My Heart Is a Chainsaw

Whew! This book! I had difficulty jiving with the author's writing style initially. I almost dnf'd it, but about 1/3 of the way in something clicked for me. I devoured the rest of this book. Such a brilliant twist on the slasher genre, so glad I hung with it! 4.25 stars

Jesus CHRIST

I love meta horror and was completely on board with the concept of this book, but I struggled to follow it a good bit - could be just my reading it through the doom times distractions though.

Jennifer Daniels, JD, Jade... We never get to know the girl that was Jennifer Daniels, only the girl on the cusp of womanhood, of freedom. She is intelligent and tormented, sharp as a knife. Her heart is so broken by this torment that it's become a metaphorical chainsaw. She is a lover of slasher films to the point of obsession, her focus absolutely singular, she is willing with all the hope she's retained for a slasher to come to her hometown of Portrock, Idaho. A secluded mountain town, quiet, with its own eerie history of witches and murder and accidents that's ripples spread wide over time. When she believes her wishes are coming to fruition, there is practically nothing she wouldn't do to prepare the town's savior, the final girl, Letha Mondragon... The question that stands is can she, can't she.

My Heart is a Chainsaw is most definitely an ode to the Slasher horror genre, the references abound, and not a single reviewer can argue this. I love slashers, I grew up in the '80s/'90s when Michael Myers, Jason, and Freddy Kruger, even PinHead, Chucky, and Ghostface were at the top of Horror. But what most people neglect to acknowledge, is the trauma that floats below the surface. It is there, it is bright and burning, and when it is finally released, it is damn brilliant.

I listened to the narration of My Heart is a Chainsaw, and it ripped through me. The performance by Cara Gee was so on point that I could easily believe Jade was talking directly to me. I can not begin to describe the feeling I was left with after Cara Gee's performance. It is and will probably remain one of the best audiobooks I'll listen to.

This was just horrible. I cannot possibly have read the same book that other people have read with all the five stars. They must be fake reviews.

If this wasn't for a buddy read, I would have dnf'd within the first few chapters. All this endless monologue, overload of slasher facts, and just boring monotony made my brain hurt.

I was so excited for this one too. This was one of my main reads for October last year because of how scary and thrilling it supposedly was. There is nothing scary, or thrilling about this book. Instead it's 90% of seemingly neverending inner monologue.

Even the “gore” had me yawning. Definitely not one I would ever recommend. I'm glad other readers enjoyed this one, but for me this was over-hyped and disappointing.

Man, I'm torn on this one. I really, really wanted to like this, so I probably went into this with inflated expectations and finished with a profound sense of disappointment. This book spent way too much time on certain elements, ran at least 50 pages too long, and ended as if the author just got tired of it. It swayed wildly between some kind of North American magical realism and old-school dark comedy, but never landed anywhere. This had so much promise and the main character was the only thing that kept me turning pages, even though I wish I hadn't.

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones is a retelling of The Boy Who Cried Wolf but this time it is The Girl Who Cried Slasher. This book is a huge homage to the Slasher movie genre and the final survival girl filled with history, facts, and opinions. Where Slasher movies are not known for their characterizations this novel is all about character; as it breakdowns the many layers of the main character Jade. Jade at first is seen as a Slasher obsessed troublemaker, rebelling from society, at the end of the story Jade is explained and grows and it is a truly beautiful thing. I was fortunate enough to get an arc of this book and sadly was not able to read it before publication so I decided to support the author by buying a copy on audible. While I liked to listen to this story because I love horror even with listening I found it hard to follow and needed to sometimes restart chapters because I felt as though I was lost. While I enjoyed was the layers that were revealed of Jade and the bits and pieces about slashers. What I disliked was that Jade was never believed and struggled to get her point across, I know that this sounds like a very uneven review but I did like the spooky aspect and would read more from this author in the future.

I really looked forward to this book after reading Jones' excellent “The Only Good Indians.”

The premise sounded good, yet Jones did nothing with it. The book is extremely slow interspersed with boring essays the main character has written to her history teacher. Each essay goes on and on about various slasher topics.

For such a talented author, the writing in this book was sub-standard. Most of the time, it was hard to follow dialogue or who was doing what; it's as though there was no editor overseeing this novel. Most of the characters weren't fleshed out and Jade was supper unsympathetic, even once we get a reveal about her towards the end.

The ending? Completely ridiculous.

*2.5 stars - for concepts and originality. But the best parts of Chainsaw were those concepts and that originality. The execution was flat and emotionless and if you didn't connect with Jade's stream-of-consciousnesses, then you were simply left to slog through. And I did, and I'm glad of it, if for nothing more than the Acknowledgments, where Jones hooked me and made me care more than he had in the 375 plus pages preceding. I wanted to love this book, but I couldn't. However, Jones remains a “try every time” author for me now - despite this miss. Mannequins and Indians were very good and even this, despite not landing, was too unique not to applaud the effort.

finished this while waiting for a concert to start so i was literally crying in the club.

A book full of twists and red herrings that ultimately when you get to the actual reveal it's kind of a disappointment. I can see what Jones is trying to do and what he wants to say but the actual “killer” is actually less interesting than all of the possibility Jade has gone through and referenced with all of her horror knowledge. 

In this novel, we follow Jade, a lonely half-Native American outcast obsessed with slasher movies. She lives with her abusive, alcoholic father in the small town of Proofrock, Idaho. Jade has attempted suicide before, and she tries again on the verge of finishing high school. After a few weeks at a treatment center, she comes back to school, but something feels different: Jade is convinced Proofrock has its own slasher, and when she meets Letha Mondragon, the gorgeous, smart, and kindhearted daughter of a mogul who moved into the new fancy development still being built across the lake, she thinks she has found the ultimate final girl.

I honestly just hoped that this book paid off more than it did. It had me with the prologue but was so slow to develop. The end didn't pay off enough for me and I wish it paid respect to horror slashers by being one itself but it wasn't. The slasher references also got old quickly. I love horror and slasher movies but they just referenced so much they felt overdone. I was just disappointed and bored most of the time.

I also didn't understand a significant amount of the book. I honestly think it was me and not the novel. Plenty of people will love this book but I was not one of them.

Thank you to Gallery Books, Stephan Graham Jones, and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received a complimentary digital ARC of this title from the publisher through NetGalley. My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones is a triumph. This love letter to the slasher genre is an excellent ode to Michael, Jason, Freddy, and the like, but it's also a powerful story about coming of age, being different, and longing for love in a world too often filled with hooks, machetes, and yes...chainsaws. High school senior Jennifer “Jade” Daniels is an Indian girl living in Proofrock, Idaho. Jade is a hardcore horror nerd, and her obsession with the slasher genre is the lens through which she sees the world. But as strange things begin to occur in Proofrock and the new development across the lake, could it be that she's living in one? Reading this book was a good time. Before I started I wasn't very familiar with the slasher genre. After reading another slasher book earlier in the year I realized that having some familiarity with slasher films would probably enhance my experience reading My Heart is a Chainsaw. So I started with Friday the 13th (the first three), then Nightmare on Elm Street, then Halloween, then Candyman, then Bay of Blood, and finally all four Screams. I watched as I read and it was fantastically thrilling to begin to really understand many of the references Jones via Jade makes to these films throughout the novel. Thank goodness I watched them because a major part of this book is discussing and relating the characters and events of the plot to these films, often dropping both minor and major spoilers along the way (to be fair some of these movies are 40+ years old.) I felt like I was receiving the slasher education Jade was giving other characters in the book, and it was FUN. This novel made me want to learn about this genre, and Jones taught me to love it via Jade's enthusiasm. That's pretty freakin' cool. Apart from being a love letter to the genre, this book is a story about growing up, dealing with life, feeling like an outcast, etc. Jones' prose is strong throughout. I did think that the pacing of the plot was a little slow at times, and it was hard for me to put all the pieces of the plot together in my mind, but it all built up to an AWESOME penultimate chapter! The actual ending was not something I saw coming. I'm still processing what I think about it. Overall, this is an awesome book. A slasher with heart that's both bloody and meta and unpretentious and fantastic and real. It's a book that opened up a genre of film for me. This is a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ read for me.

The second book I've read this year that riffs on classic slasher movies, after Grady Hendrix' Final Girl Support Group. Must be something in the air, I guess. This is a darker book than that one, with some real horror at its heart.
Our lead character Jade is a troubled teen, who is trying to navigate the difficulties of her life by constructing a persona based around slasher films.
The middle of the book is a slow burn, as other reviewers have pointed out, but it's not wasted space as we get further into Jade's head, and also get to piece together some of the things she's not telling us about herself (like her name, for a start). The ending delivers plenty of blood and excitement, but the real emotional punch comes in the last few sentences with their pointer to a life that could have and should have been.
It's funny that a book celebrating one of the most exploitative horror genres turns out to be a nuanced and sensitive character study, which I guess just goes to show that you can have your cake and stab it after all.

3.5 stars. Jade is Proofrock's “horror girl.” She seen all the movies, knows all the rules and tropes about slashers, and is pretty sure that her little town is about to get its very own maniacal killer. All signs point to it. Two random tourists are killed while skinny dipping a the lake, a massive development is being constructed near “Camp Blood” and Jade is convinced she has met the ultimate “final girl”(Letha). The stage is set. But the authorities don't believe her, and is this killer a monster? A supernatural being? Or a resident of the town hell bent on revenge? It's up to Jade to educate Letha in all things slasher - before it's too late.

Firstly, let me say, there is a lot to like about this book. It discusses and explores the gore and campy nature of 80's slasher films in quite a bit of detail. Being a child of the 80's (and probably - no definitely- way too young to watch Jason and Freddy slice their way through a group pf promiscuous teens) this book brought back a kind of nostalgia (be it one of nightmares) that I really enjoyed.

The beginning and end of the book were great, edge of your seat stuff. But the middle felt unnecessarily prolonged. And, unfortunately, I didn't really care about most the characters who fell victim to the slasher.

However, I am sure most horror fans will devour this book and love the grizzly mess of it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy.

This is the first Jones full-length novel I've read. I read ‘Mapping the Interiors' ages ago and enjoyed it, but keep putting off other works for no good reason. So when I saw this being offered, I jumped at the chance.

This is a book for horror lovers, chock full of references, which was fun. I even watched a movie of which I'd never heard.

Basically, this is the tale of outcast Native American girl Jade, who dyes her hair with shoe polish and food coloring and deals with a drunk father and no friends. Horror is her life. Specifically slashers. She basically eats, sleeps, and breathes them in order to process and deal with life. She basically wants to have a slasher experience. For reasons the reader learns throughout the book.

Enter Terra Nova, the new, richy-rich housing development across Indian Lake from Jade's town of Proofrock, ID. Since the houses aren't done yet, the main family lives off their yacht on the lake, and their gorgeous, brilliant daughter is in Jade's senior class.

Jade becomes convinced this girl, Letha, is her life's Final Girl and proceeds to attempt to educate Letha for her big showdown with the slasher. Which would be delusional, but people ARE actually dying. The book begins with two hapless Dutch students dying.

This book is good fun and heartbreaking. Jade is tough and self-deprecating/self-loathing, thinks she could never be a true Final Girl.

The body counts grows until the climax, which is crazy, chaotic, and fun. There are red herrings all over the place, which is a strength, but also a weakness. Some of the red herrings aren't just red, but they are also where the plot gets a little murky, which I can't discuss without spoilers.

But grue and gore happen, and Jade's tale is potent and tragic, and I totally loved that little punk.

And the end...well, after all the fun feints and horror pontifications, even I was surprised, and I can usually spot something a mile away. So first Jones novel–not perfect, but oh, so worth it. hugs Jade and bundles her off to watch scary movies with kitties and teddy bears