I have not devoured a book as quickly as I did this one in ages. Granted, the format really lends itself to a quick read, but don't be fooled by the celerity of the read, it is still a gut-wrenching and emotional memoir.

Carmen Maria Machado's writing is both mystical and raw. "In the Dream House" reads like poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction, and humor all at once, and was a riveting and incredibly unique display of both her immense skill as a writer and the raw emotional trauma she endured in an abusive queer relationship. I was immediately gripped by her vignette-style passages which ranged from 1 line to 3 pages, all in which we read about The Dream House as (blank) motif. The vignette style made the heavy topic of domestic abuse digestible without ever feeling so cumbersome that I had to put the book down and take a break. She allows the reader to feel the weight of what she endured in a totally unique way. Her switches between first and second person take the reader on a journey through her past, present, and future selves and teaches us the important lesson that while the mind may forget, the body never does.

Machado's work is groundbreaking in other ways, as well. Prior to reading "In The Dream House", I was unaware of the sheer lack of information and first-hand accounts that exist on domestic abuse in the queer community. We quickly learn the importance of representation as Machado details her experience. I was struck by her point that in domestic abuse situations, more often than not, the abuse is totally legal due to it's psychological rather than physical nature. There are no physical bruises or broken bones in emotional and psychological abuse, and so society is less willing to pay attention to the alarm bells that ring under the surface. Due to this stark lack of source material, Machado resorts to other methods for finding representation of the abuse she survived. She makes frequent references to movies, TV shows, true crime, research articles and more in order to display how her situation is not new (as evidenced by the folklore footnotes she uses throughout), it has just not been discussed in the specific space she occupies as a "mostly cis-gendered" queer woman. Machado makes the point several times that her story isn't unique, it has just yet to be told.

One final point that will really stick with me from "In The Dream House", is Machado's representation of the queer community. There is a passage where she discusses queer people in media and how they are often either portrayed as "the villain" or "the hero". Machado argues that society's eagerness to stick queer people into one of these two archetypes strips us of what makes us fundamentally human - the ability to just exist in a space that is morally neutral, where queerness is neither seen as evil nor saintly, it just is.

I very strongly recommend this book to all readers regardless of your identity. Every demographic can stand to learn something from Machado, and trust me, you will enjoy doing so.