Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

31 reviews

arikareads's review

4.0

3.5*

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal death, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder

annvalentine's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Alcoholism and Homophobia

Minor: Animal death, Drug use, and Car accident

lauragoose's review

challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

Beautifully written, intense themes. 

---

Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Cursing and Drug use

Minor: Animal death, Fatphobia, and Gaslighting

cheerstochels's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative tense medium-paced

4.5

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Infidelity, Mental illness, Rape, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Confinement, Fatphobia, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Car accident, Death of parent, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Animal death, Confinement, Death, Misogyny, Blood, Vomit, Dementia, Car accident, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

rachaelcandoit's review against another edition

emotional sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This story is heartbreaking and beautiful. I'm in love with the way this book is structured and written. There were many times I stopped and was absolutely struck by it, genuinely. 

This memoir is also so incredibly important. As a queer person, I'm thankful that work like this exists and hope it can bring awareness to others.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Gaslighting

Minor: Animal death

klsreads's review against another edition

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. 

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Confinement, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Lesbophobia, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Biphobia, Car accident, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Gun violence, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

laurenleannereads's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

dearbhlanoonan's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad medium-paced

---

Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Fatphobia and Homophobia

Minor: Animal death and Body shaming

lynxpardinus's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense

5.0

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Vomit, Medical content, Lesbophobia, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Biphobia, Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Torture, Religious bigotry, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment

Minor: Bullying, Gun violence, Dementia, Stalking, War, and Pandemic/Epidemic

breadbummer's review

dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

LOTS of literary/cultural references that flew way over my head, mainly in terms of "chapter" titles and, maybe it's because of the ADHD troubles when listening to an audiobook without text, but there were some passages that I was confused about how they related to the story. Otherwise, I'm speechless; horrifying events that were beautifully written.

---

Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Animal death, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Grief, and Alcohol

Minor: Biphobia, Blood, Vomit, and Religious bigotry