Take a photo of a barcode or cover
isabelleharris 's review for:
In the Dream House
by Carmen Maria Machado
this is such an important book because it brings light to domestic abuse within a lesbian relationship- a demographic that is hardly ever discussed in these contexts. I liked listening to Machado read her own memoir on audio, although I think I will get more out of this book when I read it with pen and paper because the essays are short, and when they’re all read in sequence, they can blend together and I was left with little time to reflect on each heart-wrenching essay that I had just read.
When she writes about every detail of the abuse she endured, she writes in second person, putting the reader in her position. Although her accounts of the trauma were hard hitting alone, this use of second person makes them even more poignant.
In discussions of abuse, common reactions are ‘why didn’t you leave at the first red flag?’ ‘how did you not know it was going to get this bad?’ ‘why didn’t you leave when ___’ and other victim-blaming rhetoric. I am thinking now about when FKA Twigs came forward about her abusive relationship with Shia LeBouf, an interviewer asked “if it was so bad, why didn’t you just leave?” to which Twigs replied, “ it was so bad that I couldn’t leave”. Machado echoes this sentiment when she says, “I had forgot that leaving was an option”, after fantasizing about death rather than face the risks of leaving her partner.
When she writes about every detail of the abuse she endured, she writes in second person, putting the reader in her position. Although her accounts of the trauma were hard hitting alone, this use of second person makes them even more poignant.
In discussions of abuse, common reactions are ‘why didn’t you leave at the first red flag?’ ‘how did you not know it was going to get this bad?’ ‘why didn’t you leave when ___’ and other victim-blaming rhetoric. I am thinking now about when FKA Twigs came forward about her abusive relationship with Shia LeBouf, an interviewer asked “if it was so bad, why didn’t you just leave?” to which Twigs replied, “ it was so bad that I couldn’t leave”. Machado echoes this sentiment when she says, “I had forgot that leaving was an option”, after fantasizing about death rather than face the risks of leaving her partner.