Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - In the Dream House

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

47 reviews

neverlandpages4's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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.

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elwirax's review against another edition

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emotional reflective fast-paced

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.

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lizlikesfrogs's review

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.75

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alexandranewberg's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative fast-paced

5.0

this book was incredible. the short chapters drawing on different writing styles or tropes, etc was such a great way to frame the story. it was heartbreaking and gorgeous and i’m so glad i read it. pieces of media like the film gaslighting that came up a bunch coupled with chapters of queer history about believing queer abuse frames the story in such a way that everything felt tangible. i stoped multiple times to look up songs or articles or movies mentioned and all of it just added to the reading experience. calling the book a piece of canon in the afterword was not an exaggeration.

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sahramahtab's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Machado writes stunningly. No other word does her talent justice. “In the Dream House,” uses incredibly interesting literary devices and the conceptualization of the dream/house is brilliant. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book, just beware it’s written in the second person.

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librarymouse's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny reflective fast-paced

5.0

This book was so easy to consume and so upsetting to digest. Carmen Maria Machado has gorgeous way of defining and then sharing horrifying truths. The sections reflecting on the love of her friends and the people who valued around her was beautiful. I had to take a few breaks while reading this, but I'm glad I did, and I appreciate the shared resources at the end of the book and citations throughout, giving further information and history for queer domestic violence.

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