Stunning. And because it is what it is, and because I've been through what I've been through, it shook me to my core, evoking my own experiences with abuse, and how I had been convinced by my partner that because we were both bi, both marginalized, it couldn't be abuse. It served me as a way of unpacking. But this kind of memoir is... an echo? A release? I can't know how writing this was for Machado, what things passed over and through, what things ebbed or engulfed to pull this out before us, I can't know in my body-- I can only infer by reading, can only know what slivers are granted by asking-- but I know the feel in myself of something resonating so overwhelmingly the vibration overtakes me, and I can barely breathe.

I might caution some to pick this up slowly, carefully, but for me, I had to inhale it and go back. It nourished and haunted and I can't ever thank Machado enough.