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perthalus's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
The writer tries way to hard to make his main character an iconic badass horror protagonist to the point where it becomes eye-rolling. Instead of focusing on character dynamics and relationships you just get mostly pointless snapshots of random character’s lives before they die a few pages after.
The antagonist somehow also feels incredibly undercooked despite the book being 500 pages long, and the prose is so confusing at times that I honestly can’t tell what is where and how something is happening. You think you’re in one place and then bam you’re on the opposite side of where you thought you were.
Made me miss the first book, which wasn’t too great in the first place.
The antagonist somehow also feels incredibly undercooked despite the book being 500 pages long, and the prose is so confusing at times that I honestly can’t tell what is where and how something is happening. You think you’re in one place and then bam you’re on the opposite side of where you thought you were.
Made me miss the first book, which wasn’t too great in the first place.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Grief, Violence, Blood, Gore, Gun violence, Murder, and Torture
Moderate: Cursing and Car accident
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Incest, Police brutality, and Emotional abuse
jayjm94's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
As perfect a book as I’ve ever read. It had everything: horror references, incredibly adept women, strange teenagers, a small town on the water, a snowstorm, and some light supernatural content. an absolute gem by SGJ, almost certainly my best book of the year (close 2nd being my heart is a chainsaw) cannot wait for the 3rd!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Torture, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Murder, Violence, Body horror, and Drug use
Moderate: Child death, Child abuse, Sexual assault, Car accident, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Animal death, and Incest
zosiablue's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Man, marry me, Stephen Graham Jones. He's just the best. Like all his stories, this one has full heart and gorgeous writing and campiness and tragedy and action and total respect for the genre. He's the only my writer I know who can do textual jumpscares. This is true horror but it's exhilarating because it follows slasher-horror rules until it doesn't and the rule breaks are totally earned. Can't wait for the next one.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Grief, Death, Death of parent, Gore, Murder, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Suicidal thoughts
sofipitch's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I'm so disappointed to say this one was just meh. Because I ADORED My Heart is a Chainsaw. The best part of Chainsaw to me is Jade's perspective, it scratched a very specific itch for me, the unreliable narrator, obsessive focus on what the character loves, disregarding a lot else, the way in her essays it Mr. Homes it feels like she is lecturing at you, telling you about slashers with an infectious enthusiasm (I love horror but slashers really aren't my thing). Also Chainsaw all came together at the end in a very perfect way. Which all that is what Reaper was missing. The multiple POVs didn't add much, in fact to me it felt like it lessened my emotional investment, rather than heightening it. There were too many ppl to keep track of, I didn't reread Chainsaw which was maybe a mistake. I'm not the best at remembering names and some of the characters Reaper brought to the forefront I couldn't remember from book 1, and then they still failed to make an impact. I didn't count but we had at least ten POVs which for a 450 page book is too many. Also the "it all comes together at the end" didn't feel as strong or emotionally impactful in this book. Dark Mill South as a slasher is actually the kind of slasher that idgaf about, some brick wall who just loves killing. The thing with Cinnamon was also eh, the stag was the only one I really liked and delivered the way I think it was supposed to. So a lot of this is all my opinion, I've tried to make that clear bc like I said I'm not a slasher girl so slasher fans might still love this, but since this is a sequel, I don't think it lived up to the expectations of the first book. The first book still had enough of an impact for me to likely read the third when it comes out.
Second reading review: While having just read Chainsaw helped with the characters the multiple povs still hurts the book, slows momentum, etc. Showing what someone was doing before they are gored is how slasher movies operate but I think SGJ wants to flesh out his characters maybe too much.
Still looking forward to the finale though!
Second reading review: While having just read Chainsaw helped with the characters the multiple povs still hurts the book, slows momentum, etc. Showing what someone was doing before they are gored is how slasher movies operate but I think SGJ wants to flesh out his characters maybe too much.
Still looking forward to the finale though!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Animal death, Gun violence, and Violence
Minor: Child death, Sexual harassment, and Adult/minor relationship
teaxmillions's review against another edition
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Violence, Gore, Death, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Racism, Adult/minor relationship, Suicide attempt, Self harm, and Pandemic/Epidemic
katie_luder's review against another edition
dark
4.75
I loved that this book brought in some other voices along with Jennifer(Jade)'s POV. I didn't like it quite as much as the original, and the audiobook changed narrators for Jade, which infuriates me as an audiobook reader. I loved that it brought in more voices but they should have kept the same actor for Jade.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual violence, Blood, Medical trauma, Gore, Death of parent, Incest, Murder, Death, and Grief
abutchstargazer's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Torture, Death, Gore, Violence, and Blood
Moderate: Stalking
Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Addiction, and Child death
seawarrior's review against another edition
dark
3.0
While I wouldn't say I disliked this book, I sorely missed Jade's voice as the leading narrator. Her furious wit and resilience is what made the first book engaging enough to tear through in one night, while this novel took me a few weeks to finish. This story was more of a generic slasher as well, though at times I found it difficult to understand what was happening and who was really behind the violence, and I'm not sure if that was intentional. While somewhat of a disappointment, this sequel is still thrilling, unique and gleaming with rich characterization. I don't regret reading it, and Jones had his work cut out for him attempting to surpass the original.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Stalking, Child death, Medical trauma, Drug abuse, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, and Grief
foldingthepage_kayleigh's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Gore, Gun violence, Genocide, Violence, Vomit, Child death, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Death, Body horror, Death of parent, and Murder
magellen's review against another edition
dark
funny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
If this book was a slasher, it'd be tripping over its own dark robe every three feet and you'd stand there shaking your head rather than running.
What a bummer follow up- I say that with love, as I'm obviously still reading the third when it drops, but oof what a precipitous drop off after the first.
Where Chainsaw succeeds beautifully in tying horror and slashers to catharsis and processing trauma, Reaper tramples the dialog between healing and relapse/generation trauma into memes.Having a teenager find solace from abuse via slashers and wishing it into the world had a much better punch than circumstantially dropped in serial killer does some killing but there's also a corrupted final girl out killing and for some reason movie rules get applied to the real world killer even though like...sigh what? The book runs itself in too many directions. Even with the mirror of Armitage and Cin, the mirror of obsession with vengence, it grapples to get the comparison out clearly.
Because of the narrative clutter(honestly, Letha? Aside from her brief foiling of Jennifer not yet Jade, she feels like an after thought, a PPS - hell, Jade feels like an after thought at times, and sure a slasher progresses to next gens, but the juggling of Cin and Gin and Gal is uh...uninspiring. ) , the book reads much how a car drives with one incredibly flat tire on a potholed road. It gets some speed and drags behind, we change location endlessly, aimlessly, trying to find an ending. The references don't land as well, largely because they're reaching to put movie logic over an already established 'irl' killer. Yes, Jade is more aware, more critical of her slashers as she applies logic to ground the narrative somewhat, but it veers off hard time and again. (and then the stuff with Melanie? And Hardy? Just...unless it's coming around in book three, it didnt have the emotional punch to float).
SGJ is *very good* at writing the conversation this book wants to be, and I wonder where it got lost along the way.
What a bummer follow up- I say that with love, as I'm obviously still reading the third when it drops, but oof what a precipitous drop off after the first.
Where Chainsaw succeeds beautifully in tying horror and slashers to catharsis and processing trauma, Reaper tramples the dialog between healing and relapse/generation trauma into memes.
Because of the narrative clutter
SGJ is *very good* at writing the conversation this book wants to be, and I wonder where it got lost along the way.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Blood, Grief, Body horror, Gore, Death, and Death of parent