In the Dream House: A Memoir
A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties
In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado's engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse. Tracing the full arc of a harrowing relationship with a charismatic but volatile woman, Machado struggles to make sense of how what happened to her shaped the person she was becoming. And it's that struggle that gives the book its original structure: each chapter is driven by its own narrative trope--the haunted house, erotica, the bildungsroman--through which Machado holds the events up to the light and examines them from different angles. She looks back at her religious adolescence, unpacks the stereotype of lesbian relationships as safe and utopian, and widens the view with essayistic explorations of the history and reality of abuse in queer relationships. Machado's dire narrative is leavened with her characteristic wit, playfulness, and openness to inquiry. She casts a critical eye over legal proceedings, fairy tales, Star Trek, and Disney villains, as well as iconic works of film and fiction. The result is a wrenching, riveting book that explodes our ideas about what a memoir can do and be.BUY THE BOOK
Community Reviews
3.5
My mistake was reading reviews about it and looking at the ratings before reading. The entire time I felt incredibly guilty for wanting to rate it lower, when most people I know really enjoyed it and rated it five stars. So I kept waiting for THAT moment, for something to click and... It just didn't. Decent memoir, I finished it fairly quickly, some stories terrified me, some disgusted me, some I felt were unnecessary... Still, I couldn't properly connect with it and therefore my experience with it wasn't very pleasant. But maybe that's the whole point.
My mistake was reading reviews about it and looking at the ratings before reading. The entire time I felt incredibly guilty for wanting to rate it lower, when most people I know really enjoyed it and rated it five stars. So I kept waiting for THAT moment, for something to click and... It just didn't. Decent memoir, I finished it fairly quickly, some stories terrified me, some disgusted me, some I felt were unnecessary... Still, I couldn't properly connect with it and therefore my experience with it wasn't very pleasant. But maybe that's the whole point.
Thanks to everyone who joined us on Monday to chat about In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado.
If there was one word to sum up how this month's book made the group feel, it would simply be "uncomfortable".
But, to be fair, that's exactly how Machado wants you to feel as you navigate her experiences of emotional abuse at the hands of her ex-girlfriend.
Machado makes a lot of stylistic choices that you wouldn’t expect from a memoir and these were hit and miss with the group. However, we did all enjoy the book and appreciated that it gave us all something to think about.
In the end, I think we all agreed that something can be unique, effective and moving, while also being a bit of a pretentious mess.
We gave it a rating of 3.9 stars out of 5.
5 stars.
I devoured this book even though it was, at times, incredibly difficult to read. Creative, lyrical, non-fiction is my jam, and the ways in which Machado weaves in her own narrative with the exploration of other own voices narratives and history was exquisite. Make sure to check content warnings before reading, and if you still feel interested, do yourself the favor of exploring this text.
I devoured this book even though it was, at times, incredibly difficult to read. Creative, lyrical, non-fiction is my jam, and the ways in which Machado weaves in her own narrative with the exploration of other own voices narratives and history was exquisite. Make sure to check content warnings before reading, and if you still feel interested, do yourself the favor of exploring this text.
Wow. This memoir had me speechless time and time again. The author allowed herself to be very vulnerable and tell her story of an abusive same sex relationship. You don’t see many LGBTQ+ abusive type stories and such, because society has always made it seem like men are the abusers. That’s not the case; men, woman, non-binary, purple, green and red people can ALL be abusers. The writing of this memoir is beautiful, sad, but enlightening for those who have not experienced it. Aside from the abuse aspect of this memoir, it also goes into what that abuse looks like with the societal expectations of a queer/LGBTQ+ relationship. It’s so great to have all of that depicted and talked about for those who may not understand all of the complexities of it.
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What an emotional read this was, but SO good. It did not disappoint
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What an emotional read this was, but SO good. It did not disappoint
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