A review by waterbear0821
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

3.75

This memoir is about lesbian intimate partner abuse. It’s well-written and even if you have not experienced intimate partner abuse and you can’t relate to the author (not all of us are professional writers and academics), you may relate to the stress and grief and confusion the author describes. I found the dream house to be an effective if slightly annoying device for carrying the story. The history of lesbian intimate partner abuse, and domestic violence generally, was very interesting, sad, and important. It was a compelling refrain that abuse in a queer relationships has unique challenges because it doesn’t easily fit our cultural narrative- both because it’s less relatable and therefore less believable and because it carries the special shame of failing to be a model minority. This was captivating and terrible to read. 
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