Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

41 reviews

akmay17's review

adventurous dark emotional 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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Suicide attempt, Rape, Death, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Animal death, Incest, Violence, Alcohol, Gore, Murder, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Blood, Physical abuse, and Sexual assault

Minor: Vomit

dr_aimz's review against another edition

dark funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Alcoholism, and Mental illness

Minor: Child abuse and Incest

sleepysadpoet's review

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? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

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

Moderate: Alcoholism, Mental illness, and Violence

Minor: Rape, Sexual assault, and Racism

Trigger warnings: mentions of rape (not graphic, just mentions), self-harm, death, blood, mental illness, ableism (specifically towards mental illness), suicide attempts. I've always been a big fan of slashers, my favorite being Scream (I even have a ghostface tattoo....). This book pays homage to slashers, and it does so in an amazing way. Jade is an indigenous high schooler who finds comfort in slasher films not long after something really traumatizing happens to her. She writes essays about slashers to her teacher, and the people around her are uncomfortable with her obsession. They don't know why exactly she loves them so much, and they worry it's because of trauma. She's often treated poorly because of her mental health issues, because god forbid the traumatized person find a coping mechanism that people don't approve of. She hopes to see a slasher happen in her own time and doesn't quite realize just how traumatic that is for those who survive. The opening starts with 2 people in a boat who, as we can all guess, don't survive. Jade happens upon a recording of it happening. The police in her town refuse to listen to her concerns despite bodies literally piling up like no tomorrow. I really enjoyed this book and the twists and turns at every corner. I'm super excited for the sequel coming out. The dedication in the acknowledgements to one of my favorite movie directors, Wes Craven, made me want to cry lol.

yaelaed's review

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Blood, Body horror, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Mental illness, Self harm, Alcoholism, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Stalking, Sexual violence, Vomit, Animal death, and Rape

trulydevious's review

dark emotional funny 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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Murder, and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Mental illness, Rape, and Alcoholism

Minor: Animal death, Blood, and Body horror

robinsong's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

If I knew anything about horror movies this probably would be 5 stars lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Suicide attempt, Cannibalism, Gore, Alcohol, Child abuse, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Self harm, Sexual assault, Violence, Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Vomit, Blood, Body horror, Cursing, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Grief, Classism, Death, Pedophilia, and Suicidal thoughts

alex_e_stone's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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: Cannibalism, Child abuse, Mental illness, Murder, Vomit, Child death, Gore, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Death, and Forced institutionalization

saintyeehaw's review

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

kitsune_kae's review

dark informative sad tense slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Death, Gore, Sexual assault, and Vomit

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Grief, Mental illness, Racism, and Stalking

Minor: Classism, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, and Cursing

Trauma, childhood trauma,

boundforinfinity's review

dark emotional mysterious medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

My Heart is A Chainsaw was one of my most anticipated reads of 2022. I was really excited to start it. Unfortunately, the large majority of the book didn't love up to my expectations.
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The main character, Jade, is a hard character to like. The assumption that you have to be "gothy" to like horror movies such as Saw, the $1 Billion dollar film franchise that's been running for almost two decades, was an annoying catch to the novel. Of course teenagers like horror movies - they need to prove their hard. (This is coming from one of said teenagers that never grew out of their gothy/horror phase).
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The constant allusions to the famous slashers felt pretentious at times and I really struggled at times to read the book knowing that a good portion of the text could go over my head if I hadn't seen these other works.
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Onto the good however, I really did enjoy the story and the twist ending. I loved the references to the Native American culture, Stephen Graham Jones own signature no doubt. The layout of an extra credit project alongside the actual story itself was refreshing and a fun way to engage the reader with Jade. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Blood, Child death, Genocide, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Suicide, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Death, Body horror, Grief, and Suicide attempt