Reviews tagging 'Child death'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

43 reviews

moonlitemuseum's review

adventurous challenging dark funny reflective sad 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

5.0

Hey man I love Scream too

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gore, Blood, Child abuse, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Child death, Self harm, Animal death, Grief, Suicide attempt, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Body horror, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, and Vomit

incestuous father-child rape is alluded to as part of the protagonist's history

theoldestbennetsister's review

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pedophilia, Animal death, Body horror, Death, Suicide, Blood, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, and Gore

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Sexual assault, Alcoholism, Child death, Classism, and Rape

Minor: Cultural appropriation, Racism, Colonisation, and Vomit

doomluz's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Animal death, Self harm, Suicide attempt, Alcoholism, Blood, and Body horror

Moderate: Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Incest, and Child abuse

Minor: Child death

ehmannky's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

So. So good. It's one of the books where I can see where it lost people and is not going to appeal to everyone, but I loved it. The first 75% of the book I was just loving being in Jade's head (it was very dense though and I did have to go back and read things a few times to make sure I got it all right). And the last 25% of the book is simply wild and unexpected and had a twist I just honestly didn't see coming (even though looking back the clues were there!). It's a horror book and it's about the ways that buried trauma left untouched and untreated will simmer until it burns and slashes through in a burst of violence. It's so good. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Death, Suicide, Gore, Blood, Violence, Sexual violence, Child abuse, Incest, Child death, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Self harm, and Gun violence

Moderate: Rape

Minor: Racism

backfrompluto's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Violence, Child abuse, Child death, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, and Vomit

Moderate: Sexual assault

harley_sage's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Violence, Gore, and Animal death

Moderate: Sexual assault, Pedophilia, and Child abuse

kyliebloch's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Body horror, and Animal death

Moderate: Child abuse and Child death

rhyanashah's review against another edition

dark tense slow-paced

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

1.25

I spent more time frustratedly talking to others about this book than I did reading it. I've never DNF'd a book but this is the closest I'd ever been 

From the absolutely infuriating main character, incredibly slow moving plot, messy finale, and a bordering obscene amount of referencial head-nodding that makes Ernest Cline's Oasis/Wade Watts series look timid. 

I struggled with every aspect of this book, and it's genuinely a shock considering how this book has almost everything i love.
Horror, non-white protagonists who must personally grow in spite of trauma, small town secrets, potential Queer storyline. 

Instead i have.... whatever thiw was. An insufferable lead, about 200 unnecessary pages and a lot of loose threads that were "Yada-Yada"'d through at the end. How can i be bored when there's MURDER happening? And yet. The "sisterly" relationship between our main and another character just came across like "historians will say they were friends" energy. 

Also TW/Spoiler warning

did not enjoy whole scenes of our protagonist being effectively deadnamed and outed as a child victim whilst 4 other characters try and force them to confront/confess allegations against their parent. 

I must also add that i never EVER feel comfortable about men writing from the perspective of young women/female children who have been S/A'd or R****d.

Whilst not all of the topics i've put in the content warning are Graphic, they are all frequent and i do emplore anyone considering reading this book to consider if they will be affected by these topics, and to avoid if that is the case.

In a summary, i think the book is about 50% too long and i was disappointed by about 150 pages in, but continued on. The ending was VERY disappointing. I only said "medium paced" because 300 pages are slow and 150 aren't but there is no "inconsistently paced" option.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Incest, Murder, Racism, Deadnaming, Blood, Colonisation, Self harm, Pedophilia, Sexual harassment, Child death, Rape, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Abortion

As said in my full review: Whilst not all of the topics i've put in the content warning are Graphic, they are all frequent and i do emplore anyone considering reading this book to consider if they will be affected by these topics, and to avoid if that is the case.

aformeracceleratedreader's review

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

CHECK CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNINGS
I sorta loved this. I will def be checking out more from this author.
I know some people didnt like Jade info-dumping about slashers (quite a few people said it was annoying or unnecessary), but as someone who is neurodivergent, I thought it was kind of nice to read, and I didn't think it detracted from the story or flow. 
There was a scene towards the end at the big town party that made me a little teary eyed and quite a few scenes throughout the book that really sucked me in where I didn't want to stop reading but I had to. 
Final girls are no joke and Letha plus

Jade and to an extent Shooting Glasses whom I'm actually not sure if he survived or not but I'm counting him anyways

were great finals girls who would not go down without some sort of fight.
I have mixed feelings on who the "slasher" was though, and that's why I don't think I could say this was a perfect book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Classism, Death of parent, Murder, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Alcohol, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Alcoholism, Animal death, Gore, Grief, Medical content, Rape, and Suicide attempt

mlovesbooks's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious tense medium-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

4.75

Stephen Graham Jones, you've done it again.

In the beginning, I disliked Jade as a character but when the book ramps up at about the 70% mark, I'm rooting for her the whole way.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Animal death, Suicide attempt, Violence, Vomit, Alcohol, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault

Minor: Cultural appropriation