved the second person POV and how it addresses the reader.
𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬
“How do we do right by the wronged people of the past without physical evidence of their suffering?”
• A lot of this book centers around domestic abuse, psychological abuse, and abuse in queer relationships. It talks about how so many people aren’t believed when they speak out about their trauma because it isn’t physical or visible.
• I went into this expecting a story about an abusive relationship, but it was so much more. There’s a lot about queer history, queer characters, stereotypes, and much, much more. I felt like I learned a lot from this. It immensely changed the way I view so many different things from abusive relationships, to heteronormative relationships, to villains, and a lot of other things I never thought about.
𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭
• This book has the most genius format ever. The author was able to capture how abusive relationships are a never ending cycle through the format of this book and it’s one of the most creative things I’ve ever seen.
Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, Rape, Emotional abuse, Lesbophobia, Domestic abuse, and Homophobia
Moderate: Blood, Misogyny, Adult/minor relationship, Gore, and Sexual assault
Minor: Racism, Sexism, Gun violence, Vomit, Torture, Murder, and Pregnancy
elwirax's review against another edition
3.0
I speak into the silence. I toss the stone of my story into a vast crevice; measure the emptiness by its small sound.
As this is a memoir my rating is not based on Machado's experience but rather the way it was structured and written as a whole. Please do not take this as direct criticism of how the author has chosen to cope and portray her trauma (despite how contradictory that sounds).
I don't really have any profound criticism of In the Dream House just minor personal dislikes. Something I couldn't really click with was the writing style particularly when it switched between first person and second person. I understand that this was used as a way to put the reader in the author's shoes and while I appreciate that, I also didn't feel connected due to the lack of internal monologues and in depth look into emotions. Another thing were the constant footnotes and references to media. There were clear parallels in say, Stranger by the Lake and Gaslight but I couldn't always connect them with the context of the author's experiences (although, maybe that was just me not looking deep enough into their significance). It's definitely an interesting addition to a memoir but sometimes the book didn't know whether it wanted to me a memoir or a critical analysis/ dissertation on how same sex relationships and violence have been portrayed in media. This resulted in choppy writing that ranged from really formal to rather simple and took away from the flow of the text. I think that while the references added a bit of nuance to the text and supported the author's experience, they also took away from it through the pages and pages of description that sometimes felt like filler. As a side note, what was that mouse stomping scene about and the narcissism after finding out friend's roommate died in a fire?! A bit weird to me.
Nevertheless, writing about her experience with an abusive, queer relationship must not have been easy. Hats of to Machado for writing about a topic that deserves more recognition than it recieves in the media. I also really liked the choose your own adventure part, though that is obviously not as important as the subject matter.
Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexual content, Gaslighting, and Domestic abuse
Moderate: Fatphobia, Mental illness, and Biphobia
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, and Abandonment
monsterofidaho's review
5.0
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Gaslighting, and Domestic abuse
Minor: Adult/minor relationship and Fatphobia
aproudmc13's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Blood, Body shaming, Bullying, Sexual content, Gaslighting, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Domestic abuse, Biphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Cursing, Fatphobia, Racism, Classism, and Emotional abuse
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Sexual violence, Vomit, Grief, Outing, Rape, Lesbophobia, Abandonment, Misogyny, and Drug use
rieviolet's review against another edition
3.5
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.
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Murder, Lesbophobia, Body horror, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Violence
Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Animal death, Child abuse, Abandonment, Mental illness, Sexism, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Gun violence, Medical content, Drug abuse, Torture, Cursing, Car accident, Biphobia, Sexual assault, and Panic attacks/disorders
Minor: Sexual violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Bullying, Transphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Religious bigotry, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Suicide, and Dementia