Reviews tagging 'Fire/Fire injury'

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

21 reviews

charliewarliee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

In The Dream House is a beautiful memoir by Carmen Maria Machado. The writing style is beautifully poetic and the vocabulary that Machado uses is absolutely stunning. I will say that this is easily read in mass chunks, and I ended up taking a break from this book because the vocab was just a lot. It’s incredibly complex and at times hard to understand. Overall, a very good book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Death, Bullying, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Medical content, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Suicide, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Animal death and Vomit

angievansprang's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

Wow. This book was written in such a unique short-snippet style that I have not seen before in a memoir. Machado is a masterful wordsmith, even when telling a devastating tale. Parts of this book resonated with me a lot, I think I will need to sit with it more before making a truly complete review.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Sexual violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Homophobia, and Sexual assault

Minor: Mental illness, Car accident, Alcohol, and Fire/Fire injury

sapphicmuscaria's review against another edition

dark hopeful reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

love book

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Domestic abuse

Moderate: Drug use

Minor: Murder, Torture, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Grief, Gaslighting, Body shaming, Car accident, Blood, Sexual content, Homophobia, Bullying, Sexism, Racism, Misogyny, Infidelity, Sexual harassment, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Religious bigotry, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Cursing, Colonisation, and Suicidal thoughts

edgaranjapoe's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Lesbophobia, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Alcohol, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Cursing, Dysphoria, Sexual assault, Confinement, Grief, Homophobia, Violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Rape

Minor: Sexual harassment, Misogyny, Animal death, Car accident, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Drug abuse, Dementia, Injury/Injury detail, Suicidal thoughts, Drug use, Fire/Fire injury, Infidelity, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Eating disorder, Vomit, Murder, and Medical content

weelowbee's review against another edition

dark emotional funny reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The author does a great job of weaving in historical and pop culture into her reflections of her experiences. It took a moment for me to adjust to how the captures were structured. The only reason this isn’t a 5/5 for me is while the structure worked, I don’t think it was my favorite.

Spoiler

One of my favorite parts was the “choose your own adventure” section. The action of flipping through the pages conveyed what I think the author was going for.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury and Death

Minor: Cancer and Death

rieviolet's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative medium-paced

3.5

This book deals with an extremely important topic that needs to be voiced and discussed. That said, as a piece of work itself, I liked it so-so. 

I did not get along with the narrative structure, I found the rapid-fire succession of chapters (supposed to show different genres and narrative styles) too much disjointed and confusing. The writing style is a bit too much experimental for me.

I liked much more the chapters that were "essay-like", exploring queer history and theory. However, I think that this mixing of informative chapters together with more literary and elaborately written ones was a bit jarring, it felt like two different books mashed up.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Murder, Lesbophobia, Body horror, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Fatphobia, Alcohol, Animal death, Child abuse, Abandonment, Mental illness, Sexism, Death, Suicidal thoughts, Vomit, Gun violence, Medical content, Drug abuse, Torture, Cursing, Car accident, Biphobia, Sexual assault, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Sexual violence, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Forced institutionalization, Racism, Bullying, Transphobia, Adult/minor relationship, Religious bigotry, Infidelity, Alcoholism, Suicide, and Dementia

pinkpotayto's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

This memoir resonated with me in numerous ways. The eloquence and intelligence with which Machado writes is so fucking perfect. She is real and honest in dark ways that most people are too afraid to even think even though it's such a human way of thinking. Her abuse unfolds like thorns digging into your sides, thorns you cannot reach to remove. You have to get through it though, to reassure yourself that she mentally and physically escapes the dream house. Phenomenal and powerful book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Cursing, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Panic attacks/disorders, Gaslighting, Grief, and Lesbophobia

cemeterygay's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

5.0

I cannot sing the praises of this book enough, It is such a hauntingly thorough retelling of the author's experience with domestic violence. I adored the greater structural analysis of Intimate Partner Violence and how it relates to homophobia, biphobia, and lesbophobia and how the author made sure to connect her story to the stories of many IPV survivors in the community. I cannot praise enough how much care and sensitivity was taken to the issues discussed in this book. I definitely don't think the author's writing style is for everyone as it can be very experimental at times but I personally adored it. 

If you are looking for an unusual exploration into domestic violence in queer relationships, I could not recommend this enough

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Fatphobia, Misogyny, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Alcohol, Panic attacks/disorders, Lesbophobia, Biphobia, and Vomit

Minor: Eating disorder, Blood, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Additional CW: Sexual abuse, assault, grooming, emotionally abusive parents,

hannibanani29's review against another edition

adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Cursing, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Sexual content

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, Drug use, Violence, Sexual violence, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Physical abuse, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, and Grief

Minor: Animal death, Death, Fatphobia, Gun violence, Biphobia, Blood, Cancer, Car accident, Dementia, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Mental illness, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

toffishay's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

What an amazing, powerful, interesting, and informative read. The formatting of this book pulls you in, with each "chapter" representing the story of this relationship from a different literary genre or device. I read this book so quickly and you are pulling in with every word. It is certainly emotional and I teared up more than once. This is a memoir about domestic abuse, so I would certainly look up trigger warnings. But, I find this to have been such a valuable and engaging reading experience that I absolutely have to recommend.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Violence, Alcohol, Biphobia, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Religious bigotry, Sexual violence, Vomit, Torture, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Suicidal thoughts