Reviews

This is an important book. It is crucial to talk about abuse in queer relationships, that's not why I gave it 2,75/5 stars. I disliked the book because of the writing style; Machado blends a lot of different themes and ways of approaching abuse and I got really confused. It was difficult for me to connect through the whole story: I connected in some parts but others felt completely numb for me. It just wasn't my kind of writing, but it is not a bad writing; many people precisely enjoy her books because of her writing style. So I would just say give it a go if this sounds like something you would enjoy.

cailleachv's review against another edition

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5.0

Świetnie napisane, wciągające a przy okazji zupełnie zaskakujące.

kstitz's review against another edition

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5.0

This book broke my heart over and over again with its brilliancy, it’s unflinching relentlessness, its incredible archive of queer history and the heartbreaking erasure of queer abuse in such history.

megshallman's review against another edition

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4.0

4.5 ⭐️
Absolutely loved! I may go back and change this to 5 stars after letting go my soul rest cause this book was heavy

katyyyowens's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

bifuriousaf's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

nellps's review against another edition

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5.0

In the Dream House by Carmen Machado is a memoir describing Machado's abusive queer relationship in the early 2010s, where homophobia lingered like summer heat. The story's villain is her girlfriend, named only "the woman in the dream house." She uses the house she and her partner picked out to reflect how she feels in the relationship. When they first pick out the place, she is hopeful, imagining a life where they get married, grow old together, and have children running around on the creaky floorboards. As she sees more sides to her lover - her jealousy, mistrust, and anger - the house begins to feel less and less safe. Eventually, Machado becomes so worn down by the emotional abuse she is experiencing that she feels like a ghost in the house and wonders if people in the future will feel her pain tainting the atmosphere. Each chapter is a different genre, literary trope, or metaphor, going from romance to deja vu, inciting incident, etc. The chapters are concise, some only one sentence long, creating a feeling of whiplash as you read. The book references anything and everything, and reading it feels like looking at Machado's organized cabinet of memories. Along with childhood stories, TV shows, movies, and book references, Machado uses queer history, including lesbian murderers and musicians, to create context for her story. These factors paired with Machado’s flowing, unapologetic, honest writing style make a devastating experience for the reader, though nothing compared to what Machado herself experienced. My In the Dream House copy is smeared with pencil underlines, circles, and comments. Every chapter taught me something new. This memoir gives a new perspective of what it means to be queer, what it means to be intelligent, what it means to love, and what it means to hurt and be hurt. Before I read this book, I didn’t know about the extensive history of lesbian domestic abuse. As early as 1892, there has been recorded evidence of lesbian domestic abuse, such as Alice Mitchell slitting her girlfriend’s throat for breaking up with her. This book changed the way I think about the queer community and the way I want it to be seen by the rest of the world. Machado emphasizes the importance of humanity in this book, saying that instead of being seen as angels, she wants queer people to have the space to be imperfect, and even evil. As a part of the LGBTQ community, it is scary to see any bad press for gay people on the news, because that means that rights that we have are at risk of being taken away. This pressure for gay people to be perfect all the time just means that we are still unequal to straight people, and in a truly equal society, we would be able to do terrible things and not have it reflect on our sexuality, but our character as people. #aplang

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