Reviews with content warning for Violence - My Heart Is a Chainsaw

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

227 reviews

mulletapologist's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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cebadgley's review against another edition

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dark informative tense medium-paced

4.0

I had the most difficult time following the frenetic writing. While reading I almost DNF bc of style and my inability to “hear” the characters voice while in 3rd POV. The twist at the end and the final couple of paragraphs has me heated and rolling my eyes. This is going to stay with me for a bit, and bc of that, I’ll rate it a 4.

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cyndakeel's review against another edition

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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lizzardbreath's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

Book so good I had to read the acknowledgments. Stephen Graham Jones does a wonderful job at portraying the complicated life of a teenage girl dealing with childhood trauma and how she uses slasher horror to help navigate her life. Really, there’s no eloquent way for me to fully explain this book into words other than to say that I found myself relating to Jade in a lot of ways and how creative she was for managing how to survive through a series of murders in her town while also dealing with how the town locals treated her. She’s lived a hard life and I was so proud of her for being able to overcome her fears, challenge her preconceived notions of herself and manage to solve the mystery behind the murder of Proofrock. I’m so excited to see where her story goes next.

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genevakelly's review

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adventurous dark reflective sad 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

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taliesinrex's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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? Yes

4.5

A really fun and tense breakdown of the slasher formula through the eyes of a highschooler obsessed with the classic horror subgenre. I greatly enjoyed this one, and found the structure really fun with its interspersion of protagonist Jade's "Slasher 101" essays addressed to her history teacher. My Heart Is A Chainsaw embraces many of the tropes familiar to the slasher genre while still keeping things fresh and interesting, creating a meta-narrative that keeps you on the edge of your seat especially when you start picking up on elements that Jade, for all her love and knowledge of the genre, elects not to recognize (whether on purpose or subconsciously).

Jade herself is a wonderful character to see this world through. She is pessimistic and troubled, though not fully without hope somewhere in her mind - though it's not always hope for her OWN survival which I think adds a great depth and adds to the ingrained tragedy of her character. Her intense love for slasher films, finding them a source of comfort in the face of all the awful things that have happened to her, is at its core a very relatable story and one that I think contributes to her being such a fantastic POV character that you really want to see succeed even though the world around her is uncaring and downright hostile to her at times. I also really enjoyed the supporting characters, and her dynamics with characters who are sympathetic to her but unsure of how to truly help like Letha, Sheriff Hardy, and her teacher Mr. Holmes.

I will say this was my first time reading Stephen Graham Jones's work so I wasn't sure what to expect from his writing style. He definitely throws a lot at you, and his syntax is quite unlike a lot of other books I have read which took some getting used to. Once I started getting into the flow of his prose, though, it became really immersive and served as a great vehicle for the violence, tragedy, and humor throughout the book. Take heed that there's some heavy stuff revealed later on, and a whole lot of gore, but I'd definitely recommend this, especially to any horror movie fan.

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