In the Dream House opens Goodreads in a new tab

My thoughts

5/5stars 2025 reread- still as beautiful, still a recommended read. Love cannot be won or lost; a relationship doesn't have a scoring system. We are partners, paired against the world. We cannot succeed if we are at odds with each other. Absolutely beautiful lyrical writing style, a not-so-often-discussed topic, and the whole thing read like a haunted story instead of the memoir that it is- these have to be the top three of the 100 favorite things about this book. This book talks about abuse in gay relationships and that is a topic we never even bother to discuss. Because of the societal oppression, the LGBTQIAP+ community faces from the cishets them being able to come out and talk about the abuse they face in their relationships is virtually impossible. But this book does an amazing job talking about it. As [a:Carmen Maria Machado|6860265|Carmen Maria Machado|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1461618720p2/6860265.jpg] talks about her own experiences in a lesbian relationship, we get to know about the true horrors and complexities of it. In this way, the Dream House was a haunted house. You were the sudden, inadvertent occupant of a place where bad things had happened. And then it occurs to you one day, standing in the living room, that you are this house's ghost: you are the one wandering from room to room with no purpose, gaping at the moving boxes that are never unpacked, never certain what you're supposed to do. After all, you don't need to die to leave a mark of psychic pain. If anyone is living in the Dream House now, he or she might be seeing the echo of you. I don't know if this is what the author intended for us to infer but the metaphors and the symbolism I saw in this Dreamhouse were just too fucking beautiful and captivating. And while I do understand why some people did not like the second-person writing style, I personally feel it helped me understand things better. It made "live" those moments and for me, that worked very well. But to each their own, I guess. If the second-person writing style is a dealbreaker for you, you might wanna skip this one. I thought you died, but writing this, I'm not sure you did. Book Trigger Warnings- Obviously this memoir deals with some very heavy subject matter, please please check out these trigger warnings and only then start reading it. This book mentions body-shaming, intimate partner violence, domestic abuse/violence, toxic relationship/s, cheating and emotional abuse, sexual assault, sexual abuse, adult-minor relationship, and suicidal ideation.