Who Would Like This Book:
Carmen Maria Machado’s "In the Dream House" is a boundary-pushing memoir that blends literary innovation with raw emotional honesty. Through brief, genre-bending chapters - sometimes using second person, sometimes first - Machado reconstructs her experience of an abusive queer relationship, offering both a deeply personal account and a broader look at the erasure of queer abuse in cultural history. Her writing is lush and experimental, interweaving folklore, history, and pop culture, making this a must-read for fans of unique memoirs, queer literature, creative nonfiction, and anyone who loves when writers play with literary form.
Who May Not Like This Book:
Some readers may struggle with the nonlinear structure, shifting genres, and experimental style, finding these elements distancing or distracting from the story itself. The heavy subject matter - emotional and psychological abuse - means it can be a tough, even triggering, read. If you prefer traditional memoirs with a straightforward narrative, or want more backstory and context about the author's life beyond the central relationship, this book might not be for you.
About:
'In the Dream House' by Carmen Maria Machado is a memoir that intricately explores the author's experience in an abusive queer relationship. Rather than following a linear narrative, the book breaks down the story into fragments, interweaving reflections on gaslighting, folklore, and the author's writing process. The writing style is described as creative, original, thought-provoking, and emotionally impactful, offering a unique and engaging approach to discussing the complexities of abuse in lesbian relationships.
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Topics:
Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Triggers include emotional and psychological abuse, discussions of power dynamics in relationships, and trauma.
From The Publisher:
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.
Ratings (114)
Incredible (39) | |
Loved It (46) | |
Liked It (17) | |
It Was OK (6) | |
Did Not Like (5) | |
Hated It (1) |
Reader Stats (260):
Read It (120) | |
Currently Reading (1) | |
Want To Read (94) | |
Did Not Finish (5) | |
Not Interested (40) |
7 comment(s)
An extremely powerful and important memoir about a specific type of queer erasure. Machado masters the tropes she uses and knows how to flip them on their head just right. The Dream House as a Choose Your Own Adventure had such an unbelievable impact on me as I read through it. I really think everyone should read this.
This book haunted me for weeks after I read it. I could not stop thinking about it.
Finding any literature on lesbian domestic violence is uncomfortably hard, and devastating when you’ve lived it. I’d urge that this is a must read for queer survivors. This had me giggling and crying and feeling more seen than I’ve felt through the withdrawal and the pride that is my escape
I don’t have a quarter of Machado’s eloquence. In fact, I don’t have any words to do this memoir justice.
In the Dream House is exquisite: a kaleidoscope, a diamond, a genre-bending tour de force. Machado examines her abuse from every possible angle.
Go and read it.
I listened to this as an audiobook and this is one of the most unique listening experience of a memoir I ever consumed. It's hard for me to explain, I was always aware that this was a memoir. But the way this was narrated and written made me feel like I was swept into a story that wasn't told on a way I'm used to. I needed no time to readjust when I picked it back up I completely fell back into the flow. This deals with an difficult topic however. Abuse can come in every format and in every relationship regardless of sexuality and gender.
interesting perspective through the use of genre
I'm pretty good at just randomly putting books on my shelf without having any idea what they're about. This was one of those. I don't normally like memoirs but I actually enjoyed the author's poetic, turbulant tale.
What can you read after
In the Dream House?
About the Author:
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Prize. She lives in Philadelphia with her wife.
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