Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

294 reviews

dexlud's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.25

In The Dream House is a beautiful memoir by Carmen Maria Machado. The writing style is beautifully poetic and the vocabulary that Machado uses is absolutely stunning. I will say that this is easily read in mass chunks, and I ended up taking a break from this book because the vocab was just a lot. It’s incredibly complex and at times hard to understand. Overall, a very good book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, Child abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Bullying, Sexism, Suicide, Death, Grief, Homophobia, Gaslighting, and Medical content

Moderate: Animal death and Vomit

the_readingraven's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

Such beautiful writing and so informative. Please review the triggers before reading.

I can't express in my normal jargon how emotional this work made me. Like seriously, home girl better never met me cause she's catching these hands for putting Carmen through it! Jk... 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, and Domestic abuse

amberleigh838's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Physical abuse, Bullying, Sexual content, and Suicidal thoughts

alimact's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

alex_mabel's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Painful but beautiful. Definitely check trigger warnings.

The audio book was so great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Physical abuse, Gaslighting, Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Violence

jadejeanne's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.5

this book, honestly, changed my life. not only is it a memoir about the author's personal domestic abuse story, but it also brings in outside discussions on the perceptions of queer people and women. i adore the way it is formatted, and recommend it to anyone i might come by! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Homophobia and Biphobia

Minor: Fatphobia

zoinkie's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Homophobia, Infidelity, Lesbophobia, Domestic abuse, and Gaslighting

harrimyers's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

i am absolutely overcome with emotion. i cant say i’ve read many memoirs but this was maybe one of the most imaginative, deeply feeling and evocative approaches to a memoir i’ve ever come across. every piece of description and dialogue was so heart-wrenchingly personal and impactful.

the academic tone that underlined some of the chapters mixed with machados introspection and detail of her own experiences was a beautiful, haunting, and sensitive choice. the tone remained strong all the way through and the choice to advocate throughout this book was done very well. the metaphors, literary choices, and overall approach were just fantastic. the sources she used, the media that she critiqued and used to tell her own story along side of it were beautifully picked and j now have a list of essays, movies, and topics to go through. the choice to format each chapter in short vignettes centred around one theme, motif or technique was brilliant and i especially loved the use of footnotes to the folklore motif reference book, as reading them following the passage only heightened the point she was trying to make. some of these footnotes were so powerful, even if the reference was only 2 words. one that stood out to me was when she was describing her inability to masturbate, and she likened it to the motif of ‘losing magic power’, alongside the themes of sexual relation and her own acknowledged high sex drive and the power she personally got from sex, was a really insightful choice. 

the last two lines of thr acknowledgement. were beautiful. and i’m so grateful to have read this book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Lesbophobia, Sexual assault, Homophobia, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, and Toxic relationship

scifi_rat's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective tense fast-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Lesbophobia, Domestic abuse, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Homophobia

Minor: Death, Drug use, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Sexism, Infidelity, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Biphobia, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Cancer, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Vomit, Fatphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Cursing, Grief, Pregnancy, Religious bigotry, and Torture

charlie_cheese's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

4.5

Sometimes reading this book was like holding up a mirror

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Mental illness