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A review by befoooremoonrise
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
5.0
It's hard to come out as a victim of abuse and even harder if your relationship doesn't fit the standard of what abuse looks like. As Carmen Maria Machado explains to us, sapphics aren't seen as battered wives, a femme can only be a victim, not an abuser. That's why few people believe her. Abuse in queer relationship is hidden behind the close doors of a community which is afraid of a transgression that could ruin all the progress we've worked so hard to achieve.
The lyricism of the book is contrasted with the heavy subject matter. The many references to fairy tales and magic play into the tropes we usually associate with abusive relationships and even the author's South American roots. Carmen Maria Machado's marvelous prose bring the reader to a Dream House in which pain and love are seen as one.
The book doesn't have an epic finale. The heroine doesn't defeat the villain. The heroine keeps living, breathing, loving and writing. The villain doesn't pay for her crimes, because many forms of abuse are legal as Machado would say.
Reading a memoir which touches on such traumatic events can be hard. Suspension of disbelief is no longer at play and the reader is left with real trauma. That's not a story, that's history. Those words are the pain of a real person turned catharsis, turned art.
The lyricism of the book is contrasted with the heavy subject matter. The many references to fairy tales and magic play into the tropes we usually associate with abusive relationships and even the author's South American roots. Carmen Maria Machado's marvelous prose bring the reader to a Dream House in which pain and love are seen as one.
The book doesn't have an epic finale. The heroine doesn't defeat the villain. The heroine keeps living, breathing, loving and writing. The villain doesn't pay for her crimes, because many forms of abuse are legal as Machado would say.
Reading a memoir which touches on such traumatic events can be hard. Suspension of disbelief is no longer at play and the reader is left with real trauma. That's not a story, that's history. Those words are the pain of a real person turned catharsis, turned art.