Being a queer woman myself who went through a tumultuous lesbian relationship before it met its inevitable end, I found this book more than engaging and interesting. We all know there's not enough written accounts —or media, for that matter— about abuse in queer relationships, so I think Machado's memory is a very necessary addition to a shelf that should start getting bigger with the years, about literature that must exist about people like us, who may end up in relationships that should perhaps not ever come to be.

That's why this book is so scary, I think, because it's raw in the way abuse is depicted without it needing to involve the typical force of physical violence, describing instead what can be just as damaging: psychological abuse. God knows it's fucking taxing to go through something like this, something that seems senseless and unexplainable and, ultimately, our fault. But, luckily, these things can have a bittersweet ending and actually end at some goddamn point, even though we may think we got this far and maybe if we try just a little bit harder, it'll get better. Sadly, in most cases, it does not, and both people need help, some more than others. To put a stop to a relationship that got a bit out of hands is really difficult but, once done, liberating and deserved.

This book clearly hit home, even if not to the fullest extent. Still, I think this was a book that I needed to read, that came right at the time when my own story finally has been closed and shelved on the memory lane, for ever and ever —or, well, for as long as my own story goes on.