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

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This was a well-written telling of a very sad and painful story. The structure of it--these dream house vignettes--was very poetic and interesting. It's important to bring awareness to the abuse that goes on in our (queer) communities. Some lesbian circles can turn very man-hating, which, in my opinion, can be a slippery slope toward gender-essentialism and erasure of the many ways women can and do enact violence. I appreciate how Machado weaves in broader cultural critiques as she tells her very personal stories. As they say, the personal is political.

Since I listen to audiobooks, typically while doing other things, I don't "annotate" much, but this was a quote that stood out to me enough to save it. It's from "Part 2 - Dream House as 9 Thornton Square."
... abusers do not need to be, and rarely are, cackling maniacs. They just need to want something and not care how they get it.
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