In the Dream House is a most unmemoir-like memoir. This account of Carmen Maria Machado’s years in an abusive same-sex relationship plays with form, blending elements of literary criticism, pop culture essays, folk tales and the shadowy worlds of her short fiction. To tell this real-life story, Machado cleaves herself in two: the first-person, present-day “I” — settled, successful, safe — addresses the second-person, past “you”. This textual interplay between two Carmens affords more closene

There is no readying yourself for this one. Carmen is a modern legend, case closed.

Such a powerful memoir about a horrifying abusive relationship. In spare vignettes, Carmen Maria Machado documents the beginning, middle, and end of her relationship with an ex-girlfriend who threatened, humiliated, and tried to control her. I’m a sucker for short chapters and Machado writes them well here, describing the terror and confusion she felt at the hands of her ex-girlfriend with concise and exacting detail. With courageous honesty, she shares both the desire she felt for her ex-girlfr...

“If you need this book, it is for you”, so opens Machado’s star-bright and exquisitely crafted memoir, “In the Dream House”, the words like a hand on the reader’s back.Very few works of writing are more fraught, more tremulous and dauntless, than a memoir. It’s mental self-flagellation: the prying open of one’s life, the splitting of the past like a cracked egg. To trap yourself in the mirrored halls of your own memory. The equivalent of digging a nail into an open sore.Writers like Machado offe...

exquisite, cannot recommend highly enough.

I am both sheltered and naive, hopefully a little less of each after reading this memoir. It took a short time for me to adjust to the format - some “chapters” as short as one sentence - but I was hooked from the start. Like Tara Westover’s “Educated,” this story evoked emotions across the spectrum of human feeling - for oneself and for others. I marvel at the strength of people like Ms. Machado, and I am grateful that she shared her life with us. She is a treasure.

YES YES YES!!! A 1000x better than expected, and I expected nothing short of holy scripture.Months earlier I stumbled upon the description and knew this book would be monumental. As early reviews crept in, my anticipation grew. I had my Kindle fully charged and stayed up until midnight so I could start reading the second it released. By 2am I was 30% done. A few marathon readings later, I reached the last page with breathless finality. The result? Monumental doesn't even begin to cover it.The fu...

shock of the century: a book that changed my life made it to my favorites of the year. find the list: https://emmareadstoomuch.wordpress.co...----i read most of this stone-faced, face unchanged even as i was recalling repressed traumas with needle-like stabs, even as my heart ached for carmen maria machado, even as the pained gorgeousness of the writing took my breath away.and then i got to the part where things are allowed to be happy again. and i burst into tears.this is a beautifully written,...

“I thought you died, but right now, I’m not sure you did.” This is, genuinely, my favorite book I read in the entirety of 2020, and maybe one of my favorite books ever. Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir about a queer abusive relationship blends reality with media and its mirrors. It flurries between grandeur and media and the simple, the human, varies between detailed tales and hypothetical quandaries to tell the story of a relationship. Everything is a metaphor and not. Homes are a metap

Contemplative and inventive, In the Dream House dispels the silence surrounding abusive queer relationships. In her debut memoir Machado recounts the violence she endured for years at the hands of her first girlfriend, a rail-thin, androgynous unnamed white woman who routinely invalidated and gaslighted her. Written in arresting prose the work unfolds in a series of terse, terrifying sections, each of which centers on a single trope, from the conceptual (‘Epiphany,’ ‘Memory,’ ‘Void’) to the gene...

this one is tough for me. i’m glad that this book exists and it’s one i could see myself recommending, but it’s not one that i particularly enjoyed. enjoyed isn’t a great word, but i’m lacking a better one.i think a good way to say it is that i like what this book said but not the way it was told. the short vignettes, the lack of linear story telling, and the flowery prose did not work for me.

With exacting, exquisite prose, Carmen Maria Machado writes about the complexities of abuse in queer relationships in her absolutely remarkable memoir In The Dream House. She deftly chronicles the wildness of succumbing to desire, the entrancing tenderness of loving and being loved, the fragility of hope, and the unspeakable horror when the woman you love is a monster beneath and on the surface of her skin. What makes this book truly exceptional is how Machado creates an archive where, shamefull...

Machado uses her lyrical writing skills to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex relationship, a difficult subject that is not often discussed. The writing is lovely and haunting, taking the lens of speculative horror fiction to frame her real experience. She describes the complexities of being in an abusive relationship with the added layer of societal expectations for what a queer relationship should look like; these topics and emotions would definitely resonate with anyone who has...

You enjoy reading memoirs because you like to get a better understanding of people, how they think and feel, to learn different perspectives. You are lesbian and particularly enjoy memoirs by people in the LGBQT+ community. You see this memoir come out (ha ha!) about a lesbian relationship and you notice a lot of people really love it. You assume you will too. You read and read and you don't ever get inside the author's head or have any idea of what she thinks and feels. You don't because she ra...

2 Stars I don't usually review books that are about a survivor recounting their journey because I believe these stories should be told whether writing is something you are gifted at or not. That's why I never rated Chanel Miller's Know My Name because although there were flaws in style and presentation who am I to tell a survivor that they didn't do their own story justice. That being said although abuse in queer relationships are stories that need to be told. The fact of the matter is Carmen

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |While I definitely admire Carmen Maria Machado for having not only the strength to tackle such a difficult subject matter but to do so by sharing her own personal experience with her readers, and part of me also can't help but to recognise that In the Dream House: A Memoir is one of the most innovative memoir I have ever read, I would be lying if I said (or wrote) that it was flawlessly executed. I'm definitely glad to see that many other reviewers are praising it

Winner of the Lambda Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction 2020In this intimate, formally experimental memoir, Machado recalls how she survived an abusive relationship, but gives her own experiences a wider context: As she illustrates by giving examples from real life, art and scientific texts, violence in lesbian relationships has rarely been acknowledged and discussed, thus rendering the victims almost invisible and making them even more vulnerable. With "In the Dream House", Machado wants to add to the

This was absolutely incredible. Just, wow.

This is a memoir written by Carmen Maria Machado about an abusive same-sex relationship. There are only very few memoirs discussing this topic. This is also not written in a regular, commonly followed manner. The dark, witty writing style wielding the narrative tropes will give you a unique reading experience.Some of you might feel this book is an esoteric one, especially when reading the initial part of it. But soon, we will understand the genuine nature of what the author is trying to conv

Wow, this is a very powerful memoir about an abusive same-sex relationship. I listened to the audiobook for this, and this story was honestly felt like reading her diary - it was so raw and honest and devastating, plus the writing is absolutely gorgeous. I haven't read about abuse in a same-sex relationship before, so this book definitely shines a light on something very important.But with quotes like this one, I was blown away by the writing: “A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness