A blurb that promises a book “revolutionises” a genre, especially one as saturated as memoir, seems quite literally unbelievable. But I’m here to tell you the truth: Carmen Maria Machado has done it with In The Dream House.

This is an intimate, horrifying, beautiful, defiant, heartfelt, multi-dimensional account of her formative – and abusive – love affair with a partner she calls only “the woman in the Dream House”. This is a Rubik’s cube of a book, examining the subject from every possible angle, twisting and turning upon itself until all the edges line up.

I gulped this book down like a strong drink at the end of a particularly hard day. I am extremely grateful to the fine folks at Serpent’s Tail and Allen & Unwin for sending me this copy to review. I cannot recommend it to you highly enough!

Extended review for subscribers at Keeping Up With The Penguins.