And in the same way the dandelion’s destruction tells us about ourselves, so does our own destruction: our bodies are ecosystems, and they shed and replace and repair until we die. And when we die, our bodies feed the hungry earth, our cells becoming part of other cells, and in the world of the living, where we used to be, people kiss and hold hands and fall in love and fuck and laugh and cry and hurt others and nurse broken hearts and start wars and pull sleeping children out of car seats and shout at each other. If you could harness that energy - that constant, roving hunger - you could do wonders with it. You could push the earth inch by inch through the cosmos until it collided heart-first with the sun.

Reading In the Dream House is like sifting through the fragments of a shattered vase. Each piece varies in size, sharpness, and hue, and you sit there among the remains, appraising them one by one, gradually assembling in your mind what it once looked like as a whole. To extend this metaphor even further (if I may), I feel as though a lot of people will walk away with a shard secreted in their pocket to serve as a reminder, to reflect on later, and I am one of those people.

This book means a lot to me for a variety of reasons, which I struggle to verbalise but I promise I'll try. In the Dream House is a balm; it's physical as though Machado is there in the room telling her story to you in confidence, and it's an honour to be in her presence. It's an intimate experience and I rarely ever feel that level of closeness to an author, especially one that I am in awe of. This is my first time reading anything by her and yet it was such a powerful, searing introduction that I already feel deeply connected to her work.

Machado is doing so much important work here, shedding a light on a topic that almost feels wrong to discuss - abuse in LGBTQ+ relationships. Queer relationships are just as complex and messy as heterosexual ones...just because the two individuals involved identify as the same gender doesn't mean that it's free of conflict or, at the severe end of the spectrum, abuse. LGBTQ+ people have been subjected to intense discrimination and the community has been fighting (and continues to fight) tooth and nail for acceptance, rights, and support, so there's a sense of unease about addressing the fact that some LGBTQ+ relationships are negative. Those experiences are rarely acknowledged let alone discussed both in straight spaces and queer ones, and it can feel like an anomaly. With no representation, no examples of toxic queer relationships, Machado could pinpoint her own pain but couldn't categorise what was happening to her as abusive. I can't stress enough just how vital In the Dream House is for the LGBTQ+ community as well as for those, regardless of gender or sexuality, who are being abused by someone close to them, romantically or otherwise.

I love this book intensely and I can see it being one of my favourite books of the year.