“The truth is, there is no better place to live than in the shadow of a beautiful, furious mountain.”

Wow wow wow. I listened to In the Dream House on audio, and I felt in a little over my head at first. Machado reads with a singular cadence that took a few passages to get used to, but then her voice became utterly hypnotic. And her cerebral prose is dense at the outset, but settles into the very unsettling and menacing account of the abusive relationship with her ex-girlfriend.

The entire time I listened, I kept thinking about how hard this must have been for her, on so many levels, to examine. Her grief, vulnerability, and trauma is so sharp in this memoir with the visceral writing and (actually successful!) use of the second person.

Lots of TW regarding mental abuse, to be sure, but I highly recommend this indelible book.