Reviews tagging 'Hate crime'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

2 reviews

saintyeehaw's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I loved the premise of this book going in but found the writing style difficult to enjoy--just not my cup of tea. It was also hard to feel any positive feelings while reading because everything just seems to go so unfairly wrong for Jade. This kept me from getting overly invested because it was just too painful to read about her continued misfortune at the hands of willful misunderstandings.

I also really did not appreciate Mr. Holmes being framed so endearingly--this is a man who withheld graduation from a student for missing homework due to her SUICIDE ATTEMPT.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Child death, Classism, Gun violence, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Rape, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Grief, Mental illness, Murder, Racism, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Minor: Medical content, Bullying, Car accident, Cultural appropriation, Hate crime, Pregnancy, and Vomit

libraryofdoe's review against another edition

dark mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I’m so very torn on how to rate this book.

On one hand, I found Jade’s story excellent and riveting and genre-defiant yet so obviously reverent of all the slashers that came before it and so, so raw. I found parts of myself in Jade that I almost didn’t want to see. I really like Jones’ writing style and the way he approached the story.

On the other hand I really didn’t like the whodunnit

which may be on me as I evidently hadn’t researched thoroughly enough to know that there was any supernatural aspect to the novel

and the end of the book felt rushed.

I may come back and change this rating on further thought, but for now 4 stars feels about right, if a lot lower than I anticipated 75% of the way in.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Vomit

Minor: Abortion, Bullying, Colonisation, Cultural appropriation, Hate crime, Incest, Medical content, Pedophilia, Mental illness, Ableism, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Racism, Pregnancy, and Drug use