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

challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

 
Carmen Maria Machado’s “In The Dream House” is a piece of work that unravels you—wood by wood, brick by brick, wound by wound. Her exploration of the complexities of abuse in queer relationships is layered with issues of societal expectations, stitched together with folktales and media alike that paints exactly why it is complicated.

Once you've unraveled a layer, you realize you've barely scratched the surface. You realize that the house is a maze.

“I broke the stories down because I was breaking down, and I didn't know what else to do.” (181)

The memoir poignantly illustrates out a specific that comes by merely existing as queer. There's an unspoken double standard enforced onto queer people. The need to uphold us to an impossibly high moral standards that strips away our humanity. 

Because the second one of us makes a mistake (or in many cases, being human), it is the entire group that takes the blunder. Taking away that we, too, are people.

“The irony, of course, is that queer folks need that good PR; to fight rights we don’t have, to retain the ones we do. But haven’t we been trying to say, this whole time, that we’re just like you?” (268)

I had to really let this book stay in the back of my mind. 

My heart was aching. Every page, every annotations, every breakdowns. 

Machado’s writing is vivid. It is present. You can feel the wound itself still pulsing from her prose and you’re left to accompany her in the isolation, in the hurt. 

This memoir has completely engraved itself in my mind, my heart, and my soul. It left me gutted. I was left trying to untangle the knots of my thoughts and feelings yet ultimately, it was all for naught. 
I'll let this memoir haunt me a little longer. 
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